From Yorkshire Pudding to Pizza in Pisa
Why don't you come with me to Italy? I'm afraid the transport is somewhat basic - you are going to ride on the back of my words. Hold tight. I will write carefully, try not take too many sudden diversions, and avoid unexpected full stops.
Going off the Rails
The excitement starts with the route planning - maps and hotel brochures all over the dining room table; measuring distances and calculating travel times, telephoning hotels and making reservations - and it's only February! (I am a planning nerd!)
The excitement builds with the mental contortions associated with booking a place on Belgian National Railways "Motorail" - or as they call it, the "Autotrein".
For some strange Belgian reason it is not possible to make any reservations more than 6 months in advance. I telephone Belgian Railways in London as soon as I am in the 6-month time frame. Credit card details are taken, along with my car make and registration number, our proposed day of travel and our destination. We intend to get the train from Denderlooew (near Brussels) to Livorno in Northern Italy (near Pisa).
Weeks go by and as we approach the time when we can seriously look forward to being off on our travels, there is no word from Belgian Railways. I email them and they reply by telling me that our booking request has been "placed in a queue in Brussels". "There is every chance you will get on this train". This does not exactly fill me with confidence, and my whole schedule from first to last hotel bookings, in England, Italy, Switzerland and France hangs on our being able to get on this train on Sunday 19th August 2001 !
Belgian Bonhomie
Just before my sense of disquiet turns into full-blown panic the rail tickets arrive! But, what's this? .. there is one ticket for us and one for the car - fair enough - but they have different train numbers on them. As my over-active imagination develops a picture of us heading off in one direction and our car in another, I email my (by now) familiar Belgian Rail contact, and ask if I should be concerned. This is his reply -
"We will ask Hercule Poirot to investigate this mystery. Sorry, this is just my weird Belgian sense of humour. It is perfectly normal to have different train numbers for passengers and cars whilst still indicating the same train ... but only in Belgium!"
Kind regards,
Daniel Mahr.
A1 South
We've shelled out our Ł17 for a Swiss Motorway pass. It's valid for one year, but we shall only use it for one day, on our way back. But it's a one year pass or nothing - Swiss Justice! So let's be off. We've also become temporary millionaires, with about one and half million Lire between us! (Ł1 = approx 3,000 Italian Lire.)
It's Saturday 18th August and we are on the first leg of our journey - to Folkestone on the south coast for an overnight motel stop before catching Le Shuttle under the English Channel.
Mother-in-law next door has made her final bid for attention by announcing the onset of a very sore throat, and we have delayed our journey by a couple of hours so that we can get a doctor's opinion and a prescription.
We intend to take the A1 south, then M11 to the London area, the M25 and M20 to Folkestone. At the start of one section of the A1 in Lincolnshire I see a sign saying ...
Being in possession of a notoriously attention-seeking bladder on long journeys, I take this as sound advice!
At a roadside restaurant for lunch I decide to start our Italian experience early by having something called Chicken Fusilli (noticing also the invaluable information on the menu that Chicken Fusilli was also available "without the chicken").
It's 7 p.m. as we turn off the M20 into Folkestone after a pleasantly unhurried 300-mile journey.
Rough Start to Smooth Crossing
It's Sunday 19th August, and it's early. 6 a.m. to be precise, and we're out of bed and skipping breakfast because I've just had this feeling that the train I had booked for the channel crossing might not give us enough time on the other side to reach Denderlooew in time for the Autotrein.
So, knowing that you can usually get on Le Shuttle at most times, we are heading for the Tunnel Terminal an hour earlier than originally planned. Sod's Law comes into play. It's OK at first: we arrive and are told we can get on a train at 7.20 a.m. Great. This means that when we get to Calais it will be 8.50 a.m. French time - good enough for a leisurely drive across Belgium.
Then we get the public announcement:- "Normal service has been suspended. Train stopped in tunnel."
Apparently a group of illegal immigrants from the Calais immigration holding centre have been discovered walking the tunnel. Good grief! Do these people realise this is a 25 mile walk - in a tunnel - with trains thundering by at 70 m.p.h. every 15 minutes?
Well - we're off to a less than promising start. Let's have a coffee and try and compose ourselves.
After sitting around for a bit, panicking about missing our Autotrein, comes the information that things are getting back to normal and we can get on the 8.20 train. You've guessed it! This was the train I had originally booked. All we can do now is pray for an uneventful journey to Calais, and then a drive to Denderlooew free from traffic jams!
... which, as it happens, is what we get ... an uneventful journey under the Channel and an easy 100 mile drive on the French and Belgian Autoroutes to Denderlooew. (Years ago, when we made our first trip to France with a car, driving on the "wrong" - that is to say, the right hand side of the road filled me with terror, and my fear and tension stayed with me for nearly an hour's driving. Now I find that within a couple of minutes driving I'm quite relaxed and comfortable.)
Railway Tracks and Sleepers
We turn up at the Autotrein car loading terminal half an hour before time, check in, gratefully accept our free backpack courtesy of Belgian Railways, and await loading instructions.
This is a new and interesting experience. We are parked up on a large concrete apron, through which railway tracks run (in the manner of your average level crossing) and there is a motorised ramp being manoeuvred up to the end of a line of double-decker railway car transporter wagons. Some wagons are for Rome, others for Livorno (our destination). The cars have to be loaded in the right order on to the right wagons. I watch a Rolls Royce being driven on to a top deck, then our turn comes, and up the ramp I go, on to the lower deck of the transporter wagon.
At this point it is necessary to ensure that you don't leave in your car any luggage that you might require on the train. We have organised our overnight bags, so we're OK. I jump off the wagon and return to meet Pauline in the departure lounge. Meanwhile, after all the cars have been loaded and secured, a little diesel engine rumbles up, couples with the wagons and hauls them away up the line. Goodbye, cars.
At the appointed time we walk through a tunnel to the main station and find our train waiting at the platform. The car section of the train has by now been taken up the line to a junction and is now being shunted back down the line on which our train stands and coupled up to the end of it. Hello, cars.
Each carriage is in the care of its own steward (multi-lingual). Ours is a Flemish speaking Belgian who speaks good English, and he shows us to our cabin. The sun shines brightly through the window so we pull the blind. In it's day-time mode the cabin has comfortable seats, hooks for clothing, and a storage shelf (we later discover that underneath this is a washbasin with hot and cold running water). Above the shelf are cupboards and these include two sealed plastic cups of water for teeth cleaning.
We pull out on time at 2.20 p.m., and start our long journey. The steward brings us each a complimentary glass of wine. What a good start!
Our train will spend the rest of the afternoon trundling through Brussels (sorry, Bruxelles), Namur and Dinante, before crossing into France for Thionville and Strasbourg, by which time it is early evening, since we have had an unexplained stop for an hour near Namur.
The train has been building up some impressive turns of speed but unfortunately over some impressively winding sections of track, leading to some hairy moments whilst negotiating the corridors for toilets, and indeed heading for the restaurant car at about 7 p.m. The restaurant car is a delight of modern décor, with attractive lighting, and a creative table layout that includes tables for four, two, and even single people.
