Our friends had visited Monte Carlo the previous day while we
were on our way back from Turin, but they'd enjoyed it and suggested they go
there again with us. So another early start was planned.
Unfortunately the start was delayed somewhat by the police - our fifth encounter
with police on the Job.
Luckily this was another friendly meeting, but held us up
for about three-quarters of an hour while Ben told the police
officer (in French) all about The Italian Job and our Minis. He
wants to come next year so we gave him the contact details! Apparently he
has a Mini of his own and just loves it! During the whole
conversation we had five Minis parked on double yellow lines outside the
hotel. After that we felt the least we could do was to give him a
copy of the latest MiniWorld.
We eventually set off along the coast of the French Riviera
towards Monte Carlo. Spectacular views which means we'll never think
of our Riviera Run in the same way again. Here we are in
front of the Casino in Monte Carlo.
Dale and Rosie had decided to
tag along with us as we hadn't seen anything the previous day.
Another Jobbing Mini saw us and joined in for the pics.
We then did several circuits of the Monaco Grand Prix route,
it's impossible to imagine what it would be like with the formula one cars
tearing around it.
Here's another pic courtesy of Cuan, of Sputnik and his friends having fun on
their second race track in a week.
We wanted to take some pics of the cars on the seafront, but
were unable to find any proper parking spaces where we could get all the
cars together. By this time we were feeling pretty adventurous, so a
totally illegal turn into a closed off area of the promenade resulted in
some fantastic shots.
It was by now far later than we'd originally intended, so we
headed inland on our route towards the mountains.
It quickly
turned into some pretty steep roads with hairpin bends, but we were
enjoying it. Rosie wasn't so keen unfortunately, so at this stage
she and Dale left us to head for the main roads. We later found they
arrived in Annecy three hours before us! Shortly after this pic was
taken we were challenged by a local Mini who went screaming past us doing
handbrake turns to overtake us on the hairpins. Frightening!
Onwards and upwards we traveled. The road seemed to
carry on forever, we kept thinking we couldn't possibly go any
higher. It was cold. From here we saw a
building at the top of the mountain, little did we know that we
would soon be looking down on it!
We could see snow on the peaks and it was
getting nearer. The sun blinded us as we went round bends, exhausts
grounded on the uneven roads. At last we reached the top, round a bend, through an
arch cut in the rock and emerged the other side into brilliant sunshine
and snow.
The light quality was amazing. It was freezing cold.
We could hardly see with the brightness of the light, and
you can see from the shadows in the pics that Karen's comment that we were
higher than the sun seemed quite appropriate! We had a quick drink
and snack (we hadn't stopped for lunch).
Mark had a bag of crips he took out of the car and it was
bloated out looking like a helium balloon. Just shows what the air
pressure was like up there. We then started the long descent.
It looked as if we were driving on the moon, the land was so barren.
At one point we found the road was blocked by a boulder and
we had to cross a precarious stretch with only a gravel path. If
we'd have been coming the other way we'd have turned back at that stage!
By the time we got down from the mountains it
was dark. We were so pleased we hadn't bothered to stop for lunch,
or we'd have had a hellish drive, and missed some incredible views.
There was a sign at the end of the road indicating that the route we'd
been on was the highest road in Europe at 2,803 metres. I'm not
surprised!
It was now a case of drive as fast as we could to get to Annecy, we'd
covered only a fraction of the miles we needed to. We drove on in
the dark along main roads, which were still pretty steep and bendy.
There was one nasty moment when all of us misjudged a really sharp upward
hairpin, so we were all relieved when we got to Gap (yes, Karen did say
that this wasn't the right time to go looking for new clothes) and found a
welcoming McDonalds.
Cybil had performed really well in the mountains, but her exhaust was
now blowing as it had separated from the manifold after the temporary
repair by the service crew. We'd bought some Gum Gum stuff earlier
which Mark and Richard put round it while we went to eat.
We still had a lot of miles to cover, so continued as soon as we could
on to Grenoble, where we picked up the motorway to Annecy. We had a
phone call from the organisers to see where we'd got to as they were
starting to worry about us. Eventually we arrived at the hotel at
about 10.30, and amazingly they'd left the buffet out so that we could eat
when we got there. The food actually wasn't at all bad, making a
nice change from the cheese and ham buffets in Italy. There was also
plenty of wine left, so we made the most of it. Needless to say
everyone was asking us about our adventures, although Karen and I
noticed the road became the 'highest road in the world' and gained a lot
of metres after James and David had spent some time at the bar!
