Thank you all for the kind responses
It was definitely the best holiday I've been on and the best thing was at the end of each day, I still had my car parked just outside, I imagine its like bringing a pet cat on holiday... Which I almost killed on the last day.
I made a mistake thinking Luxembourg city was 4 hours from Dunkerque, where we'd get the ferry(From a quick google maps search)... however when we left the hotel with just over 4 hours to spare, but whem i'd set up the sat nav with the actual address from the hotel, it was nearer 5 hours. So, It was either get there an hour late, miss the ferry and pay another £80, but get there safely or drive like an absolute animal, to cut the ETA down by an hour and maybe risk a £80 fine. So It was a busy afternoon, hit some bad traffic on the way, It was the most intense drive of my life, that went on for 4 hours.. Near the end I was getting stressed and tired, mentally, the brakes were fading from the heavy braking (not helpedby having the car loaded).. about 5 miles from the ferry port there was a short dual carriage way, I was overtaking two caravans, and going for a corsa, I was either gonna brake hard and slot behind the first caravan or keep my foot down and take all before the roundabout, (because the dual carriageway merges into a single lane just before the roundabout). Completely misjudged it and had to squeeze in between the 2nd caravan, but behind the corsa, the brakes were just completely faded, it did not slow down and I was ready to plough into it... and I would have, just with some luck there was nothing on the roundabout and the corsa moved out the way just in time for me to slip up the inside of it on the roundabout. I must have looked like a massive ****, but got there 10 minutes before the ferry left, enough time to quickly apologise to the caravan behind (who made it onto the same ferry anyway
). After getting over the fact that my **** up nearly hurt people and couldve ruined everything and admitting that maybe we should have just set for a later ferry in the first place,(We would have missed it anyway with all the traffic)..
I was just looking at my cat, all spattered in flies, parked beside a 12 plate bmw 330d and behind a new shape mondeo in the ferry.. and I thought to myself;
This is a 14 year old car, it has just been through 11 countries, some seriously rough roads and hot climates. And today, after constant high speeds, caning it for hours... this is actually the first time its had the chance to stop since leaving Luxembourg 4 hours ago.. Yet its sat in here just as chilled out as any other car. Good car, proud little moment... but I definitely needed bigger brakes!
Oh and that reminds me, I recently stole this v6 mot failure, modelled by the neighbours cat:
For £140
for the spoiler, lights, the brakes and the wheels which arent so boring as mine. (Dont know if this one's known to the club)
What a fantastic road trip. Great pic's. Shame about the only other coug you saw in Italy. Why was he not happy with you coming back past him and giving him the thumbs up? or is that something rude in Italy? LOL!!!!
I was just creeping past him awkwardly in traffic, I think I must have just came across as overly happy to see his and he just didnt share the same enthusiasm - he looked at me as if he probably thought i was crazy
Thought i'd share this too. Was surreal reading this from my dashboard! Think this was in Naples, around the hottest it got on the trip. Air con was on max!
