Driving to Siena
This is my twentieth visit to Italy starting way back in 1978. I’ve been all over the place but still haven’t conquered Napoli or the Lakes. Since, 1997, I have begun to settle for Siena and its surrounding small hill towns and I am once again “stationed” here for a month.
This time I am back close to Siena where we stayed en famille in 1997 and again in 2005. After my divorce in 2007, I started coming back here more frequently and I took three weeks to try and start my recovery later that same year but I was incredibly wobbly and found myself weeping most mornings.
The first place we stayed at was just down the road to where I am now. Jack, my son, and I had de-planed at Pisa, rented a car and then de-luggaged and hot and sticky we decided we’d try the pool. I said to him I thought that there were Harriet Harman and Jack Dromey look a-likes at the other end but they were for real along with Joan Ruddock MP and Frank Doran MP. Extraordinary! After, 2007 I then part-rented a house in Monteroni D’Arbia in 2008 and 2009 but the owner died and the family sold the estate. Maybe I’ll find something this year.
For the fourth time, I have driven here. It takes about 18 hours with stops and I suspect you could do it in a day from London with a co-driver. I have begun to find a settled routine which is to book a spot just after 7am on Eurotunnel which means - with losing an hour - arriving in Calais at eight forty five. I then drive to Turin and stay at the wonderful but incongrously named: Art Hotel, Boston. This year I was determined to go through Mont Blanc tunnel so I could see the mountain (a first) - and its brothers and sisters - which was stunning.
As stunning was the civil engineering which had gone into creating something like fifty miles of motorway on stilts over very trying terrain. What with the endless tunnels in addition to Mont Blanc itself maybe our underrated civil engineers are worthy alongside medics and technologists as being included in a Modern Wonders of the World top ten list of peoples.
The first time I drove to Siena I had persuaded Daisy, my daughter, to leg it with me via a tiny French village just on the Swiss border – itself an eight hour hike – to see a chapel designed by Le Corbusier. You wouldn’t want to stay in the village by choice it being seedy and soulless but Ronchamp is Corb’s finest building of many finest buildings. He was for fifty years the Picasso figure for architecture: an absolute giant. But here’s the mystery. How on earth did this apology of a place a) find and persuade the man to come and b) afford him?
Ronchamp moved me muchly. The outside walls look like a snowy white version of a large Yorkshire pudding whilst the windows have no apparent order thrown as they are at the curved walls in a seemingly random way. And yet when inside they dominate and give the most dazzling light to the chapel. It is a wonder to behold.
We drove on to Lyon, the food capital of the world and home to the legendary chef Paul Bocuse, where to make up for Ronchamp, we had booked Villa Florentine whilst en route. It was a good choice up in the old town with a pool from which you could see the whole city. Our third day of driving saw us drop anchor in Genoa another city which has seen better days. And finally on our fourth, we reached Podere Patrignone. We took even longer coming back staying in Monte Carlo (bitterly disappointing), Marseilles (in Corb’s very own Unite d’Habitation), the Comargue (we should have stayed longer here) and finally, Paris and all this in just a Citroen Picasso.
In 2008, 2009, 2011 and this week, I drove in my Volvo C70 which is a hard top coupe. In 2008, I stopped off at Dijon which no longer cuts the mustard and Turin which has grown on me; whilst on the way back it was Macon, a faceless town, and Epernay, which had a lot more fizz about it. Its manicured and precious vineyards reminded me of the tea plantations I saw in Nuwara Eliya 2000m up in the mountains in Sri Lanka. In 2009, it was Turin out and Venice (to see the Biennale) and Rheims back. I drove through Switzerland to France which was surprisingly quick and toll free. In 2011, it was a small village in Piedmont (home to the silky Barolo vines) out and Beaune (another wine excursion) home. I enjoyed Beaune with its assortment of rich white Meursaults, a snip at over 100 Euros a bottle……
I like driving. I like driving fast. The Volvo is comfortable at 120mph and I have nudged 140mph but I generally drive around the 80-100mph range. George, my sat nav, usually takes me down the spine of central France to Lyon and then up the mountains and across and down to Turin. Once on the A2-M2 to Folkestone I do not encounter traffic lights for over 700 miles. When there are long queues at the “peage” local motorists can be inpatient as you cannot feed the meter or take a ticket with a right hand drive. So, you have to de-car……
Driving fast has its own dark humour.
In 2008, I was caught with a speed gun by a couple of old rogues who doubled as gendarmes driving a battered Renault 5. They had been hiding in a tree-lined service station as I whizzed past and I saw them in Le Mans style jump in to their car. The chase was on. The trouble was they were receding into the distance. What should I do? Should I just drive on or should I slow down and take the wrap. Would they phone ahead and ask a second car to stop me?
I thought “MP spends a night in the local cop shop” was not a good headline and I slowed down. The two policemen remonstrated with me. I pretended not to understand. They said I must pay an on the spot fine of ninety Euros. I said I wanted a receipt. They said they didn’t do receipts. I stood my ground for an hour. In the end they produced the receipt and I went on my way.
Driving in France is not cheap. Driving in Italy is. Driving in both countries is irritating because of the need to have to de-car to pay or collect. There’s an opportunity here for the Post Office, the AA or the RAC to become the agent for the pre-paid French and Italian cards which automatically whizz you through the “peage”. Is anyone listening?
In the end, driving or flying to a holiday in France or Italy comes down to how much you can afford versus time on the beach or in the pool at the villa. A family of four will cost £1200-£1500 to fly (depending on how early you book) and another £400-£500 plus to rent a car (renting is such a racket) for two weeks. The cheaper airlines are now restricting luggage or asking you to pay more for it. You can pack a car to your hearts content. To drive there and back will cost you £1000 to Nice and £1500 including overnight stops to Siena. Flying takes a day there and a day back. Driving to the south of France is a full day from London and to Siena a day and a half. Driving with two parents and two children is not easy: after all as we all know “Are we there yet?” starts at Calais.