We left home on Thursday, 6th September and returned after twelve nights, Tuesday 18th September. 
  
Of the thirteen days we were away we drove on nine days covering a total of 1,677 miles.
 
Petrol: we used a smidge over 528 litres equivalent to 116 gallons, mostly regular unleaded, which came to the princely sum of £772 and works out at 14.46 miles per gallon. We spent £84 on tolls.
 
Roads & Driving
France has that great list of requirements we have to take with us on French roads but in all our time there we only saw one police car. Undoubtedly the best driving roads were in France, both in terms of weight of traffic and the quality of driving – no more mad French driving, all calm and mostly within the 130kmh speed limit.

Belgium stood out as slightly crazy drivers and road manners. It is very odd how one moves from one country to
another, obviously these days with no border, and the driving changes dramatically. And then we get into the Netherlands and sweetness and calm is restored again. 

Italy was busy but I generally thought their roads were nice and smooth and the traffic volume was really pretty good (apart from Genoa, middle of the day, Saturday). 
 
I really believe German motorway driving is outrageous. As far as I was aware I was driving on roads with a 130kmh speed limit (about 80mph) and I was regularly being passed at speeds which must have been close to 120mph. The fact that the roads are only two lanes makes them much more dangerous and I do believe a lot of the road-works I saw were to add another lane. The mind boggles at the speeds they will be driving with three
lanes!
 
The End
 I do believe this will be my last major tour in the Daytona. As brilliant as the car is and as much as I love driving it I must admit that there is always a tiny nagging part of my brain wondering if something is going to break, if it is not going to start, if someone is going to drive into us whilst we are stationary (as someone very nearly did at a service station, they must have ended up half-an-inch from me). And after a while, day over day, this little nag gets a bit tiresome. 
 
I have now completed 20,000 miles in the Daytona, next year I will do concours again, I always enjoy that, and then I might think about a bit of a cosmetic tart up. Then again, I said pretty much exactly the same thing after the last tour three years ago. So watch this space!  

To Home - West Sussex, England

Last night’s Hostelleire was actually a tad scruffy around the edges but the kitchen was great. It was a fine way to finish the trip with some great French cooking, good wine and a couple of glasses of champagne. Breakfast was pretty splendid too and we were out the hotel and on the road at 10:00. We had a Eurotunnel crossing booked for 14:50 but we are always early.
 
So we followed sat-nav lady through Epernay towards Reims, picked up the new carpet smooth section of the A4, paid a 40 cent toll and then picked up the A26 and the signs for Calais. Once again the French autoroute was wonderful, cruising at 80 mph, very light traffic, a few road works but traffic is so light we just reduce speed but carry on through, not even the hint of a jam. Another positive spin off to the light traffic is the service areas are also quiet, no queues for the pumps; we saw some huge queues in Germany a couple of days ago. So all in all I am once again a huge fan of motoring in France, we had travelled pretty much 400 French motorway miles from Phalsburg to Calais over two days and not been close to a jam.
 
We rocked up at the Tunnel Sous La Manche at just past 13:00, were offered a place on the 13:50 crossing, an hour earlier than my booking. We crawled through customs and passport control and then drove haltingly onto the train. Twelve days ago when we left Blighty I had a close call when the car very nearly didn’t start when it came to drive off the train, there was no reason at all to suspect it might happen again but I was still massively relieved to reach Folkestone, the car started and we drove off without a hitch (but some relief!). Sun was shining, the M20, M25 and M23 were closer to German traffic volumes than French but we were home within two hours. We left our hotel in France at 10:00 and were at home 15:00 on the dot having covered 291 miles.    
 
After removing the copious amount of luggage we had managed to cram in plus the odds and ends we acquired along the way I gave the car a very good clean and it now resembles more the multiple concours winning car it is rather than a car that has covered 969 miles over the last four days from Lake Garda to home. It really is a stunningly beautiful, incredibly capable bit of kit. 

Mileage at the end of day: 58,774
Distance covered: 191 French miles, 100 of your English miles, 466 KM total
Three hours on the French side, two hours on our side

Highlight of the day: Completing our journey without incident
Lowlight of the day: Struggling.....slightly grumpy French petrol cashier didn’t smile as much as she might. 
 
Petrol: getting expensive – French Super at 1.73 EUR per litre; cost 110 EUR. Then almost ran dry and filled up at home, cost £119!!

To Hostellerie La Briqueterie, near Epernay, France

Well the Soldat might have been quiet, but as Susan said, The French just do the country hotel so much better than the rest. The room was lovely and for breakie this morning we were offered pate foie gras (we didn’t actually have any), scrambled eggs with freshly grated black truffle, crepes with brown sugar, heavenly pastries, a sublime yoghurt/fruit/nut combo, lovely home-made jam and finally Susan got a decent cup of tea. And they are rarer than hen’s teeth!
 
