The Road Trip


"We just caught a road trip mate" - Tim Heron, somewhere on the road between Aachen and Milano, February 23-25, 2004

Well, like my good friend Tim said in the abstract, we just caught a road trip.

But, all good stories start at the start, so here it goes. We had the week off, and sometimes you just have to take advantage of these things. We decided to catch a roadtrip. At first we didn't really have a destination, we just wanted to go somewhere, anywhere.

There was a couple of things that had to be decided first though. We needed to figure out who the "we" included, we needed a car, cause roadtrips are difficult without cars, and we needed a destination. Nothing to particular, just a general direction was fine, so we decided "south" as our destination. It was then decided that the only people who were (fool)hardy enough to go on a roadtrip with a destination of "south" were Tim (the Aussie), Geoff (the Canadian), and me (the Canadian). We found a deal at the rental car place, for 3 days Monday to Thursday (I know that that is 4 days, but it was for 72 hours, and if you do the math it works out).

So, having all the important things decided upon, we picked up a map, chose a route that was off of the major highways, but still mainly on roads, and prepared to embark one of the greatest roadtrips ever.

We left Vaals at 1100 Monday. We picked up our car, a VW Touran, at the rental agency, and were off by 1300. Now, the Touran is a nice vehicle. It is kind of a blend between a station wagon and a minivan, but it was perfect for a roadtrip that was attempting to go over the alps and all the way to Milano. The only problem with it was that it was a standard. This wasn't really a problem until 60 km down the road, the clutch went. And when I say the clutch went, I mean it was gone. We couldn't drive at all. So there we are, in Belgium, with a busted down car. The only thing to do is to call the rental agency. After a very confusing 5 hours, somebody shows up to tow our car and get us a new one. Well, kinda. It turns out the only people the rental agency could find were some tractor mechanics in the next town. The were great guys, one of them was a rally car driver, and we hung out there for a while, just talking. Eventually we called a cab, and went back to Aachen. We got a new car from the rental agency, a Reunot Migane, and by 2200 hours we were off again. Now there was some debate about whether or not to actually start the trip, or to just go home and start tomorrow. But, we were all eager to head off, so it was decided that the road trip would continue.

That night we drove all the way to the border of Switzerland. We stopped just outside Bern and stayed at a place that cost 25 Euro a night TOTAL. That is 8.30 Euro for each of us. And yes, it was as delightful as it sounds.

The next day we drove through Switzerland (at the cost of 30 Euro for a one year highway pass) and entered Italy. We made it all the way to Milano, just in time for rush hour. So we wandered around the city a bit, and then decided that we lived for the road. So it was back in the car again. We headed west through the top of Italy, and then headed up through a bit of France before stopping just outside of Geneva, Switzerland. It was along this stretch of road that

Posted: Wed - February 25, 2004 at 04:47 PM      

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