The dinner menu comes in several languages, including English. The Parma ham and melon, followed by steak in peppered sauce, and a bottle of Chardonnay satisfy hunger and thirst more than adequately, and the waiters somehow contrive to stay on their feet whilst serving food and drink as we negotiate more curves at about 80 m.p.h.
On our return to our cabin a couple of hours later we find that the steward has converted the seating into two bunk beds, one above the other, and a ladder fixed in place. Although I am happy with the concept of "women on top", it was me who finished up climbing the ladder as we hurtled round several more bends.
We are in for an interesting night. It is now dark, the train is travelling at speed, the track doesn't get any straighter (quite the opposite), and there are numerous tunnels. It is hot, and the air conditioning seems to be on the blink, so we open the window. This produces an incredibly high noise level, especially in and out of the tunnels as we speed through the blackness of Switzerland, taking in Basel, Bern, and Brig.
To add to the noise level comes an electrical storm so the cabin is lit by occasional blue flashes. The whooshing of the tunnels is augmented by rumbles and bangs. Stir into this cocktail of experiences the fact that we are now lying down in bunks across the width of the cabin, and travelling at about 80 m.p.h. at 90 degrees to our line of travel. As we take each bend - this seems to be interminable series of S-bends - centrifugal forces slide us first to one end of the bed, then to the other, alternately banging feet and heads against opposite cabin walls.
Sleep comes and goes, interspersed with periods of quiet inactivity in some station or other, listening in semi-consciousness to station announcements, sometimes in French, sometimes in German. We seem to be hurtling through the night for ever, but eventually there are glimmers of early daylight and we stumble out of the bunks and do our best to wash and dress and in the somewhat confined space. As we penetrate more and more tunnels entering northern Italy we stagger down the corridor again to the restaurant car for breakfast.
The scenery outside is staggering. High mountains, the typical architecture of Italian towns climbing up them on one side of us, and the waters of the Rivereria di Levante on the other, as we negotiate the area round Genoa and La Spezia.
It's a spectacular accompaniment to our breakfast of coffee, croissants and jam.
Now the train has stopped at Pisa Station - quite the scruffiest looking station I have ever seen - and we are standing in the corridor watching people getting on and off the early morning commuter trains. We wonder if we shall see the famous leaning tower as we pull out of the station, but all we can see is industrial estates.
It's now nine o'clock in the morning of Monday 20th August as we pull into Livorno. This is where we get off, and we should have arrived here at 7.30 a.m. Still, being used to the chaotic system that passes for train travel in Britain, this almost feels punctual!
We hump our luggage out on to the platform and there's a station announcement in three languages - "Collect cars at the ramp". This is very useful but for the fact that nobody knows where the ramp is, and the announcement doesn't tell us. Welcome to Italy. It is already very warm.
So now there are people wandering about all over the place lugging suitcases and overnight bags saying to each other "Where the hell do we pick up our cars?" Someone finds an official who tells us where "The Ramp" is and off we troop. The car transporter wagons for Livorno are shunted off the end of our train, taken down the line, then back up on another line, arriving at "The Ramp". Meanwhile, the train that has been our moving home for so many hours pulls out, heading for Rome.
Driving on the Right, & trying to keep out of the Wrong, in Italy
It's Monday 20th August.With a head full of stories and rumours about the lethal nature of Italian driving we pull tentatively out of Livorno station relying mainly on some kind instinctive internal navigation system, since the map of Livorno provided by Belgian Railways is worse than useless because there is no indication of where the roads are heading as they fall off the edge of the map.
We notice a signpost for Rome, and Pauline remembers that this road will take us to where we can pick up our rural road for our destination - Casole d'Elsa and the Hotel Gemini.
We have only a 60-mile drive to reach our hotel, and we have all day to do it in. I have already been hooted at by an impatient gesticulating Italian driver as I attempted to find the right road out of Livorno. After a while the universal disregard for any speed limits, and the popular past-time of driving as close as possible to the car in front ceases to cause panic, as we get into the Italian swing of things.
In France, you hardly ever see road repair works because the roads are so well built they don't need them. We see little in the way of repair works in Italy either, but in this case they do need them. The rural roads we encounter have a marked tendency to crumble away at the edges, and the Italian highway authorities just put up road signs with a picture of a road with the edge crumbling away. They are permanent signs! And if you think British roads have too many bends, try the rural Italian ones (and this is the home of the ancient Romans who used to take the shortest distance between two points, thus inventing the straight line!) The "Autostrada" (the toll motorways) on the other hand, are beautiful roads, but on the country roads, you need to add an hour or two to your journey time.
But the scenery is great, and we are, of necessity, driving slowly enough to enjoy it. Rolling hills, rows of cypress trees like so many giant green flames marching across the hillsides. Mediaeval towns perched on hill tops, with the road winding up and up, hairpin bend after hairpin bed to the edge of town, then down the other side in similar manner.
We stop for a break on a hill top and survey the hot, shimmering countryside. The noise of millions of crickets in the grasses is amazing - difficult to describe in words - a bit like several hundred football referees blowing their whistles from somewhere about 2 miles away. There is not a cloud in the sky and the sun is burning down mercilessly. We cannot remember when we were last as hot as this. Thank God for Climate Control in the car!
Out with the mobile phone and, hey presto, we can ring home to check up on mother-in-law. It's an excellent signal.
Onwards to the mediaeval town of Volterra and beyond, and by lunch time we are pulling into Casole d'Elsa and the Hotel Gemini - at first sight a small single-storey building when viewed from the front. 
But it is built into a hill side and the ground falls away sharply behind the hotel, so that in fact there are two more floors below the reception, lounge and dining areas which you cannot see from the front. So, after registering with the elegant receptionist who speaks perfect English (and several other languages as we later discover) we take the lift down two floors to our bedroom. It's a large and airy cool room and, having gone down two floors, we discover that the large French windows open out directly on to a level garden. We have our own little patio, with chairs and table, from which we can view the swimming pool.
Strength in Numbers
Lunch in the hotel restaurant. I learn to say our room number in Italian for the benefit of the waiter, (due-zero-quattro) who then proudly translates it back into English as two zero five so then I have to advise him that it is actually two zero four so he rolls that off his tongue a couple of times and is then very happy. I order duck in orange sauce. Potatoes only seem to be available in one form - a form we are very happy with - so we ask for the patate fritte - which the waiter triumphantly confirms as - "chips!" (This is going to be a little ritual performed every evening at dinner.)
My Italian is like my French and my German. Phrase book stuff. But I can pull off a fairly convincing accent, thus appearing to be more fluent than I really am. Frequent use of the phrase of "Scusi, non parlo Italiano molte bene" invariably produces a response that I don't fully understand but clearly indicates something along the lines of "On the contrary, you speak it very well! Much better than my English in fact!" After this he or she is clearly waiting for you to continue with the fluency that has been endowed upon you. The trouble with learning useful phrases and questions out of phrase books is that however well you deliver them, there's an even chance you won't understand the answers!
