Rust 2 Rome A minimal effort blog.

Every holiday I swear to keep a holiday diary, and I have a shelf of unfinished ones – the first pages all whimsical prose getting progressively shorter and shorter until they peter out halfway through the trip. Or sooner. Occasionally I’d do them as blogs, with photos! But they still never get finished, closer, but no cigar.

Still.
Look!
An Epilogue!

I mentioned at the start that we had history with this car but I excluded most of April and May which I spent cursing the thing as I (and mainly my long suffering mechanic) chased down various oil leaks, water leaks and then spent a while re-attaching various bits of trim and bodywork. Honestly I didn’t think it woud make Dover, let alone manage nearly 5000 miles.

I’m not one for superstition (ask the Americans from day XI) but since we sent off the car has sat flat out for hours along French motorways, it’s chased supercars up and down Alpine passes with a foot buried firmly in the carpet, it’s sat in Roman traffic for hours at 35 degrees (and hotter still near Bologna) and has brought a smile to the faces of countless folk who’ve been overtaken by it. During all of this abuse the only issue we had was a flat tyre (and even that happened conveniently at a Swiss supermarket), which was simply re-inflated and then kept it’s pressure for the next 3000 miles.

It felt like someone was looking after us.

There’s a hair bobble round the gear stick, once brightly coloured but long since faded in the sun, that belonged to Kathy, the car’s previous owner, that’s now been joined by a “Rust 2 Rome Survivor” wrist band. Carl, her widower and one of my oldest friends, asked that we keep it there in memorium, so to speak, and it’s maybe that that brought us luck.

(Or all the time and money I spent on it before we left. Maybe a combination of the two.)

Kathy was only 32 when she died of cancer, almost as old as this car is today, and it was the people at Pendleside Hospice made her last days as peaceful as they could. If you’re feeling generous you can donate below. All donations will be fund matched up to 1k. (If I fill in a form at work and it’s approved. Although I’m not good with forms.)

https://www.justgiving.com/page/peter-shuttleworth-3

Thanks for reading this far,

pete

A pedant writes.

“What! This holiday story was written so that I would give money to some random hospice?”

“Look, I actually finished writing a blog. Got to the end. Do you know how hard this was for me? Sure some people swim far for charity but they like swimming! Some bloke I vaguely know called Andrew (who once taught me and Millie to drive quite quickly and meant I wasn’t scared in the Alps) is walking almost constantly this year for charity. But I bet he’s lost loads of weight, and he probably likes walking.”

I started something.

AND THEN FINISHED IT.

So why not Pendleside Hospice a fiver? Their link is buried halfway up this post.

(Or don’t. I’m planning to live forever. I won’t need a hospice.)

Requiem

We didn’t all make it to the end.

So let’s raise a toast to the 650 convertible, the Bora, the T25, and a Caddy which didn’t even make it to Dover. The Saab sisters who were responsible for most of the smog in Rome on the penultimate day and never forget the Jags.

BUT THE SPLITTIE MADE IT!

37.2 le matin

Ok it’s really hot now, yesterday we hung out at the hotel and had some dinner in Frascati, then I came back and drank with some Americans who had wine and found me hilarious. “Are you a professional stand-up?” they asked as I literally felt my ego grow… Then we talked about religion and they found me less hilarious and I said some things they regretted.

This morning those with functioning cars are heading home – but Team 38 have another day before heading off to meet Suzy somewhere north of Rome so we spend the morning standing outside the villa chatting to Marko, Erin and Kayla (who also have extra time here) and it feels like the end of a wedding weekend as folk come up to say bye, we exchange socially difficult hugs and we wave at them driving away.

We’ve probably spent most time with the Z4 (Daryl and his son Harry) and the Megane (Melissa and her dad) and have decided that Daryl is either one of the funniest people I’ve met in a while, or on a spectrum. Possibly both. When it[s time for them to go Daryl just walks past us, slows, looks over his shoulder and says “Well, let’s not make this anymore awkward than it already is” and with no further ado gets into his car and drives away.

It’s the perfect exit.

Melissa and her dad are next, Erin gives them both a hug and as they drive away she calls out “Bye Bryan” and, as soon as they’re out of earshot Millie and I turn to each other
“Brian! He’s called Brian!!!” we say in unison.
Erin’s horrified “You’ve been talking to them every day, there’s a sheet in the car WITH EVERYONE’S NAME ON IT.”
“Yeah. We. kept meaning to check but then would only remember when we weren’t in the car. You can spend a lot of time with someone without using their name, you know.”
“But you are writing this in arrears,” Erin continues, “all these posts are being written long AFTER you got home, so you’ve been calling him Melissa’s dad from day 3 *in these posts* purely so you could tell this story?”
“In the posts used his name in the first couple of days, because I think I knew it then, but I stopped using it at the point in “story time” when I think I forgot it. Young people call it committing to the bit.”
“It feels like a lot of work for quite a weak story.” a version of Erin says, which I find very flattering.