I rolled out of the restaurant at just after 10 and gave the windows a good wipe over. Whenever I make use of my
collapsible bucket it seems to amuse Susan enormously, hence the photos, but it has been a very useful and practical bit of kit. 
 
We were on the road just before 10:30 and I shall never ever suggest that driving in France could be boring. After the nightmare autobahns of yesterday the autoroute was deserted. Is it because of the tolls? Do the French not get out a lot? The A4 is a major road from the south east up to Paris but it was blissfully quiet. We were cruising steadily at 130kmh, the engine is working at about 3,200 rpm and everything is just about perfect at this speed. Road noise is OK, windows partially open for a pleasant draft, temp gauge rock solid at 170, oil pressure a smidge over 70, oil temp hardly registering (there is litres of super expensive racing gear in there), ammeter dead on zero; it all feels so lovely and planted. The engine noise is barely audible, but give it a bit of gas up to 90-100 mph the engine just drives the car on with a hint of that incredibly smooth turbine whine. It feels and sounds wonderful.    

So with no traffic we made good time and actually got to our hotel early afternoon. This is another one I was not so sure about but it has turned out to be very pleasant too. And it has a quality French restaurant, so for the first time in days we have brought the hangers in from the back shelf of the car and will get togged up in some decent clobber for our final night’s dinner. Susan is very happy too as there is a “Spa” and as I am writing this she is having something very expensive and lengthy (1 hour 15 minutes) done to her toenails.....beats me! 
 
Tomorrow we have another shortish run up to Calais for the train home. With a lot of stops and a lot of miles it feels like we have been away a long time, but I know for sure, that once we are home it will all feel like a bit of a dream. Anyway, one more gastronomic night and a breakie to go! 
 
Mileage at the end of the day: 58,482
Distance covered: 189 miles, 302 KM
Barely three hours with one petrol stop.
 
Highlight of the day: Unquestionably motoring in France, we spent 20 EUR on tolls, but what value for
money!
Lowlight of the day: There hasn’t been one yet.......nope, can’t come up with one. Will see how dinner goes
and how Susan has got on with her toenails. 
 
Petrol: one stop in France at 1.68 a litre; cost 79.21 EUR. 
I brought 800 EUR for petrol and tolls and I have the princely sum off 55 EUR left. So we might not actually get home at all!

To Chateaux du Soldat de l’An 11 – Phalsbourg, France

Zugspitze turned into another Fawlty Towers experience to actually make our first hotel the Vos & Ben seem like a model of professionalism. Things just went from bad to worse I can’t be bothered to go through it all but I must tell of the final indignity. I had parked in a very nice underground car park and when I attempted to leave the automated door would not open. I was on an extremely steep slope, engine running waiting for help to arrive, which never came. And since the hand brake hardly holds the car on the flat I gingerly reversed down the slope to wait. Then a German VW Beetle man (new version!) told me to turn off the engine (it does rather chuck out the fumes) but I took this as some sort of veiled insult to my V12 and so gave him both barrels. A couple of young hotel lads appeared and finally managed to get the door moving and we eventually made our escape though not in the best of humours.
  
At the end of the day though this is what a Euro tour is all about. One never knows what the weather will do, one
never quite knows how the car is going to handle the conditions and the miles, one never knows what the roads are going to be like, whether driver and passenger will consume one another and inevitably the end of day hotel becomes a gamble too. (And the English breakfast tea is always a complete lottery!) But it certainly all adds to the flavour.

The drive away from Garmisch was about as nice a drive as we have had, beautiful Alpine scenery for the first 25 miles, during which time our usual serene calmness was restored. We eventually picked up the Autobahn and that was pretty lovely too. However, the German motorway was infuriatingly inconsistent; we would cruise for 20-25 miles at 80-90mph, being overtaken by the Audi estates at 120mph+ and then we would continually hit a
build up of traffic or road works. I have suggested in the past that the German roads are most like ours, very very heavy traffic and loads of road works to put a spanner in the works. More road works than ours I would say, BUT they can do a very good motorway stop, quality loos at 70 cents a pop. 
 
We were heading into France very near Strasbourg, and mid afternoon we got onto the French motorway and immediately the traffic disappeared, it is completely bizarre, one minute German high speed chaos, next minute glorious French open spaces. Is it the tolls? I have no idea, but it was lovely to be paying and back in France.

We were headed towards a hotel I found in Phalsbourg, I returned to this booking a number of times as I was unsure about it for some reason but it turned out to be the nicest room we have stayed in. Unfortunately we are the only ones in the hotel and the restaurant is closed on Sundays. Phalsbourg tends to be a wee bit quiet at this time of year. The other positive about this place is that it is just off the A4 and tomorrow we are heading for Reims, so we are well set.
 