Still, my luck is in as I approach the Receptionist, requiring a couple of extra pillows in the bedroom. I have rehearsed "Scusi, possiamo avere due cuscini supplementare, per piacere" - to which she replies "Si, certamente." But I am going to get lazier and lazier with my Italian, because so many people respond to my Italian questions in perfect English. (How do they know I'm an Englishman on holiday? I'm sure I'm not wearing a knotted handkerchief on my head.) So I revert to being the typical lazy Brit who can't be bothered to learn anyone else's language.
I spend the afternoon strolling around the little town of Casole d'Elsa while Pauline catches up with some sleep.
The hotel restaurant opens out on to a terrace providing a breathtaking view of the Tuscan countryside, and of course there are chairs and tables all set out on the terrace as well as inside, so we choose to sit outside. We have dinner (parma ham and melon, followed by smoked swordfish, vegetables and Chips! with, of course, a bottle of Chianti) sitting under a darkening purple sky in which hangs a thin crescent moon. There is a warm breeze. Absolute bliss.
After dinner we go into the lounge bar and order coffee and Cognac. The brandies turn out to be about four times the size of a standard British measure. I have no doubt that I shall be charged four times the standard British amount when the final reckoning comes at the end of the week, but hey! Who cares?! Of course we have already consumed a bottle of wine, so we retire to bed with decidedly fuzzy brains.
City of Towers
It's a hot and sunny Tuesday and we are off for half and hour's drive to the medieval town of San Gimignano.
In the 13th century this town boasted 76 towers. These tall rectangular structures served both as fortresses and symbols of private wealth. Today there are only 14 towers remaining, but they still make a spectacularly unusual sight.
This is a tourist trap par excellence and although we arrive by about 10 in the morning, approach roads are already very busy, and the many car parks on the outskirts of the town are nearly full.
The whole place is a web of narrow streets and alleyways, and apart from those belonging to local residents no cars are permitted.
Oops, the notorious bladder is calling for attention, and as luck would have it there are public toilets situated near one of the entrances to the town. But what's this old guy doing sitting at a table outside? Collecting money from all these people with crossed legs queuing to get in, that's what he's doing. I try to ask him how much, and he just shrugs his shoulders. Peering (no not peeing) into the box on his table I observe a large collection of 1,000 lire notes, so that is what I give him, and in I go. Well in terms of facilities and cleanliness it was well worth the 1,000 lire. (About 30 pence). But there's a big surprise for the ladies - instead of the expected lavatory bowl and seat there are those traditional "hole-in the-floor-stand-and-squat" arrangements so well known in some rural parts of France. I noticed some Japanese ladies coming out of the place in a visible state of shock.
Forgive me for waxing lyrical on things anal, but I feel obliged to record that after our expedition to the Czech Republic the previous year - where the texture of toilet paper was somewhere between that of a cheap kitchen roll and a brown paper bag - the Italian variety provides an acceptable experience.
We spend the day wandering the ancient and narrow streets, in and out of little shops, gazing up at the towers, and we include a contemplative visit to the Basilica. Here I light a candle for all who are dear to me - well, not exactly a candle - here in this mediaeval cathedral you pop a coin in a slot and an electric "candle" lights up!
Lunch in a little ristorante opening out on to the street - toasted garlic bread with tomatoes in olive oil, followed by the chef's special Ravioli. As a somewhat perverse aid to post lunch digestion we decide to visit the Museum of Inquisition Torture and Capital Punishment, where in an assortment of stone-walled rooms and cellars our senses are assaulted by displays of the most appalling instruments of torture used through the ages, not just here in Italy, but world wide. Even more disturbing are the graphic descriptions in several languages of how and why the devices were used, how long the victims usually took to die. It is difficult to place these things in any order of awfulness, though I think the one at the top of my personal list is the tall upturned tapered spike, on top of which the victim is sat, waiting for this simple device to do the inevitable slow damage under the combined actions of gravity and his own body weight.
Later on we are subjected to another form of torture, namely, Ordeal by Rejected Credit Card. We have set our hearts on buying a set of unframed prints depicting various Tuscan scenes. The very obliging shop owner takes my credit card, swipes it through his scanner and we wait an interminable period for a piece of paper to come through saying it is invalid. I proffer a second card - same result. I pass across a third card - same result. A fourth card - same result. While I am beginning to wonder if someone has efficiently raided all my bank and credit card accounts, the apologetic shop keeper tries to assure us that this is probably a fault in the Italian telephone system. Then, in desperation, he starts rummaging about in a cupboard and pulls out an old manual credit card machine, makes out the sheet, runs the roller over the top, then makes a phone call to the credit card company. He has a long animated conversation, arms waving about all over the place, and then replaces the receiver and looks at me in a way that indicates he is feeling about as dejected as I am. My supply of ready Italian cash is limited at this point, but I have some Ł sterling, so off we go to a bureau de change across the street and change it to God knows how many hundreds of thousands of Lire, return to the shop and pay for the pictures with cash.
Well, that's nearly an hour gone, and we return to the car park for another form of torture, namely Ordeal by Parking Charge, coughing up 18,000 Lire (Ł6) for the 6 hours we have spent in the town.
We return to our hotel for our evening dinner on the terrace - rabbit in truffle sauce (oh, and Chips!)
Bread - the Tuscan Variety of "Pane" is a Pain
Wednesday 22nd August, and we have decided to stay local. We shall wander round the local town, Casole D'Elsa, look in on a small supermarket and buy ourselves a "picnic" lunch to eat on our patio in the hotel garden.
We have already noticed at breakfast in this hotel - which by the way consists of fruit cocktail, fruit juices, cheeses, cold meats and sausage, bread, croissants, jam, and coffee, tea or chocolate - that Tuscan bread leaves much to be desired. It is invariably dry and tasteless. (We learned later that Tuscan bread is normally like this, having no salt in it, and is also baked in a way that produces a rock hard crust.)
In our quest for a picnic lunch we examine the bread counter in the local supermarket. I pick up a long loaf, and waving it around, remark, "I could kill someone with this!" Fortunately, nobody in this supermarket speaks English.
In the heat of the afternoon I decide to splash around in the hotel's outdoor swimming pool. The air temperature is so high that the water seems unpleasantly cold at first, and my important bits shrink even smaller than they already are. But I soon get used it.
A Fool and His Money are Soon Parted
Thursday 23rd August. We are going to visit Florence. I hope she's in.
This is about 50 minutes drive from where we are staying, and we have studied the city maps to find out where the car parks are. On arrival we find the road leading up to the Piazzala Michelangelo, which is high on a hill overlooking the city. Again, it's baking hot, not a cloud in the sky and the sun beating down. We are going to need our sun hats, especially with my bald bonce.
No sooner do we arrive at the car park than we are the victims of a hugely profitable scam. There appear to be car park attendants on duty, and one of them helpfully waves us into a vacant spot, writes out a ticket, affixes it to our windscreen, and says in well practised English, "30,000 Lire for the day please". This is about Ł10, but what the hell, this is Florence (Firenze) and it's bound to be expensive.
Off he goes with his money, and another English car drives up beside us. The guy gets out and says, "You didn't pay him, did you?"
"Well, yes, actually."
"It's all free in this spot. You see the white squares? That's free parking. You pay where there are blue squares."
"So where are the blue squares?"