Took some pictures too, and nipped into Rome in the evening.

(Well done for getting this far. You’ve got one more day left.)

Day X*

I think if you look at the day you’ll realise that the odyssey is approaching completion.

At this point we are seeing signs for Roma at every motorway junction (although all roads lead to Rome) and Marko has a plan, well he has two plans.

Plan A

Screw Rome, avoid the heat, and go straight to the hotel. Maybe go back in the evening for photos. This is a good plan and no-one does it.

Plan B

(Which is unanimously supported by idiots who have never been to Rome and idiots who have. Including us.)
Rendezvous at a petrol station in the blazing heat, then head for the Coliseum (I’d like you to imagine me making lots of Frankie Howerd jokes at this point which no-one got, maybe would have been funnier if we’d been going to the forum instead) and the endurance test begins.
Millie’s driving. I’m navigating. This is a shit system, I can’t read the satnav so I am just calling the convoy, she’s not as bold as me in traffic.

“Millie everyone is in lane 2, push out.” Everyone then moves into Lane 1 and exits the motorway, with us in lane 2, watching them go. So we loop round and we have lost the convoy, but we manage to pick up the Essex boys (Supra, MX5, BMW E39, Nissan 350z) and head for the Coliseum.

35 degrees.

No AC.

No shade.

A road surface that was last repaired by a man in a toga.

The Supra is not happy on the road surface and nor are we. Navigating through Roman traffic is hilarious on two wheels but this is just butal. We are hot in that way where you have forgotten what it ever meant to be cold, and if we leave a gap more than the thickness of a piece of paper between the cars an elderly Italian man in an immaculate linen suit slots his moped through it like he’s a Japanese motorbike cop doing an autotest (see Youtube).

The CB radios save us from just giving up:

“Close that gap”;

“Block the lane and we’ll all push in front”;

“Millie, ignore the lights just push through”;

“I’ve gone all tingly and I can’t feel my feet”;

“Shit, can someone get some water to Arthur, we might be losing him.”

All the time in 35 degrees.

But we get to the Coliseum, lining up the cars in our little convoy in BLAZING HEAT, in heavy traffic, surrounded by blaring horns and Romans using words that are, I swear, more than a little Anglo Saxon. I reach for the phone to take the photo and the screen says “iphone is overheating”.

Millie’s is the same. The point and shoot is, at best, sluggish and it’s too bright to see the screen.

Time to get the fuck out of Rome, and try not to drive into each other in the process (looking at no-one in particular. Arthur.).

Apparently the Catholic faith have extra books in their bible to the one I remember at school (the “apochrypha”. I know. Actually!) which, presumably, cover building massive luxurious villas in the beautiful hills south of Rome for their clergy to live in. And it’s one of these we are staying in.

Tree lined drive, AIR CONDITIONED rooms, just a perfect way to end the holiday.

Marko laid on a party for our penultimate night (no-one is leaving the next day) and turned up dressed as a velveteen vampire – there’s a rumour that he was briefly in Transvision Vamp as a backing singer but I’ve been unable to confirm this.

Great evening, chatting to folk I would swear weren’t on the trip and others for longer than I should. We all scrub up well.

*Roman Numerals. Why didn’t I think of this sooner?

Leaving Venice

Thing with a road trip is that you don’t really know where you are these days, we’ve all become “children of the magenta line” (that one for the pilots). But Marko is keeping us all on the right track with daily briefings and printed sheets on some sort of material telling us what to expect.

Today it’s home of Frank…
“We’ll have to drive into Assisi from the campsite in the evening, and even then parking’s difficult and there is a bit of a walk, but it’s well worth it,” Marko tells us. “It’s an exquisite medieval town, perched on a volcanic plug and the birthplace of Francis.”

Francis was the patron saint of the poor, and Assisi is one of the main pilgrimage destinations in Italy. And what do the poor need?

Massive churches. Numerous basilica. A cathedral.

Whilst Marko reckons that parking is difficult, Harry, who is a rascal with the exuberant moustache of the sort normally sported by the kind of chap prone to tying women to railway lines, tells us that it’s entirely possible to drive right through the centre of Assisi and onwards to the castle on top. Which is what we do. (Chris is having to fix the Corrado as he no longer has as many brakes as used to).