Miles at the end of day: 58,293
Distance covered: 286 miles, 457 KM
Six and a half hours with two petrol stops.
 
Highlight of the day: Driving in France again and our room at the hotel Chateaux du Soldat.
Lowlight of the day: Continual German autobahn traffic congestion and road-works.
 
Petrol: one fill-up in Germany at a very reasonable 1.59 EUR per litre and another on the autobahn at 1.80 EUR per litre. When putting on a few miles and filling up more than once a day the fuel cost goes through the roof; total cost on the day 186 EUR.  

To The Hotel Zugspitze – Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany

We breakfasted on the Villa Guilia terrace right on the Lake in the best weather since we had arrived. We tore
ourselves away and hit the road at 10:15 and set off along the lake up to Garda Del Riva and then continued another 25/30 miles on smaller roads towards the motorway at Trento. Whilst we are heading home Garmisch is pretty much due north of Lake Garda, so it is a roundabout route but we are in search of beauty and so headed for the mountains. 
 
Initially we were driving past vineyards, lemon groves and whatever it is called where olives are grown. It was
a lovely drive and it continued on the motorway. There was a lot of traffic at times but it generally moved pretty well and there was not a single miles where the view was less than spectacular. According to my calculations the drive should have taken 3 ½ hours but we were in the car for 5, with just one stop for petrol and a very sharp comfort stop. 
 
If there is another two hundred motorway drive in Europe which is comparable I would like to hear about it; then drive it. I did this drive three years ago with my son when the weather was pretty grotty, this time it was quite brilliant. 
 
Our hotel room has a bit of a smell about it, not a good one, but I am actually too tired to complain. I am struggling to make an internet connection too. But the view from the window/balcony is lovely and I have a five course dinner on my room rate, of which I was unaware. So we will make do with the pong. No, it was all too much, we moved room....internet connection still rubbish, so I am posting this from the wireless connection in the lobby; it really is not good enough. But all is sweet smelling now, at least.

Miles at the end of day: 58,007 (we did 17 miles around Gargnano yesterday)
Distance covered: 189 miles, 302 KM 
 
Highlight of the day: Every single one of the 189 miles covered.
Lowlight of the day: The Zugspitz pong
 
Petrol in Italy is still outrageously expensive at 1.95 EUR a litre, I thought I only needed a top up but I spent 135
EUR!

Will try and add some of Susan's excellent "on the road" photos tomorrow.

I am a keen photographer, as you may have gathered from my website; not necessarily good but keen. And in my keenness I am continually searching for the one great photo of my car. To that end we scouted around  Gargnano (still no idea!) and got up bright and early this morning before any sensible person on holiday and took a few snapshots around the town. We also drove along the lake up into the village of Tignale, which my guide book described as an “ultra steep climb”, in the hope that we might get something of a lake back-drop. And as is always the case when trying just a bit too hard, the photos are OK but not great. Then I took a few more back at the hotel under the loggia. I have posted some below.
  
Tomorrow we leave Garda and start the homeward journey.   

Wasn’t going to post today, but I thought I would share some of the delights of the Italian Lakes. As I suggested yesterday I had the inkling that there might be some very nice scenery around and after the clouds cleared this morning we took a boat out onto the Lake and there absolutely was. Susan and I saw Lake Como when we did the Super Car Run, I have seen Maggiore when I did Maranello in my 355 with a friend (the one who forgot his licence!) and along with Garda they are perfectly wonderful and beautiful places. Garda is huge, we are half way along the western edge of the lake in Gargnano (though we still have no idea how to pronounce it; a boat man asked us today on our way back where we were heading, was a tiny bit embarrassing, then again he might have a similar issue with Slough) it is a picture book of a town and all along the coast are similar stunning sights.

And it is my birthday today, so as a treat to me I got my collapsible bucket out and gave the car a good clean; car
looks great and the bucket is a wonder of modern technology.

After four nights of uber luxury (and expense) we are on our merry way, towards home, though I do not feel we are exactly “homeward bound” just yet. We are heading for Lake Garda where we plan to chill out for a few days by the lake, before setting off for home. We were, as ever, up and away pretty sharpish driving out of the Villa San Michele at 08:30 on the dot. We planned for a short stop in Maranello – 16,659 was going home. I was determined to avoid driving anywhere near Florence and so we were directed down some very charming, narrow Italian B roads before managing to pick up the motorway. It seems that people take for granted that we all love to drive on tiny, windy, sharp-bended roads but I do not when I am in the Daytona. Plenty of long and smooth Autostrade is a much better proposition. And that was what we eventually got, and lot’s of tunnels and some very nice views too. 

