We passed the Italian border, which by now was a lot less formal than on my previous outing to Ventimiglia. We travelled just a few more miles before stopping at a hotel in San Remo.
It soon became apparent that trying to explain our accommodation requirements in English, French or with wild arm gesticulations was not going to get us the sleeping arrangements we wanted.
Eventually I drew pictures of rooms with showers, toilets, washbasins and beds. I then drew little matchstick people lying in the beds, so that the required configuration would be clear. I drew little skirts on the two matchstick people in the double bed, just to make sure they knew that Teddy and I would not be sharing the same bed.
We got the same disbelieving reaction that we had encountered in France, but we also got the rooms we wanted. The little diagram worked so well that I kept it and used it successfully at every hotel we stayed in from then on.
For dinner we ate seafood pizza. Although we didn’t know it then were going to eat little other than pizza for the ensuing week.
The next morning we sat outside on the restaurant terrace and ate what for me was a rather strange breakfast. There were no croissants or baguettes. The bread had the consistency of very dry crumbly toast, but it was completely white so did not appear to have been toasted. To accompany this we were each given a cold, hard boiled egg and a chocolate biscuit. Usually I only eat cold, hard boiled eggs with a picnic lunch and chocolate biscuits are reserved for afternoon tea.
Once again though the meal was saved by a couple of cups of excellent coffee. This of course was espresso, dark and bitter, but sweetened with a large sugar lump. The sugar lumps were actually twice the size of the normal cubes I was used to and a single lump in a small espresso cup was too much. I discovered though, that with a superhuman effort they could be snapped in half and so after the first very sweet cup my sugar intake was modified.
We set off again, driving virtually due East following the coast road of North Western Italy. It was rather beautiful with the clear blue Mediterranean sea to our right and the Alps to our left.
There were a lot of roadside stalls selling fruit, the most prolific of which were cantaloupe and watermelons. Each stall displayed at least one of the watermelons, which had been cut in half, revealing bright red flesh within a mottled pale and dark green, outer skin. We stopped briefly to sample some of this, which could be purchased by the slice. I’ve never been that keen on watermelon because of the numerous pips. OK there are possibly more pips in a honeydew melon, but at least they all cling together at the centre of the fruit and are easily removed. Watermelon pips on the other hand are dispersed within the edible flesh. Perhaps the genetic engineers will soon solve this minor irritation. Despite my reservations the melon was sweet and delicious, in fact it was so good that a couple of hours later we stopped for some more. This time though it tasted as though these melons had been grown on the filter bed of a sewerage farm. Being mainly composed of water, it seems reasonable to me that the taste of the fruit would be strongly influenced by it’s water source. It’s rather like eggs, which have been laid by hens fed on fishmeal. The eggs unsurprisingly, taste fishy.
By mid afternoon we had long since passed Genova and our road was beginning to turn Southward towards Rome. I studied the map for Eastward bound roads that would take us to Rimini.
I noticed one minor road, which seemed to fit the bill. We turned left and found ourselves climbing slowly through interesting countryside, into a more mountainous area.
After several miles of very slow progress, we reached a village and I was rather surprised that the road seemed to terminate in an informal car park next to a church. At the end of the car park, where there should have been a continuation our road was a low stone wall. I got out of the car and walked over to the wall. The other side was a sheer drop. In the valley below another road wound it’s way into the distance, it’s starting point seeming to be the base of the cliff I was standing on. I looked at the map again, and sure enough there was a very slight disconnection between the road we had been following and the one that lay ahead, which led tantalisingly in the direction I wanted to travel.
Since I could see no way of lowering the car to the road below, we turned tail and headed back down the mountain to the original Rome bound road. Now suspicious of minor roads I decided to play safe and stick to major roads only.
As evening approached we started looking out for overnight accommodation. I stopped at several promising looking hostelries. At each one I flashed my little diagram, created the previous evening, only to find that demand was high and there were no vacancies.
Eventually, dusty, hungry and tired we reached Lucca, where we reluctantly, decided to spend three times our daily accommodation budget on a suite, with two bedrooms, a living area and a huge bathroom. The bathroom alone justified the price. The floor was a tile mosaic in traditional Roman villa style. Stone pillars, a large round sunken bath, marble washbasins and vanity counters, set off with opulent gleaming gold taps, completed the effect.
