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The morning came around all too soon and again, after a simple breakfast, we packed the car, said our goodbyes to BF and the children, gave them all a huge hug and it was Alison’s turn to take the first leg to Milan.
We checked out, thanked the Casa for their hospitality and I told them I would be back again the same time the next year, a promise that I did hold but not quite in the way that I thought I would. More of that particular story some other time.
We put the overnight bags into the boot and Alison go into the drivers seat and I into the passenger side. Carefully, we reversed and drove out of the courtyard, over the sleeping policeman and back up to the top of the incline to rejoin the southbound SS45 bis. We joined the southbound traffic along the swooping, long curves, past the hotel where the Late Mrs F and I had stayed previously in 2008, the Hotel Leonardo Da Vinci, and we continued south, with the lake on our left and the mountain of Monte Baldo at Malcesine and the cypress trees and armco marking the road boundaries. They truly are beautiful driving roads and I can only say that if you havent driven a GT car along these roads… if these are the kinds of things that float your boat, do it while you still can.
We soon encountered our first tunnel and it was the first of many along this particular leg, the first one under the village of Tremosine which was above us on the side of the mountain. As with some of the others, there were impressive colonnades and it seemed to go on forever.
The next colonnaded tunnel definitely looked more familiar as one of the locations for the car chase at the beginning of the Daniel Craig Bond film Quantum Of Solace, (which if I recall correctly, hadnt been shot yet). The mountain remains on your right hand side, tight to your right and the other lane has about a metre and a half, if that between the white line and a sheer drop into the lake and this swooping bend through this colonnaded tunnel goes on for about a mile and a half.
Its f’ing beautiful, it really is.
How the hell did I get here, a Coventry council house kid, born behind a bus depot in 1965, out of wedlock to a single mother of 22… and here I was in a classic GT car, driving south along one of the most beautiful roads in the world feeling like his heart was about to overflow… how the hell did I get here?
Eventually, South of Tremosine, the road bursts out of the tunnels and back into broad daylight as it hugs the side of the mountain, skirting the lake following its every contour. Another long tunnel under the settlement of Campione, the tunnel goes slightly inland by a hundred yards or two then emerges back into the light and every now and then, we would go past laybys and hotels and see people on the lakes in dinghies, on body boards and windsurfers, even at that early hour of day. There were some hotels but not many and they were quite infrequent and isolated. We then head south through more tunnels past what appeared to be ruined wartime fortifications around Gargnano and Bogliaco and heads southbound again through San Giorgo to Gardone Riviera where it starts to become more built up and more, dare I say it in places, it feels like it goes from sort of Exe estuary to almost English Riviera with slightly more European feeling hotels, LOLZ.
Gardone had been a stop on a coach tour that the late Mrs F and I had been on which circumnavigated the lake and it looked quite prosperous in places, particularly around the Botanic Gardens; the road continued to wind its way south to Salo and winds south towards Brescia and starts to go further inland away from the lake.
Eventually, you come upon the E70/A4 Autostrada and we joined the A4 Torino-Trieste motorway and headed west towards Milan.
Motorways are like motorways the world over, sadly, particularly when they have those big sound absorbing/reflecting boards by the side of them so that you dont have any landmarks to go on and are completely reliant on your satnav. Still, that wasn’t my problem right now. I was quite relaxed in the passenger seat and let my sister get on with it.
It was a long way to Milan, some 93Km by this point and the motorway miles kinda blended in to each other…we eventually went past Bergamo Airport on our right hand side as the A4 continued north west. Our Autostrada took us in the direction of Malpensa and we turned North-North West. This then became the A8 and we continued to take signs for Malpensa and Como. This road became arrow straight for miles until we hit the Como turn off. The road becomes the A9 and just goes straight north for miles and miles and miles.
I do recall a petrol station stop near an Airport which my memory is telling me is Malpensa, although I do offer the caveat that my memory is given to telling me fibs every now and again…
Looking at the Maps of the area, that doesnt appear to be the case. I remember us stopping at a Shell petrol station to fill up and to get some snacks and water for the next leg of the journey which was going to be a long one; by 7pm later tonight, we were to be in Strasbourg.