"There aren't any!"
"Aaaargh!!"
We catch up with our car park "attendant" - plus some other "colleagues" - and remonstrate, but he keeps walking away. We threaten him with the police (who are conspicuous by their absence), but to no avail, and it's far too hot for a fight. (Besides, it might knock off my sun hat). We turn our experience to a Dutchman's advantage when we see him being fed the same scam, and we run up and tell him emphatically not to pay anything, assuring him that it is all free parking. Well, someone benefited from our experience and we'd done our bit for international relations.
Anyway, by now we have just clapped our eyes on the view in front of us - the whole of Florence spread out beneath us, with the dome of the huge Duomo (cathedral) dominating the picture, and we can see the famous Ponte Vecchio - the oldest bridge in Florence, crossing the River Arno, built in 1345, with shops and buildings all the way across it. These were originally butchers, tanners, and blacksmiths, but they were evicted by Duke Fernando in 1593 because of the noise and the stench. Nearly all of these buildings are now jewellery shops.
Suddenly it almost seems worth 30,000 Lire.
We start walking down the zigzagging road towards the river and along towards the Ponte Vecchio. This takes about half an hour, and we are ready for a cool beer in a little corner bar near the bridge.
Across the bridge we go, taking in the array of gold and silver in the shop windows, and then into the city proper. We notice that all the police that are needed up on the hill are down here in the town. There appear to be police on every street corner, and all they are doing is chatting and smoking. There are the Carabinieri - the armed "military" police with their red-striped blue trousers and peaked caps. They deal with a variety of offences from theft to speeding. There are La polizia - the state police with blue uniforms, white belts and berets. They specialise in serious crimes. And then there are the Vigili Urbani - the municipal police with blue uniforms and white helmets (same shape as the British Police helmet). They regulate street traffic. There are a lot of female officers in this last group, and they all seem to have shoulder length hair. This looks extremely odd when topped with a tall white helmet! With all these varieties of police it seems to me that there is a good case for a fourth category - perhaps the Vigili Parcheggio ? (Parking Lot Cops).
The Duomo, or cathedral, is colossal, but the close configuration of the surrounding streets makes it impossible to see it all at once. Our first sight of the front of it, walking into the Piazza di San Giovanni, is an amazing assault on the senses - all gleaming black and white marble. There is a queue of people waiting to get inside, stretch half way round the building. It is moving at a respectable pace, however, so we join it, and within 15 minutes we are inside. The main sense inside is one of an awesome space, (it can accommodate 20,000 people) but having already seen the startlingly ornate exterior, the interior appears to be quite plain by contrast.
We light a candle for Jacqueline.
Dante's house is quite close to the cathedral, but being very hot, and short of time, we didn't see it - an infernal disappointment.
Next to the cathedral is the Campanile, or Bell Tower, which stands at 276 ft high - again alternating black and white marble stonework. We start climbing the tower. Pauline gives up before the first level is reached, finding the heat and the crowds of people coming down the narrow staircase pushing past the crowds of people climbing up too much. While she returns to street level, I slog on up to the top - 414 steps! Stunning view, buggered legs. After taking in the four views of the city spread out beneath me in a neat patchwork of narrow streets and ornate buildings seemingly stretching into infinity, I return to the street to consume half a litre of water. (Every one walks around carrying large bottles of water).
It's time to find somewhere for some lunch before we collapse from heat exhaustion. So we return to the river, near the Ponte Vecchio and find a riverside bar where we have a welcome cold beer to wash down a toasted wild boar ham and tomato roll, whilst listening to four American women on the next table alternating between English and fluent Italian.
After lunch we retrace our steps in the direction of the Duomo, this time taking in the Piazza della Signoria and the Palazzo Vecchio, outside which we can feast our eyes on Ammannati's Neptune Fountain and Michelangelo's David.
Inside the Palazzo is a museum, and we try to get in, but - hey! - this is Italy, in the height of the tourist season, in the middle of the week, and so the museum is about to be closed for the afternoon! Unbelievable!
Still, the shop is still open, so we can buy books on Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo.
After rubbing the nose of the lucky bronze boar in the nearby marketplace we re-cross the Ponte Vecchio and make our way to the Palazzo Pitti where we collapse gratefully into an air-conditioned café for fruit tart and coffee. We were going to go from here into the Boboli Gardens, but we are by now too hot and tired, and so commence our long haul back up the hill to the car park.
Our car - after the rigours of being on a railway transporter wagon's lower deck through thunderstorms, and subsequent storage in the very dusty hotel car park - is by now disgustingly filthy, so on the way back to Casole d'Elsa we pull in at a garage and put it through a car wash. This removes all the dust, but there are still rusty looking stains on it from the train journey.
Back in the hotel by 6 p.m. Dinner on the terrace by moonlight.
United Nations?
Walking round the hotel car park one evening I note that there are cars from Britain, Austria, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, France and Italy.
One of the Italian ones is a hired car, being used by an American couple, and another hired car is being used by a family who are speaking a language I don't recognise, but sounds like one of the Eastern European languages.
The hotel staff on the reception desk are, fortunately, very proficient at switching from Italian to English to French to German.
Australian in Siena
It's Friday 24th August and it is still sunny and very hot. Getting out a couple of sun loungers and lazing about in the hotel garden seems as good a way as any of spending this morning, so I position myself under the shade of a small tree and get stuck into the biography of Michelangelo.
We decide to skip lunch and take a half hour drive south to the ancient town of Siena, parking the car outside the old city walls (in a free parking area!) and walking through the city gate and down one of the narrow streets that form a kind of web radiating out from the central Piazza del Campo. All these streets are no-go zones for cars except those on business, but of course one is always dodging out of the way of the ubiquitous motor scooter. There are more of these in Italy than you can shake a stick at, and they are constant noisy hazard in the narrow streets and alleys of mediaeval towns, like bees in a jam pot.
The Piazzo del Campo is surrounded by bars opening on to the square, with chairs and tables under awnings and sunshades outside. Collapsing gratefully into chairs outside one of these bars I summon up my best Italian to order a couple of beers. An Australian accent you could cut wood with came back ... "D'ya wanna do this the Italian way or the English way?". We opt for the English way! (What's the point of trying to talk Italian to an Australian?) We discover that this young man is getting a bit of work experience around Europe, and we listen sympathetically to a description of the pitiful wages paid to waiters. (I was going to give him a tip anyway!)
The Duomo is another black and white marble marvel, and inside there is the most fantastic inlaid illustrated marble floor. Unlike the Duomo in Florence, this is one is as startlingly beautiful inside as outside.
While Pauline browses round the book shop, I sit down in the main body of the cathedral to rest the poor old pins and to study all the international tourists. An American is carrying around one of these tape-recorded information systems. He approaches a member of the cathedral staff and is clearly agitated ...
"This system is broken - I want my money back. I can't wait for a replacement, because I have to go and meet someone."
"How much have you heard?"
"I guess about half."
"Come back again tomorrow and you can hear the other half."
Anticipating the outbreak of the Third World War behind me, I get up to meet with Pauline again and we go outside to discover it is raining. It's coming down in lumps, but fortunately after 10 minutes it stops as suddenly as it started and the sun comes out again.
