The epic started at 1pm on Friday following my last Italian lesson and ended at 8am on Sunday morning when I arrived at my coach, Auriel Forrester's place in Norfolk. It could have ended earlier but politeness prevented me arriving either at midnight or during the wee hours, both were possible as you will read.
During the trip I saw NO accidents at all and only witnessed 2 samples of bad driving..one when a car cut in front of me far too quickly and one where I reverted to being an Aussie driver and stayed in the fast lane too long and got angrily beeped at by the impatient German driver of a VERY fast Jaguar and shouted at by his irate wife. Actually I may well have sinned more often, but no-one told me about it quite so loudly!!
Diesel on the freeway near Rimini was 1.49euros/litre..more expensive than in the country but later on I struck gold, getting it at 1.19euros/litre.....normal is 1.44-1.46..or to be a real European....1,45!
Once again, when driving in the slow lane though all countries at or just above the speed limit (=10-20kph over) I was constantly being overtaken by cars travelling at warp speed...rocking my car on its springs as they blasted past me. Not wishing to be seen as "that little old lady puddling along in the slow lane", I'm able to say that over a day and a half I broke the speed limit in 7 countries.
I was keen to avoid Switzerland due to having to pay for an exorbitantly priced road tax sticker for the privilege of using their roads. You also pay tolls in Italy and France and have to buy a sticker in Austria...but the difference is that in Switzerland you HAVE to buy a sticker that's valid for a year..cost 34.50 euros. The Italian and French tolls are obviously on a user pays system (40 euros from Pesaro to the Austrian border) and the Austrian sticker can be for 10 days (7.90Euros)or 2 months(23Euros), but the Swiss have only a yearly one. Last year I paid and used their roads for only a few hours.....never again.
.So my journey was north through Italy, over the Brenner pass into Austria, turn west at Innsbruck and then turn north again over a slow road and by this time it was getting late and luckily I found a Pension, a bed and a hot meal in a small ski village called Obsteig. I ate my steak to listening to Tirolean music and then Jim Reeves (1960,s)..soooooo old fashioned.
The next day I had to get to the tunnel by midnight but despite hold ups got there in time to change my ticket to the 20.30 crossing. The journey was long, very boring and with many long queues.
I've no idea where this town was or why they'd have this insect as their town mascot.....but it was where there was one very long, slow boring section of a diversion.....
The only things worth mentioning are that I passed by 2 towns in France called Bitche (noted on my arrival day too) and Spy..couldn't get a pix of this latter town..maybe next time...
40 mins later I was chanting...left hand side of the road, left hand side of the road, left hand side of the road, left hand side of the road, be next to the verge, be next to the verge to myself and I was in England. the driving turned out to be ok, although those huge roundabouts gave me a bit of trouble with the lane marking being a bit hard to read in the fading daylight.
I had to take the M20, then the M25 north to the Dartford tunnel , but it wasn't until I was within spitting distance of the the tunnel that I realised I had NO English money on me at all. Thank god for GPS. It took me to Bexleyheath, a cash point, a shop for some food and the coins neccessary for the tunnel. Back to the tunnel where I again joined the queue (loooong, unruly), finally arriving at the booth just after10pm and indulged in an ironic guffaw when I discovered that it while it had been 1.50 pounds before 10pm, after 10 pm it was free.
Sadly all the motorway services motels were full and so I had a rather uncomfortable sleep in the car. Dawn saw me finally complete my journey although I needed to waste a bit of time before I fronted up at 8am
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