I do clearly remember at that petrol station as my sister was returning to the car and I was about to get into the driver’s seat for the next leg, an Italian guy in his late 30’s/early 40’s walking past our pump and past the XJS and quietly but audibly saying “che bella” as he gazed on the car.
That car made friends everywhere it went. Everybody who saw it loved it. Even on the fringe of one of Italy’s biggest cities, not that far from Monza, the home of Italian Grand Prix racing.
Anyway. After this petrol stop, we turned north through Como on a dual carriageway, but I dont recall seeing much of the lake itself, which I had rather hoped that we would, as Como is meant to be every bit as spectacular as Garda, but I dont actually recall seeing any of it. Again, with a lot of the road being urban clearway, you had to concentrate on the road.
On the other side of Como, there is the Swiss/Italian border which we duly crossed for a small fee.
Again,no hold-ups, very perfunctory.
The road becomes the E2 which then becomes the E35 and continues to wind its way north as a dual carriageway. We took the signs for San Gotthard and San Bernadino and continued on our way.
I guess driving in Switzerland may create imaginary vistas of sweeping, tight switchbacks, hairpins, sheer drops, Matt Munro singing “On Days Like These” and Aston Martin DB5’s… the reality for us at the time wasnt that. There are still the mountain roads and switchbacks and we did see some of those, but a lot of traffic isnt routed around those passes, particularly when the weather is otherwise benign, which at this point in March, it certainly was.
So, the vast majority of the journey to Zurich was mainly like the kind of motorway miles that you would see along the M40; the occasional wide-open vista, the occasional journey through the throats of a valley, with mountains towering over you, the feeling of going downhill for miles and miles and miles and then the feeling of going uphill for miles and miles and miles.
As we press on northwards, we eventually arrive at what would have at one point been the longest road tunnel in the world, at 10.5 miles; its now the fifth longest. But, at 50mph, that seems to take forever. Not the kind of place to be in if you’re claustrophobic.
The Gotthard Strassentunnel is a a key part of this journey if you want it to be over quickly. You can take the switchbacks if you like, but…. on that particular day, we were up against the clock. It starts at Aerolo and finishes at Goschenen. As you come down from the tunnel exit towards Interlaken, the Swiss Alps stand majestically in the distance and you’re reminded just how far you’ve still got to go to get to your destination. At this point, we’re still 102km from Zurich, so about 70 miles, ish. Time was now about 1.30PM, should be around Zurich in the next hour and a bit…. so far so good.
Thats not to say that the scenery around you isnt beautiful in places; it really is. Tall snow capped mountain peaks and near vertical mountain walls with trees impossibly growing at all levels hanging on for dear life going as far up as the eye can see. Occasionally, you’ll look up, see a church on the top of a hill or mountain and think “who the hell put that there and how?”
Soon enough we came up Junct 36 on the A2 which was the Zurich turn off. This becomes the A4, reverts back to single carriageway and disappears straight into another tunnel. This bursts out of the darkness back into the daylight some miles later and you have the Urnersee lake on your left. Gorgeous.
We continued along the A4, skirting the Lauezersee and the Zugersee and return to Motorway, three lanes on the A4 through Cham. 30Kms from Zurich.
As we get closer, the road comes out of a tunnel and we end up at junction where the motorway divides into Central Zurich and Bern-Basel/Gallen.
This is the one time you dont want the SatNav, reliable to this point, to decide at the last moment that you’re in the wrong lane and that you really needed to be in the Bern-Basel lane.
But thats what happened. As I watched that lane disappear away to my left it became very quickly obvious that we would end up going through Central Zurich at about 4pm in the afternoon.
“Shit shit shit shit shit…. we’re going to be stuck going through Zurich in the afternoon rush and we have no choice now but to go through it and try and find a route out. Shit shit shit shit shit….”
Oh well. We were committed by this point. Zurich City it was going to be….. traffic getting heavier now. Queueing. Sitting there in a GT car, burning Shell fuel for fun, down to about half a tank… sat nav points us straight ahead… under the flyover… shit, shit shit, tram tracks…. look left and right, Alison…. wheres the traffic lights? Straight over, right here…. ah ok, signs for the H1…. thank f… I think we got away with it…
Zurich struck me as being quite a nice place and somewhere that I wouldnt mind taking another closer look at some time in the future… just not right now.
