If you could choose anywhere in the world, where would it?
The drive south from Luzern was spectacular, really quite outstanding. Our first diversion was for Rodney to nose around Weggis for a while, to find the apartment that his family stayed at when he was only six years old; we think we found it. The road wound its way around the eastern edge of the lake in perfect fashion, through pretty villages, and all the time we were surrounded with magnificent views of the mountains around us.
I have to admit to not particularly enjoying the St Gotthard Tunnel; all 17 kilometres of it at 80kms per hour. It was dimly lit, dismal, gloomy and a bit scary, though I’m not sure what else I expected of such a place. “Is there light at the end of the tunnel?” she whimpered. Thankfully there was, and as we exited back out into the fresh air, I noticed Rodney’s shoulders relax just a little. Towards Bellinzona, endless waterfalls cascaded down both sides of the steep gorge and there were many tiny churches precariously perched on rocky outcrops, seemingly nowhere near any settlements.
By the time we reached Bellinzona, it felt more like Italy, though we were still in Switzerland; Most of the signage was in Italian and sometimes in both Italian and German, but the rain now coming down was in the language of the world. And the next morning we were woken by the heavy raindrops falling on Eileen’s roof. I hate rain. The morning drive through the Italian Lakes area, was wet with grey clouds sprawling down the sides of the hills towards us. There would be no snow-capped mountains to gaze upon today.
We reached Italy around 10:30am and fifteen-minutes later paid our first autostrada toll; €2.30 please. We need to use the motorways if we are ever going to get all the way to Sicily, so we’re having a bet on how much we’ll have paid in tolls, by the time we get there. By 11:30am we had cleared Milan and headed across the Po Valley. At midday, south of Piacenza, we were stationary in three lanes of solid traffic, but we cheered up when Nicky phoned us up from Brittany; thanks for the call, Nicky. All up, we managed to get from Luxembourg to Bologna on one full tank of diesel, not bad. Getting close to Florence, we turned off the autostrada at Roncobilaccio and I leaned out of the window to put our ticket into the machine to pay our third toll. The ticket went in, but the €50 note wouldn’t go in. The ticket came out, I pushed it in again, but the note still wasn’t accepted. I repeated this over and over, then pressed various buttons, but still no luck. Finally, a man’s voice came from the sky “Where are you from?” Being thoroughly frustrated and irritated by now I shouted “Australia”. Doh!!! He didn’t laugh, he just calmly said “No, today, on the autostrada?” By now Rodney had jumped out and walked round to my side and shouted “Milan”, at which point the ticket went back in and a request for €18.90 appeared on the screen, the €50 note was gobbled, and the change spewed out. We both then cracked up with laughter as a female voice said “Arrividerci”………..