We've noticed in our drives out that we keep on passing a medieval hill-top town called Colle di Val D'Elsa, so wouldn't it be nice on our way back this evening to investigate it? Perhaps we could have our evening meal there instead of at our hotel.
Arnolfo di Cambio, the man who built the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, was born here in 1232.
We park the car in an area far below the town and climb the steps up to the old town walls and walk into a little square shaded by trees. The entrance to the old town proper is through an archway going right through the middle of an old house that straddles the road.
A couple of hundred yards down the main street we come across another little square surrounded by ancient houses with tiny windows. On one side is a little café bar with a few chairs and tables outside. It is clearly a popular little haunt of the local townspeople, so we decide this is going to be the place for a simple meal this evening.
Out come the cold beers, of course, and to eat I have a vast selection of pieces of local cheeses arrayed in a circle around the plate, and a great pile of sliced Tuscan bread (no butter). (You will recall that I have made previous references to Tuscan bread! In this particular context, however, it seems more palatable.) The cheeses were very good though. Pauline had a ham and cheese toasted roll. We conclude that toasting Tuscan bread does bring about some improvement. I'm driving, so no more drink for me, but Pauline (having demolished a large beer) decides to have a glass of wine. The climax to this simple repast are two large chocolate ice creams swimming in Grand Marnier liqueur, accompanied by cups of coffee. All this comes to a mere 47,500 lire, i.e., about Ł7.50 each for a great little meal, sitting outside in a sunlit square surrounded by ancient buildings with character and occupied by interesting characters!
As Big Ben said to the Tower of Pisa, "I've got the time if you've got the inclination".
It's Saturday 26th August, and it's hotter than ever! We can't leave Italy without seeing the leaning tower of Pisa, and this turns out to be our longest drive of the week, but the countryside is great and we pass through some nice little towns and villages.
Two hours later we are in Pisa, and I've left the street map behind, so we are wandering around the streets looking in vain for a tower, leaning or otherwise. Again, because of the narrow streets and the closeness of the buildings it is difficult to look for landmarks. We've nearly given up, and I'm about to seek directions, when suddenly we just see the top of the tower, so we make tracks straight for it and soon find ourselves in the Campo dei Miracoli (The Field of Miracles), containing the Duomo, the Babtistry and of course, the Torre Pendente (Leaning Tower).
All the buildings of the Campo dei Miracoli lean because of their shallow foundations and sandy silt subsoil, but none tilts so famously as the tower. Begun in 1173, the tower began to tip sideways before the third storey was completed. Even so, construction continued until its completion in 1350. As building proceeded attempts were made to correct the angle by using bigger blocks on one side, so the tower finished up with a bit of a kink in it.
By 1817 the top of the tower was 3.8 metres (12.6 ft) from the vertical, and by 1993 this had increased to 5.4 metres (17.5 ft) !
It was in danger of falling over and was closed to the public. A committee of Italian engineers came up with a scheme involving the placing of giant lead weights on one side of the tower, but all this achieved was an extremely ugly looking tower. It continued to lean at its dangerous angle.
A British structural engineer joined the committee and eventually persuaded them and the local dignitaries that the only way to save the tower was to drill a series of inclined holes underneath the foundations on one side, and slowly pump out some of the sand and silt from beneath, the theory being that the sand and clay above the pumping operation would gradually subside to fill the voids, taking that side of the tower with it.
It worked! The tower returned to a safe angle this year.
The tower has now been pronounced safe for the next 300 years and is open to the public again. (Of course, nobody was attempting to completely correct the angle of this important tourist attraction - "Oh, Darling - we must go and see the upright tower of Pisa!")
It has to be said that no picture or film of this tower can do justice to the overwhelming feeling of awe you get when actually standing next to this white marble miracle. There is a real sense that the thing just should not be standing, and that it is bound to come crashing down at any minute.
Well, we have taken all the usual silly tourist photographs - me holding up the tower - Pauline holding up the tower - and there are all these market stalls for Pauline to spend money on - including the purchase of a couple of tacky little plaster models of the Baptistry, Duomo and Leaning Tower. These are for two of our American friends and we hope they've got a good sense of humour!
We fall hot and exhausted into a vast Ristorante in which there must be at least a couple of hundred people, but it's great appeal right now is that it's air conditioned. Moreover, up comes a waiter and finds us a table for two, where we demolish two giant pizzas, with French Fries and salad, washed down with cold beer.
Urine Italy now!
We are on the way back from Pisa to Casole D'Elsa and I am mystified as to why, just outside one town, one car on the other side of the road has suddenly stopped, together with - of sudden necessity - the great procession of cars behind it. The driver who has caused this sudden screeching of brakes and considerable tail-back, has leaped out of his car and is now standing behind a rubbish bin at the side of the road having a much needed pee.
Now, in Italy, the shortest measurable period of time is that between a red traffic light changing to green and the man behind you putting his hand on the horn. And yet, under these particular circumstances, all the traffic came to a polite halt and just sat there waiting for this guy to get back into his car and drive off. (Only in Italy! )
Back at the hotel, we shower and I take an early evening swim in the pool. Beside the pool I encounter an elderly couple who have recently arrived. I notice the American accents, and in a very non-British way take it upon myself to engage them in conversation for no particular good reason. Well, they are utterly charming. David and Sarah. They turn out to be New Yorkers. He is a lawyer specialising in patents, and she is a psychoanalyst.
They have just visited Poland, well Silesia, to be precise, which used to be part of Germany, but is now part of Poland after some jiggery pokery with borders back in the 1960s. David had revisited the place of his birth. If I explain that this is a Jewish couple it will be understood why David had been smuggled out of Germany just before World War II, spending time as a boy and young man in Sweden, then going on to America. David and Sarah exuded charm and a brilliant sense of humour.
For dinner this evening I have Parma ham and melon, followed by veal cutlets in lemon sauce. Pauline has prawns and asparagus. Both meals are of course accompanied by Chips! Also tickling the taste buds is a cheese, walnut, pear and lettuce salad, and of course a bottle of Chianti.
After dinner we meet up with the New Yorkers and have an enjoyable conversation lubricated by more of those enormous cognacs. It turns out that Sarah has been to Casole D'Elsa before, studying sculpting under an English sculptor living in the town. She is going to re-visit him.
Three of David's stories
1. An American doctor is telephoned by a patient who says he feels really ill, and wants the doctor to make a home visit. "I don't do home visits" says the doctor, "but, when you are feeling better, why don't you come and visit me at my home?".
2. David had a bad experience with a Japanese dentist in New York, who butchered his mouth so badly that he finished up in the local ER. He said he wouldn't have gone to this dentist if he'd known he was still fighting the Second World War.
3. The best way to kill a mosquito is to put him in your hand, turn him upside down and tickle his tummy. When he's laughing so much he doesn't know what's happening you slap your hands together.
(Update: David gave me his business card when we parted. After the outrage on the "Twin Towers" on September 11th 2001 I re-checked his business address. It was 1 World Trade Center, New York. I was later able to ascertain that he was late into work that morning and, thank God, was not one of the victims.)