I could imagine myself sitting in the bath having grapes fed to me by beautiful handmaidens. Unfortunately, from the outset it was clear that neither Tracy nor Lilly were going to volunteer for this role. Somehow being fed grapes by Teddy would not have had the same appeal, and anyway, I’d have most likely got a hard kick in the crutch, had I suggested it. When it was my turn to use the bathroom, I took some grapes from the fruit bowl, immersed myself in the warm water, closed my eyes and imagined the rest.
Later, bathed and refreshed, our collective hunger was countered with a large pizza and some red wine, delivered by room service. Since we were hoping to reach Rimini the following day, I set my alarm clock for six am and then slept soundly.
Despite the usual morning make up session, we did manage to depart reasonably early and made our way towards a large town, indicated on the map and road signs as Firenze. We must have hit this place around rush hour time. I had a horrible time, being hooted and gesticulated at, by hot headed demolition derby drivers, in tiny souped up Fiats and to my surprise Minis. I can’t remember who was map reading, but their concisely incorrect directions, along with the traffic conditions made my blood start to steam. Within 20 minutes, I too was gesticulating and hooting like a life long Firenzian.
After a while we did hit open country and based on the names of the villages we passed seemed to be on the right route. Large signs with ‘Chianti’ written on them gave us a clue as to which wine region we were in. Something though was niggling at the back of my mind. About an hour after leaving Firenze, it dawned on me. We had passed through the legendary and reputedly beautiful city of Florence, without an ounce of appreciation. I was in no mood to turn back. Water under the bridge as they say.
We arrived in Rimini mid afternoon and we booked into a four storey hotel for the week. Teddy and I were given a corner unit on the third floor, while Tracy and Lilly were on the fourth floor in the room immediately above us. The only way these rooms were connected was by a flagpole, the bottom of which, was bolted to the corners of the balconies of both rooms.
That evening Teddy and I got more than a little tipsy, as a result of drinking rather strong German beer from large Wellington boot shaped glasses. We must have got a bit rowdy, because we had an argument with the girls, who promptly went and locked themselves in their room.
They had claimed we were drunk, so to prove them wrong, Teddy and I climbed up the flagpole to their balcony. Despite the potential danger involved in allowing us to climb down again, they showed no mercy and kept their balcony door firmly locked. To make matters worse they did their best to ignore our loud rapping on their windows, shouts of abuse and denials of our inebriation.
So eventually bored, we climbed down again, went back to the bar, where we drank some more beer, and passed out. I’ve never been a great fan of the yobbo English tourist abroad, but now I’d done them proud.
Most of the week was a bit of a haze. At that time the sea at Rimini was not a pleasure to swim in. There was some major problem with very fast multiplying algae, which grew more quickly than the authorities could scoop it up. Neither was this part of the holiday a great culinary experience. Our meals consisted of pizza, spaghetti bolognaise and risotto. The sauce on the spaghetti and on the risotto was identical.
Sunbathing, drinking and arguing were our major pass-times. The day before our departure we went for it big time, albeit unintentionally. After lunch we set out to the local supermarket, where for the price of a reasonable bottle of wine we bought a six pack of very low priced Spumante sparkling wine. We put this in our picnic chiller box and headed to the beach, where we oiled up and laid ourselves out on some sun beds. By three pm all the Spumante had been drunk and all four of us fell into a deep slumber.
We didn’t awake from this sleep until six pm. All four of us were much pinker than we had intended. Teddy had dark hair, whereas mine was fair. Tracy and Lilly had spent several days carefully cultivating a tan. Although not apparent immediately, I was to be the worst effected.
After dinner we went on a final shopping trip, for souvenirs to take back to England. I bought a barrel shaped glass bottle, which was covered with leather, had a false tap and had the word ‘Rimini’ emblazoned on it. It came with a stand and six glasses. It also contained some rather unpleasant sweet and sour tasting, fortified wine.
I had just finished paying for this when I was suddenly overcome with nausea. Convinced I was going to pass out or throw up, I hurried back to the hotel. The other three followed me with concerned expressions. My skin was beginning to burn painfully and I went straight into a cold shower. Within minutes I was in bed with a fierce headache and being seized by agonising cramps.