Lovely city but do you know what is ace?

Loads of teenagers clustered round the cathedral with their modded Citroen Amis and Fiat Topolos, which in Italy you can drive at 14, looking like one of those American school sitcoms from the 90s where everyone was beautiful.

Not much in the way of exciting driving today, but I give Assisi 4 stars.

“We’ve got two days in the campsite to give you a chance to go into Venice.” Marko tells us. We’d gone in after we arrived last night with Harry and Daryl for dinner, and whilst a day in Venice in 30+ degrees is tempting the washine machine is also tempting, and maybe sitting under a shady tree with my book.

Venice is one of my favourite cities (in a list that includes Berlin and Paris but NOT New York) and I don’t understand the bad press it gets. It is busy, but not like Rome is busy, or Edinburgh’s old town is busy, and it’s utterly unique. It’s almost like it’s not a real place, it feels fictional and everyone you see is a tourist (or a gondolier). Like we’ve invented time travel and this is where all the history buffs decided to go.

And they go because when they look down the Grand Canal from Ponte dell’Accademia it’s the same view that Marco Polo saw when he told his tall tales of distant China in the 14th Century.

It’s the same view that Canaletto painted two hundred years later and the same canal that Shelley and Byron swam in when they were whoring their way round Europe two hundred years after that.

It’s amazing.

But I’ve been before and we have A WASHING MACHINE at the campsite, so I do laundry and find that shady tree (because I bought a Thermarest chair for an undisclosed sum before we left and I’m buggered if I’m not going to use it), read my book and have a little sleep.

In the late afternoon we head back into the city on the ferry from the campsite with Daryl and Harry again, learn about Leonardo (no idea why there is a museum to him, he was from Florence) and have another Italian meal that is nearly as nice as the one we had the night before.

I don’t know where we are going tomorrow.

Very few pictures as I mainly like cars, and it was dark in Venice.

I had an idea when I got the car that I’d raise money for Pendelside Hospice, where the previous owner saw out her days. I have been singulalry rubbish at remembering to link to this, but whilst there might not be a connection to most people I know they were amazing to Kathy at the end, shortly after she married my best friend. I can probably get any donations fund matched, they are, as all hospices are, a group of genuinely wonderful people.

https://www.justgiving.com/page/peter-shuttleworth-3

In which a key is lost, and we drove over a pass.

“Is it OK if Marko drives with us today,” asks Harry.

“Yeah of course!” we say, excited to hear the leader is joining us.

We’ve perfected packing up now, Millie takes down the tent in seconds and I have the tesselation of the boot down to an art – she then wanders off round the campsite trying to find people to take items of unfinshed food (normally half a bottle of wine, or some milk, we are genuinely that tight for sapce.).

Except. We are quite security concious in Car 38, we keep the key in a safe, easy to find location. The ashtray.

And we also leave the roof down. For security. But last night it rained and this morning the key isn’t in it’s special place which we only realise when we jump into leave. Worry thee not, we have a spare, cut specially for this trip… We put it in the ignition, we turn the engine on and… The engine goes off again.

Shit.

Immobliser fault.

I stare in horror at the dashboard as everyone starts to leave, then cast my mind back to last night, the 20 minutes walk into town, through long grass.

“Come on, let’s pull it apart.” I say to Millie, and everything comes our of the car, all the bags are empoited and the tent is pulled apart.
The French require you carry a high viz jacket inside the car, and we are tight for space, so we’ve brought our cycling jackets and they are doing double duties as our waterproofs. (We don’t have room for TWO jackets). and that’s where the key is. In the pocket of my hi-viz stuffed under a seat. It was raining last night and I was wearing it. It is not raining this morning.

Everyone except our buddies in the Corrado and Z4 (how nice are they?) have left, we try to make up time but the roads are really busy and the MX5 ain’t that quick uphill.

Umbrail Pass first then Stelvio.

Pretty as hell, busy as hell, no-one is letting us past. Crazy bikers with some VERY varying levels of skill (I always associate bikers as taking riding seriously, but it’s just not the case. 25k on a GS and another 3k on kit but can’t ride round a corner.) We catch the R2R convoy and go past about 30 cars in two stunning overtakes, picking off a couple more at a set of temprorary traffic lights, but as we get to the Italian border it’s pretty much solid traffic.

Pretty though.

There’s a warning on the CB radio that the Italian cops are stopping everyone but we sail through, in fact everyone except the T1 sails through. And to be fair I’d have stopped them too, they look suspicious.

