The road south

I was awake early, bleary but no longer able to sleep. I slipped out in the dawn light to take in the lake and the mountains that towered around us at 2000m. (Photo is better bigger.)

We had some breakfast and rejoined the packed car and the road south. This quickly climbed through tunnels and a spectacular and dark ravine before we were pitched into the mouth of the St Gotthard tunnel.

I've added an extra of the road and mountains - Bristen at 3037m - up to the tunnel mouth. Taken from the Rastplatz Gurtnellen. It was a very contrasty day in the dark gorge with the sun shining on the snow-topped Alps.

After the terrible fire back in the early 2000s there was some apprehension in the air and unlike all the other tunnels we had so far encountered the 17km of the St G is single carriageway with no separation between the coming and going traffic.

But all passed smoothly and we were soon descending steeply into the rather barren mountains of Ticino and the packed settlements in the valley bottoms.

The Italian border crossed the traffic intensified and lane discipline deteriorated somewhat. But not that much. Being tailgated by Germans travelling at subsonic speeds had prepared me.

Getting around Milan felt a bit tricky at times but once on the dead-straight Via Emilia the traffic calmed and the relaxed order of the Po Plain and Emilia's orchards in bloom was strangely relaxing.

At Bologna we turned right and galloped up and over the Apennines - mostly in tunnels again on a new piece of motorway. At Barberino di Mugello we turned off and at the pay station leaving the motorway noticed that the car now sounded, when idling, like a tractor. 

I pulled over at a layby and it sounded as if the back end was dissolved into tiny component parts but on closer inspection it turned out to be the exhaust guard that had come loose and was sitting on the exhaust making a lot of noise for what seemed little more than fancy tinfoil.

We carried on regardless and at just after 16.00 we turned down a steep stone track past a new vineyard to find our new home.  The sun was slipping behind a high wooded-ridge and a chill wind blew as we looked out over the view towards the hillside village of Santa Brigida.