Switzerland, France, Italy
Next morning, we were finally able to get some gas and continue on to Aigle, where Catherine very kindly took us in and allowed us to shower and rest up! Repackaging the car, we realised how much luggage the Cerbie could swallow. Oh, and we gave it a bath too, right in front of the jobsworth who wouldn’t let us use his facilities. Switzerland is picture perfect at every turn. We were in Geneva in no time, and after toying with a Countach and eating touristy food and impressing the people at Patek Philippe, we carried on. We had a couple more countries to cover!
France was a rude shock. No sooner had we crossed the border than Tommy got pulled over for speeding at 130mph in an 80km/h zone. Oh dear…the gendarmes were not too amused. They wanted to fine us $1,000 and arrest Tommy, but my broken French and Tommy’s American charm (err, I am a poor student.—this sports car does not really belong to me!) won the day and we were let off with a warning and a 600 FF ($100) fine.
Making up for all the time lost dealing with the pesky police meant more mad speeding—we managed to overtake a Porsche Turbo that was trying its best not to let us. And we found that the mountain tunnel we wanted to use was closed for repairs after a fire last year (seem to remember reading about that) so we then went even faster to another tunnel that was further south. When I fell asleep, Tommy took a right instead of a left around Chambery, so you can imagine the speeds we did to make up for all the delays. I think we burnt through 6 tanks of fuel. Great views everywhere.
We crawled into Bologna late at night and went to sleep as soon as we checked into our hotel. We didn’t want to sleep in too late and miss our Ducati factory tour scheduled for the next day!
