Classic Car Wife

We ended up staying four nights in Toulouse - two more than we had planned - and forfeited our two-night stay in Marseilles. After Tuesday's Assumption of Mary public holiday we woke on Wednesday with high hopes that we would find an alternator somewhere in Toulouse. After all, it's the fourth largest city in France and is home to about half a million people. Well it seems that many of the good people of Toulouse have shut up shop and gone on holidays (after all it IS August)

Ah, the joys of holidaying in a classic car. This morning, MoneyPenny's battery started discharging and the warning light came on as we were heading out for the day to see 'not a car museum but an aircraft museum' called Aeroscopia by Airbus. The contents of our car's boot have been emptied onto the ground so many times today to access the battery that I gave up taking photos. See some of the highlights below. The brain cogs of my dear husband have been whirring away in overd

We are just finishing four nights in an apartment called Le Porche de Sarlat in Sarlat-de-Canada. It's been a great base for the region. The apartment is right next door to the cathedral and we have enjoyed the bells and the live music in the square outside our apartment. There is a lovely little courtyard to sit in, we have enjoyed making a coffee in the mornings and fresh croissants from the boulangerie around the corner and sharing a baguette for lunch. The town is very pi

Our Atlantic base was Bordeaux and we drove to Arcachon to swim and partake of the coastal delights. We were there a week before the famous Fete de Mer and as was to be expected in August, the traffic was bad, but the sun was shining and the roof was down...Happy days! We ate delicious seafood, swam on the beach and ventured to the Dune de Pilat (highest sand dune in Europe). Unfortunately we could not find any photo opportunities of MoneyPenny by the Atlantic! They keep the

Our few days in Amboise were unseasonably chilly and windy but we still put the roof down and enjoyed driving the countryside and seeing 'les chateaux'. Unfortunately there were no photo opportunities of MoneyPenny in front of Chambord - they keep the public parking well away from the main attractions. I did however, manage to purchase a very nice Imari-style vase for 20 Euros at a market in Montrichard. MoneyPenny's luggage capacity is going to be stretched by the end of thi

MoneyPenny had a rest day at the hotel today. We have walked to all the sights today! It's just as well because we need to walk off some of the calories we have consumed. Restaurant recommendation: Last night we had an amazing meal at Le Choiseul Amboise at the 36 restaurant https://www.lechoiseulamboise.com/restaurant/ Amazing food and service!!!! The Chateaux Amboise which towers over our hotel, was the home of Francois1 and his establishment of the Knights of the the Orde

We've driven just over three hours today and have arrived in the beautiful town of Amboise in the Loire Valley. One of the highlights of this drive for me was listening on the radio to the late and great Jacqueline du Pres and her husband Daniel Barenboim play Cesar Franck's Cello Sonata in A Major while the burgeoning cornfields of France rolled by and MoneyPenny purred down the motorway. Life doesn't get much better than that! Rouen was a good stopover last night and the Ho

We're back and reunited with our dear MoneyPenny! She's had a number of things done to her while we've been back in Australia, but more on that tomorrow! Today, we put her on Le Shuttle again (more than 2 hours delay!!) and we are on an overnight stop in Rouen. It's good to be back in the car and back in France. Had a great meal and good wine tonight and will be on the road tomorrow....stay tuned for updates! We're back!

It's been a few years since this fantastic (usually annual) car show has been held so it was great to be back at the beautiful Melbourne...

On a sunny Spring Sunday, what better way to spend the day than taking our Spitfire 'Suzy' for a run. We decided to drive to Terrey Hills and turn onto the lovely road that wends its way down through the National Park to Akuna Bay. There's a lovely restaurant overlooking the marina and a couple of great picnic spots along this road if you want to bring your own. We spotted a couple of other classic car owners along the way, including a lovely 1968 Ford Mustang convertible. Yo

Mr F is very attached to Triumph Spitfires as he learned to drive in one, and his first car was one back in the 1970s. We have owned this...

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