The plan

Drive to Italy, tour Italy, drive back via France

After much pleading, I managed to get three weeks off in September. Unfortunately, due to other staff having already booked leave, I couldn’t start the holiday any earlier. This would give us Saturday to get to Monza, nearly 1000 miles. Ouch.

Thankfully, I have a very understanding boss, and a cunning plan! I normally work from home on a Friday, doing reports and other paperwork. So I’ll work on my laptop, in the car, on the Friday whilst Na drives us to the Channel Tunnel. Then it’ll be on to Belgium and a campsite near Spa (obviously), where my holiday will officially start. We’ll then set off early from Belgium to drive to somewhere near Lake Como. Porsche, please don’t break on either of these days!

Sunday will be the F1, a first for both of us so we are massively excited.

After that, we’ll stay over to Monday, maybe Tuesday to recover, before heading off on our tour of the rest of Italy!

Our rough plan is to head over to Venice, via the Stelvio pass (it’s almost on the way, right!?) Then head down the east coast/middle of Italy, stopping at campsites or hotels as available. Oh yes, I forgot, the Porsche needs to fit all our camping gear as well! Then, depending on time/tiredness/funds, at some point we’ll cross to the west coast and head back up. On to Monaco to drive the track if we can, then back up through France via Le Mans to Cherbourg, and the Ferry back to the UK.

The idea being we’re free to do what we want, no pressure to get to booked campsites or hotels, and we can cut the amount of (Italian) driving by almost half if we want to by cutting across earlier.

Sounds relaxing, if you don’t count the mileage.

The Car

A few things were decided early on about what car to take.

It should…

•          be equal to or less than the value of the vehicles sold to pay for it (Mx5, BMW E30 and Yamaha YBR 125) Circa £2500-£3000
•          be convertible
•          have aircon
•          look good in photos
•          have decent fuel economy
•          be comfortable over long distances
•          have space for luggage/bringing back lots of wine
•          be reliable, but cheap to fix if needed
•          be subtle, so as not to draw too much attention to a British car in Italy

So, the natural choice was a bright yellow Porsche…

Subtle

Two out of nine ain’t bad, right?!

On the plus side, it has two boots, and two cup holders! 

Negatives? It threw up its steering fluid all over the garage floor the first time I parked it. Then it cost £900 to fix the steering rack. 

Hmm. Whose idea was this?

A potted history

Italian Road Trip 

A potted history up to this point:

Mrs Quikcurl (aka Na – pronounced Nay, and short for Nano (Nayno) – Nobody knows why this is her nickname, or why it has dodgy spelling!) had always planned to travel after Uni, and instead married me. 

We thought ‘work for a few years, save up, then go travelling’. Easy.

Well, of course, that didn’t happen. Na started a PGCE the year we married, then quit it when she decided teaching (in the UK at least) is not for her. 

I struggled to find a job out of Uni (thanks, global financial crisis!) and we found ourselves a couple of years down the line before I found a decent job. 

I worked as a Software Developer for a couple of years, but gradually got bored and wanted a change. Around the same time, Na’s Mum wanted to retire, and wondered what to do with her Chiropody business. Aha! This could be an option! The catch? We were in Norfolk; the business was in South Wales!

After much deliberation, Nano spent a year training as a Chiropodist, and soon after finishing, we made the move to Wales, and she started working alongside her mum. I found a job in a Civil Engineering field, with more time out of the office (and a much nicer office in the Welsh Countryside to boot!).

Fast forward to now, and because of the business, not a lot of holiday has been taken since moving. Around 9 months ago, the OH and I were discussing putting this right, and what we could do for a holiday. We both turned 30 this year, and haven’t had a ‘proper’ holiday since our honeymoon back in 2009.

At the time, New Top Gear, and The Grand Tour was on telly, and we’d often talked about emulating a daft challenge. Of course, this meant a road trip, but where to? Idly looking at a map, we decided it should be far enough away to be a decent adventure. Also, it should be somewhere neither of us had been.

Deciding where to go wasn’t too difficult, the last holiday (3 days) had been to Poland, in February, so we were due a holiday in the sun. The Med is nice, and not too far away…

We settled on Italy.

Now, like all software developers (even ex-ones) this is where the feature creep started.

‘If we’re going to Italy, why not go for the F1?’

‘If we’re going that far we need a decent amount of time, can you get three weeks off work?’

‘Which car will we take? The Mx5 is too small, the Land Rover too slow, the Lexus too thirsty, the Cactus has a 10,000 mile/yr limit, and the BMW is too unreliable! Maybe we should buy something?’

…and so, a simple holiday turned into a rather large undertaking!