The Lure of Chocolate Ice Cream in Grand Marnier
Sunday 27th August and it's our last full day in Tuscany. If yesterday was hot and sunny, today is sunny and hot.
We decide on a revisit to Colle Val D'Elsa with lunch outside the little café bar - toasted ham and cheese rolls followed by chocolate ice cream in Grand Marnier.
Tomorrow we have a 250 mile trip to the north of Italy, so we spend the afternoon in the hotel relaxing and reading. I polish off the Michelangelo biography. He was an immensely talented painter and sculptor, and he somehow managed to keep various Dukes and Popes sometimes happy, other times angry, by promising large complex works that took him on journeys between Florence and Rome, never quite completing much of the work, being called away to do other work in the middle of his efforts - much like modern-day builders, in fact. He also reached a ripe old age, with the accent on "ripe" as he followed his father's advice never to wash if he wanted to stay healthy.
Our final evening dinner, beef in red wine, is followed by another chat with David and Sarah.
A Serious Raid on the Wallet and a Spectacular Drive
Monday 28th August dawns hot and sunny again, and it's time to see how steamed up we are going to get as we approach the moment of truth concerning all the meals and drinks that we have been merrily charging to Room Due Zero Quattro all week. Fortunately, the hotel has already been paid for seven nights bed and breakfast. So now it's just all those little bits of paper that have been progressively stapled to our final bill night after night. The receptionist hands it over. 798,000 lire (about Ł266)
We still need some lire for a one-night stay in northern Italy, so we cough up half the money in cash, and use a credit card for the rest.
I hope you are sitting comfortably on my words, because we are now going to drive over 1,000 miles together.
We are going to head back for Livorno but not to catch the train this time. We are going to spend the next week driving back home via Northern Italy, Switzerland and France. At Livorno, we are going to pick up the Autostrada for our trip northwards passing Pisa, Viareggio, La Spezia, Genova (Genoa), and Allessandria, our destination being, for one night, La Flora Hotel in Stresa on the shores of Lake Maggiore.
The Italian motorways, (autostrada) are nothing if not impressive. Well, certainly this one is. It is a toll motorway, and at the other end we shall pay something like 78,000 lire (about Ł26) for the 250 mile trip. The quality of this motorway from beginning to end is well worth the 10 pence per mile.
I have nothing but admiration for the designers and builders of the autostrada. A long stretch of this one flies across flat countryside, inexplicably, on stilts; I momentarily toy with the vision of some Italian road engineer addressing his design team and saying, "Hey guys, let's build five miles of this road on top of short poles, just for the hell of it!" Further north we are in and out of long tunnels bored through the mountains. You pop into the side of a mountain, and a mile later shoot out the other side to find yourself leaping across a bottomless chasm on a bridge that looks like an impossible concept, then you are into the bowels of the next mountain, out the other side across another chasm, and it goes on and on like this for miles. Another unusual feature of this road on the southern leg is the presence of large flowering shrubs planted almost like a continuous hedgerow in the central reservation along at least a hundred miles of the journey. It certainly brightens up the drive, and one supposes that at night it forms a useful screen against oncoming headlights.
In the section around Genova and beyond as we continue northwards, we lose count of the number of short and long tunnels we are driving through, but it is over a hundred.
After a day's travelling in hot sunshine (thank God for climate control in the car!) we drop down into Stresa and Lake Maggiore at about 4 p.m. The magic of this lake, with it's little communities dotted about in the middle of it on picturesque islands, and the backdrop of the mountains showing through the heat haze, is difficult to describe. The immediate impression is that we have landed in some kind of paradise. Stresa itself has a broad boulevard along the western shore of the lake with large and expensive looking hotels on one side of the road, and gardens on the other side, between the road the lake.
La Flora hotel is a decent looking little place, and our (air conditioned) room is on the second floor with a balcony overlooking the lake.
Evening dinner is disappointing (especially after the last place!) The dining room is in a basement without windows. It has bright yellow walls, bright lights, no candles, no flowers, and a total lack of "atmosphere". There are not many people in, and those that are there are getting on with their meals, and any talking is in hushed tones. The man who booked us in at Reception now appears as the Waiter. He is polite but without any of the charisma we have been accustomed to from "Mr Chips".
So dinner, then, in a brightly lit chapel of rest. The food is adequate but uninspiring. We sit down at 8 p.m., and it is all over by 9 p.m., by which time the dining room has emptied.
Back to the room, to spend the rest of the evening sitting on the balcony watching night descend over the lake. Street lights, and the lights in the houses on the islands, and the occasional boat chugging past, completes the picture. There is a railway line nearby, and the occasional alpine express thunders through on its way to or from Switzerland. We are close to the Swiss border here. We came through this place in the early hours Monday morning a week ago, on the Autotrein.
It turns out that our planned car journey back follows roughly the same route as that train.
Into the Mountains of Switzerland
Tuesday 29th August starts hot again. We have slept all night with the balcony door open. We are awake at 6.30 a.m., and looking out at the sun glinting on the mountain tops. There are already a few small boats on the move.
Breakfast turns out to be a more satisfactory affair than last night's dinner, with rolls, croissants, fruit tart, brioche, fresh fruit, fruit juices, jams, marmalade, ham, salami, cheeses, biscuits (sweet and savoury), and coffee - all good stuff.
We spend the rest of our Lire topping up the car at a local petrol station, and head off in the direction of the Swiss border (near a little place called Isella). Crossing the border is a very peremptory affair, and suddenly we are driving in deep gorges between steep sided mountains, and then the road begins to climb gently upwards. We are now treated to the novel site of roads passing through what might be described as "half-tunnels". Imagine being in a tunnel of rectangular cross section, but on one side the wall is just a series of large square openings between support pillars, looking out into the valley below. Unlike the Italian experience of boring through the middle of mountains, we are now travelling through galleries cut into the sides of them.
We continue to climb, hairpin bends, more "half tunnels", more hairpin bends, up and up and up. This goes on for several miles, and I suddenly discover why my automatic gearbox has manual settings for 1st, 2nd and 3rd gears - (never used at home). At a certain critical incline that goes on forever upwards for mile upon mile, with hairpin bends at frequent intervals, the automatic gearbox is called upon to perform beyond the normal call of duty and gets close to a nervous breakdown! You reach a speed at which the gearbox thinks it can safely change up, only to find that the incline has increased slightly, or you are approaching another bend and slowing down. Your choice is either to be constantly "kicking down" to force a lower gear, or stick it manually into either 3rd or 2nd. The latter is the preferred option, and you can proceed quite happily for miles.
We continue to climb, ears popping. Eventually we start dropping down into Brig, but we can hardly see the town at the bottom of the valley. We can see a train station, tracks and marshalling yards, but it all looks like a model railway from this vantage point. We now seem to be descending for ever, and things in the bottom of the valley aren't getting much bigger, but of course eventually we find ourselves driving into Brig, and I'm wondering how much of my brake pads have been worn away. Cars and trucks in Switzerland must get a hell of a pounding.
Now we take the road from Brig that heads for Luzern. Mountains on either side of us, cuckoo clock houses perched in unlikely situations on the mountain sides - property boundaries marked by a 600 ft sheer drop.
