Monday: The long awaited Club Triumph 'Ten countries in five days' was finally upon us. The ten countries being England, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Lichtenstein, Germany and the Netherlands.
Mike Bishop was my co-driver for the trip, so once he arrived we set out for a snack bar not far from Dover to meet up with Richard and Roger who would be piloting Roger's Triumph Stag and running with us all trip. After a quick coffee and bacon Sarnie just off the A2, we completed the journey to Dover to catch our Ferry.
Our sailing was delayed by an hour, but once we were underway we had a smooth crossing. We had purchased club class tickets, so this gave us unlimited free access to food and drink, so that was our lunch sorted out.
Once off the ferry, we made our way to our apartment in Rouen, but made sure we avoided the 'Ulez zone' that they have around the city. There were no restaurants near our beautiful apartment, so Mike and Roger went and found a Lidl and bought some beer and Pizza. Perfect! 😉
Tuesday: This morning, we went to the official start location to book in and were moaned at for being late. (Even though we weren't!-Chief organiser Ellis likes to moan at people!) We said hello to a few others that we knew and then got started.
We did start off by sticking to the official route, but after two hours of encountering tiny villages on D roads (Our equivalent of B roads) with 30kph (18mph) speed limits and severe speed bumps, we diverted onto N roads (Our equivalent of A roads) and did some proper driving. Today was a long day with 645 kms and 10 hours 15 minutes to cover, so why we had been plotted onto D roads, god only knows!
Our stay tonight was on a farm just north west of St Etienne. Again, it was out in the sticks, so we found a Turkish restaurant in the town and had dinner before we checked in. We also bought some beers to take with us, although they had some local brews on the farm that we also sampled. The farm was beautiful and also pitch black and very quiet. All we could hear when sitting outside was the sound of the crickets. Lovely!
Wednesday: We set off this morning after a breakfast of bread, cheese and ham as today was another long drive down to the Mediterranean. We encountered some torrential rain and storms on our journey, and again because of the distance we had to cover we diverted onto to the motorway to make up some ground. By the afternoon, the storms had disappeared and we had made it to the south of France.
We didn't stay long in the Med, as our overnight stop was some 124 Kms away and by now, it was late afternoon. We arrived at our hotel at Saint Julien Du Verdon around 8pm and settled in for dinner. Mike decided on Tripe and pigs trotters which the rest of us thought was disgusting!
Thursday: The following morning was raining again, so after a couple of hours we stopped for coffee. We were all feeling quite tired at this point due to the mileage we were being expected to cover. Only one day for the whole week was under 300 miles and that was today at 290 miles!
With Coffee consumed we carried on and eventually crossed the border and into Italy. We made a group decision at lunch time to actually stop for a sit down lunch for once instead of eating on the go and stopped in a town called Demonte, just east of Cuneo. Being in Italy, it had to be Pizza for lunch and very nice it was too.
The sun had made an appearance by now and the day was looking good. We still had quite a few miles to cover, so this was our last stop before heading for our rented house in Dormeletto in the province of Novara. We arrived around 7.30pm and after parking the cars, headed off for dinner. We found an Indian restaurant this time and so enjoyed a nice curry with a few beers.
The name of the house was called 'Lake View' as it's not far from Lake Maggiore. However, the 'Lake view' was somewhat deceiving! You can just see it in between the buildings in the pic below!
Friday: We left Dormeletto quite late and therefore had to push on to meet our targets today, hence not too much time to take any decent pics. I did get a couple of the lake though.
Our next bit of driving was over the Simplon pass and up to the Furka Pass in Switzerland. These are great driving roads, but unfortunately, the Simplon pass wasn't as good as it should have been due to the amount of road works going on. We must have a lost a good hour on the Simplon.
The Furka pass was beautiful though and we couldn't resist stopping for a 'brew with a view' half way up. Also, as two years before at Timmelsjoch, we found that our crisps had inflated due to the altitude!
With the Furka pass completed, we drove on and by 7pm that night we had reached our German destination in Singen. There were quite a lot of 'Triumphist's' in town, so we were able to catch up with a few well known faces.
We also managed to find a really weird bar that was playing some brilliant music and stayed in there far longer than we should have! (You've got to have a least one night to let your hair down!) 😉
Saturday: Today was the last day and by now everyone was feeling quite knackered. It was another long day though, so it was a case of 'heads down, lets get it done. We didn't stop for lunch, or a brew with a view, but we were rewarded with a decent finish time at the final location at Rolduc in the Netherlands. We filled up with fuel in the town, so that we wouldn't have to worry about it in the morning.
After chilling out a bit and having a shower, I went down for dinner and joined the others. I didn't drink much as I was just so tired, plus I wanted to get away early in the morning to make sure we didn't miss our ferry. It was a good night, but we did hear a lot of people saying that the days were too long and the mileage was too high. Will the organisers listen though? Who knows.
Before the night was through, we finished as we started by getting moaned at again for not signing out of the event, (I didn't even know we had to!) so at least there was some consistency there.
For the record the mileage for each day was:
Day 1-404 miles
Day 2-355 miles
Day 3-290 miles
Day 4-327 miles
Day 5-340 miles
Sunday: Just a three and a half hour drive up to Calais today, so quite a rest from the other days. We made sure we got clear of the Brussels ring road in Belgium before stopping for coffee. We were ahead of time, so we carried on up to motorway at a leisurely pace and arrived at Calais 90 minutes before our boat sailed. (although customs checks reduced that to about 45 minutes!) At least it still gave us time to get some duty free's!
The crossing was a slow 90 minutes, but luckily we were the first car off the boat and made a quick getaway out of Dover. Richard and Roger were stopping for fuel, but we had no need to, so we said our goodbyes and separated just outside Dover. We had a clear run home and arrived back at mine at 3.30pm. We then emptied the car while having a good old fashioned cup of English Tea!
It had been a brilliant trip, but would I do it again? Probably not. I've done it several times now, and I feel it's gone as far as it can.
As others had said, the mileage was too high and the days were too long on this one, and if I had known how much mileage was involved from the start, I wouldn't have booked the event. (The organisers seem to like to keep the route a secret until the last minute for some reason!)
The scenery was fantastic, the company was excellent and the car performed exceptionally, so I did have a brilliant time, but I've also never felt to so knackered as I did when I got home on Sunday night. I think, for the future, I'll start looking at planning my own run with less countries and less mileage.
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