Along the A3… dang, more tunnels. Past caring really, just need to be in France before much longer.
Staying on the correct side of the Swiss/German border, over the top of Basel, crossing the French border at the top end of Basel and onwards and upwards we go. E35, 116kms to Strasbourg… time to put the foot down. We leave the E35 taking signs for Selestat to the south of Strasbourg, aiming for the hotel. Farmhouses, open arable fields. A little like parts of Cambridgeshire.
Turn right for Freiberg and Selestat… Past 6pm now, its been a very long day, getting dark. Tree lined single carriageway. Bit like a flatter Warwickshire, but quintessentially rurally French… into downtown Selestat… very nice. Old fashioned, a little like a French version of Stratford Upon Avon, lots of old characterful buildings. Down the main drag, turn right along Boulevard Mareschal Foch… and about half way down on the right is the stop for tonight. As it was then, the Abbeye De La Pommeraie, which was a Relais and Chateau establishment and the nicest hotel on the entire itinerary. I drove the XJS onto the pavement driveway to the big gates, which automatically opened and I drove her up to the reception parking slot.
We’d made it. Got out of the car, stretched and took the overnight bags out of the boot and walked up to reception.
“Good evening. Mr Fubar2 plus one, just arrived from Lake Garda. We have a reservation for the night?”
“Ah yes sir, we’ve been expecting you…. Can you fill in this form please and can you confirm you have your passports?”
“Of course.”
“OK. We have you both in a double room in – “
“Oh. I’m pretty sure I had booked a twin room or two doubles?”“I’m sorry, we have no twin rooms available. Is the room not suitable for you both?”
“We’re brother and sister, not man and wife. For obvious reasons, I assume there is another room which we can take, for my sister?”
“Ah yes, of course, Sir. One moment please.”
goes off and talks to manager… returns 30 seconds later.
“OK. Here are the keys for your rooms. The porters will help you take your luggage to the rooms. You have a vehicle, yes? Can we park the car for you please? We do have secure parking but it is offsite… if you require the car before the morning, you will need to let us know and allow us some moments to collect it for you”.
“Yes, most grateful, thank you”. Passes the keys for the XJS across the reception desk and follows the porter up the stairs who comes to my room first.
“In here please Sir?”
“Perfect, thank you”. Looks around. Lots of wood and heavy fabrics. Very proper. I could get used to this. Verrrry nice.
Slips the porter a 5 Euro tip. He takes Alison up to her room.
All of three minutes elapse, if that. Then I get a text message.
“You’ve got to see this. Turn Right outside your door, go up the stairs again then take a left”
Hmmm. Whats all this about? Puts overnight bag on the bed and takes the key and follows the direction upstairs to a room which is at the top of a very elegantly carved wooden staircase. This thing was like the steps up to Dumbledore’s study. I was half expecting to walk in and find a phoenix on a perch and to hear Maggie Smith saying the words “Sherbert Lemons”.
Exposed oak beams, a desk, large beautiful sofa. I know the pictures dont do it justice, but as a certain Ron Weasley would have said…. “Bloody hell”.
Someone’s done alright out of this, havent they?
“It’ll do for the night, wont it?”
“’kinell…. Well, thats payback for three nights of snoring. Dont say I never do anything for ya”.
I returned to my room to shower and freshen up and we reserved a table for 8pm.
The hotel is still there now, but is only a B&B and no longer is a Relais and Chateau establishment, sadly. Selstat plainly isnt the tourism hotbed that it used to be.
I dont recall what I had for main course, I think it was lamb… Starter was definitely Snail Velouté, which my sister gagged at the notion of and wouldn’t try at any cost. I bloody loved it, it was fabulous.
A couple of nightcaps later and it was time to round off a very long but very satisfying day where we’d accomplished a lot.
Next day was to be the penultimate leg of the trip back to Brussels.
© text & photos Fubar2 2025
