As sure as eggs is eggs*

Time to dig out the factor 50, it’s going to be ‘cracking the flags’ in Cumbria over the next month as I head for some of the great biking and driving roads of northern Italy. 

It always seems to be the case when I head off in search of the sun, that back home is blessed with excellent weather! 😆

But which 2.5 litre motorised transport do I take? Trusty Reg the Rocket, who has taken me to the furthest northern road of Europe, and also as far south as the Canary Islands (with the help of a few ferries of course), or the more recently acquired Herman the German who, in just seven months has already taken me on two European spins out? 

If indeed you can ‘bat from either end’, I wonder which you would choose? The fact that my biking mate Ray is coming with me for the first week is playing a part, but that decision was only made at the last minute. We’re going with just one vehicle and as the rear seat on Reg is not much bigger than a large mobile phone then Herman it is. If two blokes in an open top sports car conveys a certain image, then two on a motorcycle is surely worse! But the decision wasn’t based on what others maybe perceive as our sexuality, it went something like this:

I have a four week ‘window’ until my family weekend in early June, and although I’m sure it will be a perfect time to mow the lawn and get the garden looking like it actually belongs to somebody, the lure of the open road was too big a temptation for me to turn down. My original thought was the Dolomites, a place I really want to return to, but I wondered if some of the roads would be accessible this early in the season? Then I pondered a return to Tuscany, mmm….. it got me thinking of when Rachel and I were there in the van and stumbled across a classic car hillclimb, so I ‘Googled’ it. The Saline Volterra is on during the weekend of 11th and 12th May, result! That was a good enough reason for me to head to Tuscany, I don’t take much encouragement, and don’t have anybody to ‘put the brakes on’ my sometimes harebrained ideas!

During my last two trips abroad in Herman I’ve been accompanied at least in some part, firstly by Andy D when we went to the Algarve in December last year, before he flew back from Faro after a week, and then with Paul on our week’s trip to Belgium in March. It may look like some kind of trend is developing here, but although I may be a signed up member of ‘Sergeant Pepper’s Band’ I don’t think I need to have a co pilot. Yes I very much enjoy the company of my mates on these travels, to share the experiences I have, but I haven’t lost the desire to still embrace solo travelling. It’s not a path I would have chosen by any means, but as they say, when life gives you lemons make lemonade.

With hopefully four weeks at my disposal, and with most of my buddies still embracing that quaint pastime called work, it still gave the option for any brave soul to at least accompany me for some of the trip. Ray and Ken are the biking buddies I took on our Western Front Way trip in 2022 and who I’ll be going with to the Picos de Europa in July this year, they are both not only bikers but fellow Porsche owners, yes I now mix in such circles! So the offer was thrown out to them on a first come first served basis. Ken actually had prior arrangements so Ray picked up the gauntlet (of being passenger in my car on an unrestricted autobahn through Germany 😬) and so he will be with me until after the classic car weekend, whereupon he will fly back from Pisa and I will meander around northern Italy hopefully visiting many places, not just in Tuscany but the Lakes and yes the Dolomites!

Watch this space……

*The earliest-recorded appearance of ‘as sure as eggs are eggs’ was in a dictionary of slang published in 1699. Possibly a progression from ‘X is X’.