The Grimsel Pass - here we go again - we can see the road ahead zigzagging up the sheer face of a mountain. More low gear work, more hairpin bends. Where's the top? Why are there so many cyclists, for God's sake?! (Oh, darling - let's go on a cycling holiday - it's all pedal power so obviously we need to go to a country where there's not a single level piece of road!) These people must have about 106 gears on their bikes; they are pedalling all the way up this mountain pass with smiles on their faces!
Down, down, down the other side, ears under pressure - my voice is bouncing around the inside of my head. After half an hour downward travel, we level out on the valley bottom and stop at the first village for lunch at a small hotel surrounded by the towering peaks of near-vertical mountains. We try out our rusty German on the young waiter but he insists of speaking English - he is an Austrian in the middle of a tourism training course. We order a cheese sandwich which turns out to be great chunks of bread with a great pile of Swiss cheeses and onions, and enough chips to sink a ship.
After lunch, onwards to our destination - Brünig - on the Brünig Pass above the town of Meiringen.
We stop at a bank to change our remaining 700,000 Lire into Swiss Francs.
By 3 p.m. we reach our hotel for the next two nights - the Gasthous Brünig Kulm which is a traditional Swiss chalet style building perched near the top of the Brünig Pass, interposed between the main road (on a hairpin bend) and a short but sheer drop into steeply sloping fields below. On the other side of the valley the mountains rise to impressive peaks.
It is now much cooler than we have ever been on the holiday so far, and banks of clouds are enveloping parts of the mountains. There is a cool breeze. Evening Dinner in the hotel restaurant (great atmosphere, with large dining parties noisily enjoying themselves). 
I have prawn cocktail followed by veal cutlets, carrots, cauliflower and chips. Pauline has salmon. A bottle of white wine washes it down, and we finish up with ice cream and strawberry shortcake, then coffee and cognac.
An Excess of Cleanliness, Perfection & Trust
Wednesday 30th August - it's now quite cool first thing in the morning, though there's the promise of a hot day.
Breakfast at nine, after the hotel had fed and watered two early-morning coach parties. We enjoy a good selection of bread (a great improvement on the Tuscan version), croissants, ham, cheese, jam, and coffee.
So now, let's go for a look at the shops in Meiringen down in the valley.
Everything in this town is in apple pie order. There is not a thing out of place. There is no graffiti. There is no rubbish. People leave their bicycles outside shops unattended and unlocked. There are frequent bright yellow buses, and each one has a large rack on the back to carry either bikes or skis. There are pedestrian crossings every 50 yards or so, and nobody crosses the road other than by using one of these. You could eat your dinner off the surface of the road or footpath (except that you would probably be arrested for making a mess!)
I have it on good authority from someone who used to live in Switzerland that if you don't keep your windows clean your neighbours soon let you know about it. Are these people sanitised automatons of perfection?
We are sitting at a table outside a luxury hotel in the main street sipping coffee, when from inside we hear the almighty crash of a tray of glasses that has inconsiderately parted company with a waiter's hands. Instinctively we chuckle, but notice the man sitting at the next table turns and looks towards the hotel lobby with a face like thunder. Clearly this is not something to be laughed at - this disgraceful display of inefficiency and wastage of glassware.
Accent on International Relations
We are in a shop buying souvenirs and gifts for the people back home. The girl behind the counter reacts to my shaky German with an acknowledgement in English, and in an accent that could only have originated from over the other side of the Atlantic, asks us if we would like the goods gift wrapped.
"Yes please, and thank you for your English, and the American accent!"
The young lady's face visibly clouds over and she responds indignantly …
"I am no more American than you are Irish!! "
It turns out she's Canadian. Oh, well - some people are so sensitive about these things! She can tell the difference, but I can't. (I have the same difficulty between Australians and New Zealanders, but I understand it's not a good idea to get the two mixed up!)
After the shops we drive on to the next town out of curiosity - Lungern - where we shall have lunch. This town appears to be half dead and is clearly not on the tourist trail. We call in at a little café on a street corner for lunch. No English is spoken in here, but we get by well enough with our German to get ourselves served with beers, bratwurst and fried sliced potato in onion gravy for Pauline, and "Swissburger" mit Käse for me. The Swissburger's OK but I don't think that Ronald McDonald need lose any sleep!
The afternoon sees us back in Brünig where Pauline goes up to the hotel room for a rest, and I go walking up the mountain side for the opposite. Every walking route through the Swiss countryside benefits from Swiss precision. As we have previously found in Germany, every footpath is meticulously marked on maps, and, on the ground each one has clear signposts at every junction showing where the path will take you, and moreover, how many hours it will take you get there!
I take a path up through the woods behind the hotel and find myself on a 1 in 3 gradient that goes on pretty much for ever so far as I can see. I keep on climbing for 30 minutes in the fond expectation that around the next corner there will be some kind of plateau, or opening in the trees, where I can rest and gaze out across the valley from my own personal mountain top. Alas, the path just goes on up and up, steeply, through the trees. Eventually I lose the will to live and turn around to start fighting against gravity in the opposite direction, valiantly trying to stay upright. Falling over would be a mistake - this would rapidly turn into a "Swiss Roll".
Making a short diversion into a rough pasture strewn with rocks and boulders I find myself in the open sunshine, gazing at the mountain peaks. If ever there was a place to commune with God, this is it.
Close to the hotel there is a railway line and station, from which you catch a train down into Mereingen in one direction, and Luzern in the other. How the hell the trains get to be half way up this mountainside is beyond me, but I just have to accept that they do. Being a bit of a train fiend, I decide to wander round the station, and watch the next one come in. They are scheduled to arrive at 39 minutes past ever hour. Sure enough, at 39 minutes past the hour exactly, this beautiful streamlined luxurious train pulls in. People disembark, and some get on buses that have miraculously arrived at the station at the same time. (Swiss precision.)
Adjoining the station building is a shop selling antiques and bric-a-brac. Half of the stock is outside on the station platform, with an honesty box. Take what you want, look at the price ticket, pop your money in the box! At 11.30 p.m. I am taking a late-night stroll before turning in, and I return to the station. The shop is closed of course, but all this stuff is still outside. The outside lights come on as you approach, and the honesty box is still there if you want to buy something! (In England if you did this there'd be a couple of vans outside the place in two shakes of a guinea pig's narrative and they'd be off with all the goods!) (Swiss honesty.)
There's a soppy looking soft toy dog sitting in a cardboard box pleading with me to buy him, so I pick him up, pop the money in the honesty box, and take him back to the hotel for Pauline. She cuddles up to him, and we both have a good laugh at our childishness.
Swiss Micro-climate
There have been electrical storms all night and we wake up on Thursday 31st August to a cool morning.
Looking out of the window across the deep valley to the mountains on the other side, we suddenly find ourselves being treated to a spectacular weather display. To our left we can see thick fog falling into one end of the valley from a great height, almost like milk being poured from a jug. From our vantage point we cannot see the valley bottom, so we watch the fog descending out of sight, as the pouring action continues at one end. Then everything completely clears. A few minutes later a small puff of white mist rises into view from the valley bottom, and hangs suspended like a small cloud half way between the valley bottom and the tops of the mountains. After a few more minutes it has doubled in length. And then, in no time at all, it has developed into a thick "sausage" of white fog, still at the same level, but now extending all the way along the valley - clear above and clear below, but in between impenetrable fog.
