I have always been a stay at home and get on with the tasks at hand kinda guy, whereas my good lady had an adventurous streak and thus she organised and encouraged me to drive the Morgan South on three European trips from central Scotland, we did France as a tester for the 2002 24 hrs at LM, then toured a fair bit of Britany, next trip was to drive down to Andalusia where she rented a villa that we used as a base to tour the area, including a drive up to Granada to again view the Alhambra.. Our final trip was to Italy, this one different in that she decided not to book ahead, as Colin AKA Spanner Juggler of this forum, had travelled extensively in Europe and suggested to use the tourist offices in whatever town we stayed the night in to book the next nights accommodation... Of course this was in a time when mobile phones were just that and not the devices they are today, thus our maps were of the paper kind...(-: Getting pleasantly lost was something to be enjoyed causing us to discover back roads and stay in out of the way places. Our longest stay was at a Sorrento hotel in a room with a view from the balcony out over the Bay of Naples, we used it as a base for a few days to visit Pompeii and to drive the Amalfi coast road around dawn while all the tourists would still be snug in bed..(-:
We used the motorways to get down through France to Sorrento, and on the return leg took to the back roads to trip over out of the way and interesting places, which we did.
The old Mog did so very much better than expected and the most trying situation was sitting cooking in a traffic jam in a tunnel on the motorway just outside Naples with a start engine issue to the extent I did not want to shut it down, lest it failed to fire up again creating further mayhem for already frustrated drivers...!!! All in temps where Italians were fainting in the street....and to try to protect the engine from overheating, I switched the heater fan on.... ever seen makeup melt....!!! My good lady took it all as part of the adventure..
i thought I had posted pics of our Southern European trips including Italy, in the general photo gallery under the heading of Roads less travelled numbered from 1 to 6 or thereabouts, but I can not find them there now.. pity.
The old Morgan was quite the best calling card one could present we were well looked after wherever we stayed.... and were it not for my wife`s sense of adventure it would never have happened....and for sure life can be all to short.
The Mog with it`s low ground clearance was thought not to be ideal for back road travel, but it did have rather higher aspect ratio tyres than your lovely Ferrari... the main thing is that despite all my expectations of doom and disaster re the usual Morgan foibles, the old thing got us there and back on these three trips, the last of which was circa 2005, and it sits in the garage ready to repeat the process any time I might care to turn the ign key..... Sadly not to be.
I hope you have a great trip Ewan. and look forward to hearing the tales of your adventure and of course take lots of pics... (-:
Enjoy what you can and while you can seems to be a more than reasonable plan...?