BUT I still could NOT find bloody Maranello, even with the help of sat-nav lady. We got there in the end but it was still a long and hot struggle, peppered with u-turns. We made a fleeting visit to the Museum (not the Galleria any more), the shop, bought nothing and were on our way in one-and-a- half hours. One thing I do always manage is to get out of Maranello and we were very soon on another very fine Autostrade heading up to Verona. This was a really pleasant drive, windows open not very much over 70mph, plenty of fast and aggressive Italian driving going on, loads of lorries again but it all seemed to work pretty well.

Off the motorway and heading towards Lake Garda and there seemed to be all this black cloudy stuff on the horizon. The last few days all that mist should have been burnt off by the sun long ago, but it was a tiny bit more substantial than that, it was rain cloud that we would have been proud of at home. Accordingly it started to chuck it down and carried on for the next few hours, thunder, lightening the lot. We got to the hotel with just the one u-turn (u-turns are my daily work-out) parked under a very drippy loggia, unloaded again and are safely ensconced in another very pleasant hotel room. Not quite the view of the lake I was expecting, but it is there just through the window. And the hotel lady assures us it will be much better weather tomorrow, I hope she is right. Last time I was here, three years ago touring with my son we had dreadful weather. I am quite sure we are surrounded by some stunning scenery, I only hope over the next day or so I get the chance to see it. 
 
Mileage at the end of the day: 57,804
Distance covered: 206 miles, 330 KM 
 
More petrol at 1.99 EUR per litre, but I realised I am paying through the nose so that a very nice Italian man can “fill ‘er up”. Should I go back to self-service, I will save a few cents per litre.
 
Highlight of the day: Italian Autostrade; smooth, little traffic and only about 14 euros in tolls. Excellent value!
Lowlight of the day: Failing, yet again, to find my way into Maranello.

Another ambition on this trip was to see the Michelangelo masterpiece David. It is quite overwhelming and worth the visit to Florence in itself. Unfortunately photography is not allowed and one of the abiding memories of the visit will be the Italian museum wardens screaming “no photos!!!” The photos I did take of David are of a copy in one of the main squares in Florence. After David we climbed the bell tower (a lot of steps) for a wonderful view of the Duomo and the rest of the city.
 
Now it is time to pack, for sure I am looking forward to getting back on the road. Tomorrow we will head for Maranello for a quick visit, then on to Lake Garda for another few days. I am quite glad the city leg of the tour is over. Now we plan a very relaxing time by the lake, hopefully a trip on the lake by boat/taxi and I also hope to do a bit of driving and get some decent photos.

Highlight of the day: David, David, David
Lowlight of the day: Feeling ripped off after being charged EUR 19.50 for a tiny espresso, coke and orange juice.  

I first saw details of the Hotel Villa San Michele some years ago. At that time, when I checked the prices I had no
idea that hotels could actually cost so much, I genuinely thought the website must be broken, but it became something of an ambition to visit. So, on our final Daytona tour (I did say "final" three years ago) there seemed no better place to head for. 

The hotel is situated on a hill directly overlooking Florence with stunning views. It was a 15th century monastery
and it is claimed the front of the hotel was designed by Michelangelo; it certainly looks old enough in places and the rooms are austere enough for a monk, except for the wide screen TV, I suppose. But all in all it is a very lovely hotel.

Florence is simply stunning, I had seen pictures of the Duomo and the famous red brick dome but I did not realise the whole exterior was made of green and white marble. It is an amazing sight. We spent a couple of hours in the Uffizi packed with iconic works of art by Leonardo de Vinci, Botticelli, Caravaggio, Giotto, Donatello, etc. etc. And tomorrow we have an appointment to see David (the Michelangelo David). Today we have an appointment with Gucci, Ferragamo, Prada, etc. etc.    
 
Cleaned the car last evening, was really quite grubby but looked really good afterwards (has to look it’s best for our impending visit to Maranello) and the collapsible bucket was a real success.
 
There have been some nice cars in the car park and in particular a fabulous Bentley Continental Convertible (1 of 11). I have just been chatting to the owner; he has driven from England via Andorra to Monza for F1. After leaving here he is driving down to Rome, over to Capri and then back to England. What an amazing trip in an amazing car. As we left the hotel this morning someone had attached a note to his windscreen complimenting the car and offering to buy it, cost no object. Don’t know if the note writer knew it might be the best part of a million quid, give or take. But it is that sort of hotel!
 
Highlights of the past two days:
Yesterday - Toss-up between using my collapsible bucket and Botticelli’s Birth of Venus. 
Today - Bentley Continental Convertible & Daytona side by side with a Florence backdrop.

 Lowlights of the past two days: Really struggling to find any......did have a cold cup of coffee in a street cafe today. That’s about it.