Classic Car Wife

This was the final leg of our 2022 European road trip with MoneyPenny. After a couple of wonderful days in Paris, including dinner and show at the Moulin Rouge, admiring the paintings in Musee D'Orsay and the current Egyptian exhibition at the Musee de Louvre we headed north to Calais to return to London on Le Shuttle. The passport control in Calais was slow but when we got off at Dover it was chaos. The cars and trucks were banked back for miles and miles trying to get onto

This was a LONG drive! In hindsight, we probably should have broken this up a bit more, but it was made worse by the 40C record-breaking temperatures and the lack of aircon. Our GPS started out saying it was 6.5 hours but it ended up being more like 10 hours. We had to make regular stops for cool drinks and also happened upon a lot of traffic around Lyon and a very nasty accident on the motorway. This section of the journey ended up being around 750kms on one of the hottest d

I thought this deserved its own post because it is such an amazing event. MoneyPenny was cooling her heels in the Palais de Papes carpark and we spent a couple of amazing nights soaking in the festival atmosphere! The Avignon Festival is an absolute feast of performing arts, live music and theatre. There is so much to enjoy! There are amazing street performers, there's the formal festival program of lectures, concerts etc and then there's the 'off' festival or fringe activity

We really enjoyed our four nights in the apartment by the port in St Tropez. This is our third visit to St Tropez but our first staying in an apartment in town. It was fabulous and we can't wait to return next year! We start the day with some coffee and a croissant then get a couple of fresh baguette sandwiches and some cool drinks and head for the beach each morning. We had left two surf towels, beach chairs, an umbrella, sun lotion and a beach bag in MoneyPenny when we last

After the long and eventful drive from Pompeii we spent two nights in Genoa. Although I had plans to drive to Portofino etc, we really just needed some catch-up time. The Hotel Palazzo Grillo was very nice. The historical features in the building were truly something. We visited the Maritime Museum in Genoa which was really interesting and well done. It sums up the history of this busy port town. We've had very hot weather and unfortunately MoneyPenny still refuses to provide

We had an amazing day at the Pompeii ruins. There is just so much to take in. We walked for hours and hours and still didn't see everything! Our hotel was just a 5 minute walk from the entrance and if you are looking for a comfortable, hospitable place to stay in Pompeii we can recommend the Dream House Hotel. (They also have off-street parking!). The food in Pompeii was great. We were recommended some less touristy options and enjoyed the Mercato Pompeii and the Machiavelli

Leaving Sorrento, we drove to Napoli with Mt Vesuvius looming large, to spend some time in the National Archeological Museum of Naples (known as MANN - Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli). We parked MoneyPenny in the underground carpark at the Piazza Garibaldi by the main train station and walked about 20-30 minutes from there to the museum. There is also an underground metro but we wanted to see a bit of Naples so chose to walk. The MANN contains some of the best finds f

We bade a fond farewell to Hotel Onda Verde and drove to Positano. This was arguably some of the most difficult driving for Mr F so far. A combination of narrow roads, lots of traffic, pedestrians and oncoming buses and vans made this 30 minute journey seem much longer! It was a case of pull in the side-mirrors and be brave! We parked up hill from Positano in one of the managed parking lots and MoneyPenny always gets a lot of love from the parking guys. The walk down to the m

We checked out of Ravello yesterday and have since found out that Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell were also holidaying there! We drove the coast road to Amalfi and wandered the streets for an hour enjoying an amazing lemon drink ...mmm! So refreshing! The Hotel Onda Verde where we are staying two nights, in Praiano deserves a big shout out. What an amazingly beautiful place - and they have parking for MoneyPenny! We had delicious food at Trattoria Da Armandino on the the beachfr

We started out just before 10.00am from Montepulciano and wended our way back to the A1 through the beautiful Tuscan countryside. Our mission today was to get to Ravello on the Amalfi Coast. The motorway was great and once we hit Pompeii we headed up a steep windy road over the mountains and down the other side. You need to keep your wits about you. It's an exhausting drive with very narrow roads and passing traffic is a challenge. Oncoming traffic may come onto your side on

This morning we left Chamonix at around 9.00am with the beautiful Mont Blanc in full sunshine. What an amazing mountain! We had to queue for the Mont Blanc Tunnel for around 45 minutes and headed towards Italy! The number of cars in the tunnel is limited because of a serious accident that occurred in 1999 killing 39 people. There were SOOO many tunnels on this journey that we lost count. MoneyPenny loves the speed and enjoys a comfortable ride at 95-105 miles per hour (160kms

We left Reims early and headed towards our destination in Chamonix on the French-Italian border. We followed a white E-type Jaguar this time, who seemed to have the same fuel consumption as us and ended up at the same petrol stations. The scenery included many kilometres of beautiful farmland with fields of wheat, corn, sunflowers and other vegetables. The wind farms were also quite amazing. Once we reached Dijon, the landscape changed and we entered more alpine scenery inclu

After almost three years, we have been reunited with our beloved MoneyPenny. Having flown from Australia to the UK, she had a few issues with the exhaust that Mr F needed to fix but she is running well :) Three MOTs since we last saw her thanks to COVID, she finally gets out. Today we started off on her next road trip (the last being in 2019). We are on our way to the Amalfi Coast and will have three overnight stops along the way to break the journey. Early this morning, we h