240 DEAR DIARY, DAY FOUR…

Dear Diary,

The second day of the rally started by forking out €60 for the daily tankful of fuel. There are things I’ll miss about the trip, but making a sheikh richer each day isn’t one of them.

We met the whole motley crew at Das McDonald's; the face on the woman serving was a picture as a tribe of hungover, toga-wearing Englishmen (it was the fancy dress theme of the day) ordered McWrap Rührei Bacon and “der coffee”.

After pictures and collecting our challenge sheet, Lisa took the wheel for the first leg of today’s journey - Freiburg in Germany to Lucerne in Switzerland. Do you know what? She drove like an expert despite being on the wrong side of the road, driving in kilometres and being in charge of the beast that is our little Abarth for the first time in moons.

Carl randomly picked our stop-off because it had a cafe and nice views; it turned out creepy and a masterstroke at the same time! Creepy because we went to a public baths with families cutting about, swimming on a Saturday morning, but amazing as it had a nice cafe and was literally on the lake.

We then headed to the Gotthard Pass and, after a minor detour into a massive traffic jam, we charged up the mountains. as we started the ascent, I had a motorbike right up my chuff so decided to give it some and left him in my dust. Even Lisa enjoyed the blast and encouraged me to give it some, which I dutifully did. That drive up the mountain on tight, twisty roads was a life moment and something I’ll never forget.

We made it to the top of the Alps and celebrated by FaceTiming our families. It was great to see how excited our parents were to see us standing on the top of a snow-blushed mountain, after all the months of planning.

We even got a few pics with ‘Travelling Ellis’, which made us all a little emotional, if I’m being honest. It reminded us of what a great cause New Start is and how lucky we are to have friends, family, and colleagues who have gone out of their way to donate to it.

We jumped back in the cars and stopped at the next logical place we could think of, the dam that featured in the opening credits of Goldeneye, the cracking Bond film.  We reached the top thanks to Carl's judgement alone, and celebrated with a Cornetto.

After that we headed out of Switzerland and into our 7th country of the trip, Italy.  We darted through Lugano and then snaked our way into Italy, where we had our first brush with Italian drivers. Everything they say about them is true: drive too fast, drive too close, drive too frenetically. I love them, my kind of people!!!

We snaked our way towards Menaggio and, for just the third time that day, had to swerve to avoid a bus on the wrong side of the road heading straight for us.

We eventually made it to our hotel and boy, what a hotel it is. We booked it when we were half a bottle of gin in, and I must say, our drunken selves have taste!  Glorious building on the banks of Lake Como, and two of us got room upgrades (sorry, Carl and Matt!).

After a quick shower, we went to explore Menaggio. Spoiler alert: it is stunning. We went to the town square, met some of our competitors and then found a bar for a couple of cool pints. Then it was off to a restaurant where we had locally caught trout with vegetables washed down with a nice bottle of red.

Carlsberg don’t do days, but if they did, etc. Fabulous from start to finish: Lisa and Rachel driving, amazing mountain roads, putting a motorcyclist in his place, video calls on the top of the Alps, the Goldeneye dam, driving in Italy, the hotel, the food, the wine.  This will live long in the memory…

Yours,

Rob