After the passes we’re on motorways all the way to a small campsite with views across the Adriatic to Venice.

In which a clan is found.

In which a clan is found.

“Thing is about Chris,” says Daryl with all the wisdom of an elderly statesman, if that elderly statesman was from Runcorn and thus presumably mates with Eileen Bilton*, “is that he likes to get a fart on.”

“What does that mean?” I ask Millie afterwards, “do we think he means Chris drives quickly?”

“I have genuinely no idea.” She replies. “He’s so dry I just can’t tell when he’s joking, but he’s hilarious.”

Whatever it means we resolve to form a three ship with Daryl and his son in the rather nice Z4 (which I’d admired on the start line) and Farty Chris and his dad in their ruined Corrado. A Z4 would have been my preferred transport had Millie not insisted we take Kathy’s old MX5, Each of them has two more cylinders than we do, and about 100 bhp. (Turns out Chris hasn’t ruined his Corrado but has fitted a sacrificial bonnet, to aid cooling, in which he has cut “Coombs Jag” style vents. The original is sitting at home unmolested. He also used to do track days in a turbo’d MX5, and is a lovely chap.)
The night before Shug told me he had it on good authority that Susten pass would be opening after the winter at 1200 that day, which is confirmed in the briefing. We all trundle off, slowly making our way to the start line and a hotel which seems very surprised to see a lot of British cars and bikes arriving at 1115 for a pass which the Swiss have said will open at 1200.

The hotel car park is full, bicycles, motorbikes, yesterday’s Lotuses, some exotica and over 40 rusty, fully stickered sheds that started their journey in Edinburgh.

As the barrier goes up (on the dot of 1200) a couple of cars rocket up the hill but we’re finishing our coffee and set off as P2 to the Z4. Who is moving slightly slower than hoped.

“Fuck it.” I hint to Millie “Hold back, create a gap, then slingshot past him after the next corner.” The MX5 is EXCEPTIONAL, not fast by any means but so communicative it’s approaching telepathic. And right on cue Millie times a corner perfectly, we pop out onto a long straight carrying 20mph more, and the Z4 reminds us they have two more cylinders than us.

I reach for the CB “Errrm. Mind if we come past?” I ask, Daryl lifts his right foot and Millie doesn’t. But what they don’t do is in anyway recede into our mirrors, they just match our pace and all three cars start moving as one.

We’ve found our people.

For the rest of the day all three cars swap places, whilst zooming around a selection of the finest passes Switzerland has to offer, all while chattering to each other on the radio.

And have a genuinely exceptional time.

After one very long descent the brakes on the Mazda start to fade, but I’ve been VERY firm with them, and on longer fast corners the cheap tyres are grumbling quite loudly. Other than that, no notes. It’s one of the best days I’ve had in a car.

Sure other cars would have been quicker, or more comfortable, or less sketchy as fuck on long moist, fast corners.

But, as Pirsig** might have asked, would it have been *qualitatively* better?

No. Qualitatively the shabby MX5, on that road, with that company, was as good as it’s possible to get.

I give today 5 stars.

Scenery was also good, some roads were cobbled again. Campsite was adequate, or better.

Not that many photos. We didn’t stop.

*sure that means nothing to most of you, but for the handful of people who watched Granada TV in the 80s, it’s pure nostalgia.

** I mean it might be a bit self indulgent, but come on, I’m referencing 1970s philosophers!

Day Five

Melissa and her dad are also on the trip, they too are father and daughter and a similar age to us. Their chariot is a bit different to ours, a 1.4 Megane convertible called Rosie but they have a much nicer tent, and BEDS. At the end of today they are chatting to us over dinner.

“I’ve discovered,” says Melissa’s dad afer our first experience of Swiss passes, “that I am not a good passenger. Are you managing OK?” he continues.

“Do you know a guy called Neil?” I reply “I remember a lap of Oulton Park with him where he demonstrated that the car woudn’t turn in because we were going too fast, and he was right – we were going too fast. I think that sort of thing desensitises you.”

“Oh.” Says Melissa’s dad, with a look in his eyes that makes me suspect he wishes he hadn’t asked.

“Does your dad keep telling you to slow down?” asks Melissa, causing an AUDIBLE eye roll from my daughter and allowing her to recount what had happened earlier.

What happened earlier.