All this has taken place in less than quarter of an hour - serving as a spectacular demonstration of how you can get trapped on a mountain side with all the wrong clothes and equipment.
After breakfast we check out and drive down through the fog into Meiringen. We are now on the next stage of our journey, which will take us along the south side of the twin lakes of Brienzersee and Tunersee separated by Interlaken, northwards to Bern and thence to Basel and into France.
Basel is a nightmare of complicated roads, most of which seem to be undergoing major reconstruction works. We desperately try to keep our eyes on signposts indicating the border crossing into France, and after seemingly going round in circles, doubling back on ourselves, and generally going every which way, we finish up at a Customs post, pass through without hindrance, but then find ourselves on a road that I had not planned to be on.
Good Food in a Rubbish Building
We are now in France but going the wrong way. Still, Pauline's map reading skills eventually get us back in our intended direction, and we find our road to Belfort where we decide to stop for lunch in a little café bar - Tagliatelli Carbonara and a couple of small beers. We spend the rest of the afternoon driving from Belfort to Chaumont - our next overnight stop.
Chaumont is a fairly big town with some beautiful gardens. We find our Hotel du Grand Val on the southern edge of town. It is a big building, of typical 1950s design - everything plain and rectangular. (Planners and architects of the 1950s, it seems to me - in many countries - suffered from some kind of creative blind spot. Anything square and concrete was "good". Every town in Britain - including the famous old historical towns like York, Chester, and Stratford-on-Avon have their fair share of 1950s eyesores. It's criminal.)
The hotel interior continued the 1950s theme with generous portions of chromium and plastic, and the restaurant walls are lined with Formica panels that are supposed to - but don't - look like wood.
For all this, the staff are friendly, and the Receptionist speaks excellent English, but for dinner that evening we have to dredge up our rusty French, since the waiter - a perfectly charming old fellow - cannot (or will not) speak English. We get on very well with him in our confused linguistic way, and the food is good. After my Sole Meuniere, green beans and french fries I decide to ask for the cheese board. France produces more than 450 varieties of cheese, and most of them seem to be on the platter presented to me. The waiter recommends some of the local cheeses, and they are good.
In France, unlike Britain, cheese precedes the sweet dessert, and is usually eaten with a knife and fork, without bread or crackers.
Back in the bedroom, we discover only one bed-side light works, the en-suite bathroom is so small that there is only room for a shower, and the bidet is underneath the wash basin on a pivot, so that it can be swung out. (Bidets are not commonly found in Britain, but I'm always glad to encounter them in mainland Europe, since they seem to me to encourage good hygiene where it matters. I think it is safe to say that the old joke about the average "Brit" thinking a bidet is something in which to wash your socks is now well past it's sell-by date. We all know it's for keeping your beer cans cold.)
Sloshing our way to Calais
Friday 31st August greets us with a cold black sky and an imminent threat of rain.
As soon as we are out of Chaumont and on the Autoroute for Calais the heavens open and we are sloshing our way through continual deluge most of the way to Calais. There is a bit of timely sunshine when we stop at a service area for some lunch, but it is very windy. The cafeteria is bursting at the seams, so we join a queue at a little stall outside serving sausages and frîtes.
Onwards to Calais and it's pouring with rain again. This is the worst weather we have seen for two weeks, and we suppose that as it's our last full day in mainland Europe we can count ourselves lucky that the rain held off for this long.
Arriving in the outskirts of Calais we refer to the directions given to us by our next (and last) French hotel. 
The Kyriad Hotel is supposed to be somewhere in Cocquelle and is said to be opposite a large supermarket. It takes half an hour of driving round local roads, none of which bear any resemblance to the directions given, until suddenly we can see a big hoarding with the name of the large supermarket, so we head for that, in the process of which we come across our hotel - which - you've guessed it - is nowhere near the supermarket, let alone opposite.
This is a pleasant hotel, and the restaurant specialises in Belgian dishes. We are gratified to find all the staff very polite and helpful, and speaking excellent English.
An excellent dinner of Steak au Poivre with frîtes and vegetables, with a bottle of wine, of course.
Killing Time by Killing the Wallet
Saturday 1st September is the day we re-cross the Channel for England, but we are booked on Le Shuttle for 4 p.m., and we have nearly a full day to indulge in "Retail Therapy" at the huge and magnificent Cité d'Europe shopping mall situated near the Tunnel Terminal.
Actually you have to visit this place just look at the toilets! I cannot speak for the "Femmes" of course, but the "Hommes" is the closest thing to the Starship Enterprise I've ever been in. It is vast and curvy, the lighting is concealed, and the ceiling is black with twinkling "stars". Approach a futuristic looking urinal and it flushes. Move away from it and it flushes again. Go to the washbasins stick you hands under a tap and the water flows. Tired of waiting for cubicle? Relax on one of the upholstered seats.
At one end of this shopping mall there is a replica of a small town square, surrounded by places to eat and drink. Parisian style café bars, an Irish Pub and an English Pub. Outside one of the café bars we sit and consume our last continental meal, omelette and frîtes, washed down with Belgian beer.
Random Security Checks - Guess who looked a bit random?
Pauline is driving us through French Customs point at the Tunnel Terminal and a Gendarme pulls us out of the queue and directs us into an inspection bay for a security check. It is the second time this has happened to us - last year the same thing happened on the English side. We must have suspicious looking faces.
We get out of the car while the gun-toting gendarmerie open up the boot and the bonnet to inspect luggage and engine respectively. Pauline asks one of the gendarmes if he would like the offside rear door opened. He says "no" and immediately walks round to the other side of the car and opens the nearside rear door. I like the devious way their brains work!
Anyway, it's all over after about 10 minutes, and there hasn't been too much disturbance of our possessions. I do not resent this little diversion. In fact it is encouraging to know that these checks are made. The more the better as far as I am concerned.
We drive on to the train, and it pulls out promptly at 4 p.m. Within 30 minutes we are in England, drawing into the Folkestone Terminal. It is now 3.30 p.m. British Time, so we've arrived half an hour before we left.
Back on English roads, and the first roundabout we come to I find myself looking in the wrong direction for approaching traffic.
Within 15 minutes we are booking in at our Folkestone Travel Inn for one more night before the journey northwards back to Yorkshire.
Gastronomic Indulgence
On Sunday 2nd September, before leaving the Travel Inn we treat ourselves to the full English Breakfast - we had, after all, worked our way through 14 Continental Breakfasts and so now was the time to throw caution to the winds at least once and lay into fried eggs, bacon, fried bread, hash browns, fried tomatoes and sausage, followed by several rounds of toast and marmalade.
It's hard work, but somebody has to do it.
The end of a memorable holiday.
Back to Yorkshire. Roast beef and Yorkshire Pudding next Sunday?
Back to work.
I hope you enjoyed the trip as much as we did.