On the road again

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Only a little European jaunt this time: we'll travel through England, Nertherlands, Belgium (perhaps), Germany, France, Switzerland and Italy in about the same time that it took to drive from Katoomba to Melbourne.

We're off to Florence... well we're on our way. Had an uneventful ferry trip, then down to the Dutch border where we stayed in a nice hotel in nice walking country deciduous woods and rolling hills. We had a really good meal with some Trappist monk beer, Grimbergen, with a 6% alcohol count.

Thence via Belgium Germany Luxemburg Germany again, into France and a slightly run down hotel in the Vosges that did really cheap very good gourmet food (£25 for 3 courses plus wine).

Then things started getting exciting. We got stuck in a traffic jam on the motorway in Basel for ages, with the car overheating. It really doesn't like traffic jams on hot days. Then the motorway petered out in Zurich, so we went right through the centre of the city. Didn't see any gnomes though. Decided to go through the St Gotthardt tunnel for quickness, cos it had already been a long hot day, but there was a traffic jam and car started overheating, (again) so we went over the St Gotthardt pass. (hairpins and big drops, but at least there were no traffic jams). Scenery superb, huge mountains behind fluffy white clouds etc.
Then down the other side, along the last bit of Swiss motorway and into Italy at the north end of Lake Maggiore. As we parked the car in Luino it started making a very odd noise, like it had a something flapping around in the engine. Fortunately we have breakdown insurance for Europe: unfortunately it was 5pm on Saturday evening and everything had just shut.

We got in touch with breakdown assistance back home and the car has been taken to a garage in a nearby town. (we think - our Italian is not good). We won't find out when it will be fixed till tomorrow and are stuck here without a car until it's fixed.
We were nearly sleeping on a park bench as the Tourist Office told us every hotel in town was full, the buses had stopped running and the trains didn't seem to go anywhere useful. Even the taxis had finished for the evening. We then went round every hotel in town hoping for a cancellation - but it was getting dark and we had a series of nos behind us. Our sleeping bags and tent were in the car)

Eventually we got the last room in a hotel across the road from where we started, but up a back street and hence invisible until we returned to our departure point on the lokout for a suitable place to spend the night.

So we're stuck here till tomorrow at least - we'll find out about the car then and if we can get it, then we'll head down towards Barga. If not, then we could get to know Luino very well.











Our Italian is adqequate for ordering wine and pizza and buying postcards, but
has been of minimal use in car breakdown conversations with monoglot Italians.

Will be in touch - email - as the phone chargers are in the car which is not
here.

Other than that evrything's fine. The sun's shining and Luino is a beautiful
spot to be stuck (better than Mobile) in.

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