My companions forced me to drink large amounts of water. I frankly didn’t expect to live the night, but in any event I was certain that under no circumstances would I be fit to drive back to England or to anywhere else, the following day. Eventually I passed out.
When I awoke at about seven am the following morning, I was amazed that I felt absolutely fine. My body was only slightly sore from the sunburn and all the other symptoms had completely vanished. By eight am we were on our way.
This time I was determined to take the shortest route possible. The road was good and we soon passed Bologna. Early in the afternoon we passed Milan. The traffic was quite heavy, but the road went straight through, with no possibility of the types of navigation errors, we had encountered in Firenze just over a week earlier. As the Alps approached we started to climb. We chose to stop at a roadside chalet style hotel, near Aosta Aoste.
After yet another early start we passed through the Mont Blanc tunnel, which despite huge fans to keep the air moving through, was full of unpleasant traffic fumes. On exiting the tunnel, my plan was to head to Macon and then head north on the péage.
What happened next, is still a mystery to me. A while after exiting the tunnel, we found ourselves unexpectedly in a city, where based on the route I thought we had taken, there shouldn’t have been one. On top of this the City was beside a huge lake, also not on the map, if we were where, our map reader Teddy claimed we were.
Next I noticed a huge fountain gushing skywards from the lake. Geography had not been one of my stronger subjects at school, but in the 1960s I had seen a television show called ‘The Champions’, starring Alexandra Bastedo, Stuart Damon and William Gaunt. This show had always began in front of a huge fountain in Geneva, and there it was in front of me. Not only were we in a different place from that claimed by our map-reader, we were also in a different country. Just how we had got confused about whose border posts we had crossed, I’m also not sure.
I turned the car round and headed back. This time with the help of signposts we managed to return to France and even reached Macon without further incident. Lilly, the only other person with a driving license, now declared herself confident enough to drive on the wrong side of the road. I moved into the rear passenger seat she had been occupying next to Tracy and started to relax. This welcome break from driving was to be short lived. After a brief spell on the north bound péage, I noticed the water temperature rise at an alarming rate, until it went red. I asked Lilly to pull over to the hard shoulder, where we coasted to a stop near a roadside phone. I opened the bonnet, but knowing the engine was hot, knew better than to open the radiator cap at this point. Next I lay flat on the hard shoulder and looked under the car. Sure enough there was a puddle of water. Pulling myself under the car I was able to confirm that the radiator had rusted through. I picked up the phone. The conversation was difficult, because of my rusty French and lack of a phrase book.
Just 20 minutes later a tow truck turned up, the driver seemed rather unhappy that I was driving a Ford rather than a Citroen. This turned out to be because he was from the local Citroen dealership, not the Ford one.
Never the less we were towed to a nearby town, to the Ford dealership. I felt sorry for my Visa card when I signed the voucher, but I was never the less impressed that only ninety minutes after breaking down, we were on the road again with a new radiator in place.
By late afternoon it was clear that we were not going to reach Calais in time for the last ferry home, but we wanted to make sure we would get an early one the next morning, so we kept driving until about eight pm.
We then started to look for somewhere to stay. Our first choice was a rather nice looking chateau. But as soon as the receptionist saw me, he immediately said ‘Plein’. They were full up. I followed his gaze down to my legs and realised that whether they had vacancies or not, we would probably have been rejected anyway, on account of the state of my jeans, which were impregnated with various large oil stains, picked up from my excursion under the car earlier that day.
I changed into a pair of clean trousers and we tried an inn situated in a nearby town. This time we were accepted, but by now it was nearly ten pm and too late to eat in their restaurant. In the end we did manage to get a snack in a nearby café.
By the next afternoon we were back in Swindon. For me the holiday had been very tiring and not much of it had been enjoyable. It had certainly raised doubts in my mind as to how compatible Tracy and I were with each other.
On a more positive note, I would never forget that meal in Joinville. From then on whenever I entertained, I tried to pay the same attention to preparation as that wine waiter at the Lion d’Or had displayed, albeit that my cutlery and glasses were of the very budget variety.
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