We’d started the day with a convoy from the campsite to Lucerne and a very cool transport museum where Marko and Gaelic Bryan have arranged for us to arrive (and exit) via the giftshop. In our cars…

But this afternoon is the start of the main events with the Grimsel and Nufenen Passes. The sun is coming out, the roof went down (and stayed down) and once we started to climb the traffic thinned and we started making progress. Before we left the UK we fitted the best brakes I can find , with the roof down visibility is excellent. The little Mazda is coming back into its element.

“Are you happy driving on the passes?” I ask Mil.

“Yeah, but keep giving me feedback,” she genuinely says. I’d done a bike course last year and was just doing what the instructor on that did, if the instructor was Michael Caine and it was 1969.

“Right stay wide let’s have a look and see if there’s anything coming.” I say as we approach the first of many hairpins, “Great road’s clear, don’t turn in until I say, keep your foot down, keep your foot down, why are you braking. Right off the brakes and power power power.”

We make the whip crack noise as the poor little Mazda gives us its all pulling us up the hills, second gear the whole way, foot buried in the carpet, don’t think about the drops.

Whilst we certainly can’t do power overtakes, we carry a LOT of speed through corners and take up very little road space. Which helps. What also helps is pop-up headlights, which the co-driver can operate too.We look adorable in it, no-one can get angry with the tiny MX5, even when we beep-beep the horn to let them know we are going past. Whether they like it or not.

Scenery really pretty. Campsite also fine. Saw some Lotuses. The splittie caught up. Magnificent effort.

I give today 4.5 stars. And that’s only because I know what’s coming tomorrow.

Switzerland. Already.

The last time we were in Switzerland we were tired, hungry and on bicycles so stopped into a small pizza place just outside Zurich. Two of the most basic pizzas and an inexplicably large bottle of wine were ordered but when the bill arrived it appeared we had accidentally bought a restaurant

On this visit I resolve to be more careful (and if we’re passing try and find out how my restaurant is getting on – they haven’t sent me any accounts for while).

Switzerland is lovely, but the weather is a touch Scottish and Millie is still sleeping with all her clothes on, including her coat, although she wants it known that it was a concious decision to bring the two season sleeping bag rather than the four season she was offered.

Dinner was in a GREAT pizzaria / pub (which I do not own although I addresed my fear of the Swiss Franc by not looking at how much things cost). Chatted to a lovely group of folk from Renfrew who are in the E class which I initially thought was slammed but now realise probably just has knackered suspension and a lot of stuff in.

Tomorrow we head for the hills, and the passes, so today was really about more miles and some lovely scenery. In the drizzle.

Also Mil went for a swim in Lake Brienz, and befriended a Coot.

Lots of other teams have been moaning about the satnav but ours has been exemplary until today (which is inexplicably Day 3 even though it feels like we’ve been away for weeks). As we approached a roundabout on the outskirts of Dover, with a queue of Rust2Romers turning left, we pretended to turn right and looped all the way the roundabout, whooping. We then followed our stupid satnav straight past the ferry port and had to drive for 15 minutes until we found our way back.

Millie hasn’t driven on the wrong side of the road since we were in the states years ago, “Just remember, if in doubt, put yourself close to the hedge” but nothing seems to phase her so we take off down the motorway in close convoy with a couple of other Rust 2 Romers. We’ve got the roof down and they even stop for us when it starts to rain…

“Why is that Audi flashing me?” Millie asks of the Q5 that is approximately 2.5 cms (we’re in Europe now and are firmly metric; 1 inch for the older readers) from the rear bumper of the Mazda.

“Ah.” I reply, remembering earlier forays into the continent, “French motorways. Their lane discipline is quite strict, they are much better at this than we are and he wants you to move over.” So Millie slips between the two trucks and the Q5 is gone.Mainly motorways today, trying to cover distance to get to the Alps, but French motorways are great and we’ve worked out that we can connect two sets of earbuds to one phone so we listen to the “Chronicles of St Mary’s” in companionable silence. I may also have slept a bit.

The campsite is cracking that night, really pretty, right by a river, and I actually COOK, chatting to the guys in the next tent – one of whom is from Cumnock, and another guy who knows Simon. And Simon used to have an Elise…

We put quite a lot of effort into getting the MX5 ready, since we got it it’s been in the garage a LOT getting various oil and water leaks fixed but Car 14 took an entirely different approach. Rather than fix their car before they left, they have elected to fix it whilst they are here, so they spent the night on the campsite changing the clutch on their Peugeot 206.They claim not have known that the clutch was fucked before they left, but they did bring TWO spare clutches, a special tool the owner made himself to facilitate clutch changes not to mention a full tool set. There’s a certain sort of person who would rather pack for every eventuality and wait for the hyper-focus to kick in.

Game recognises game.