Gallery Rally — Jersey to Saint-Tropez 2012

Welcome to Day 5 - Saint-Tropez to Sufers

Evening all, and a warm welcome to Day 5 of the trip - what will become known as "Beyond the Gallery Rally..." from here onwards!

Due to our very late night (3.30am by the time we finished) we didn't arise until around 10am this morning, but arise we did, to the theme tune from Dr Who - always a fine way to awake in my opinion!

Not surprisingly, we had already decided (before going to bed) against an early departure in favour of a leisurely breakfast in our 5 star luxury, enjoying our 5 star views.

Breakfast, for the first time, included traditional foods such as eggs (€9 per pair), bacon (€2 each), sausages (€2 each), and mushrooms (€2).

I know what you're thinking. Expensive, but massive portions? Ermm no. The smallest sausage i've ever laid eyes on (and i've seen a few) - although extremely delicious it has to be said. As for the bacon, well, it was ok. And the mushrooms. Well, there must have been at least 2. Although it might actually have been just 1 big one chopped up.

But one mustn't complain - at least the 'buffet' breakfast was part of the room cost. Otherwise it would have cost you €30! (thats the breakfast, not the room!)

As time was suddenly headed fast towards midday (the check-out time) we thought we'd better get a wriggle on - after all, getting charged an extra night at a room rate of €800 per night would not have gone down well if we're quibbling over €9 for some eggs!!

So we stuffed our old suitcases into our new suitcases (did we mention we had won some suitcases for our joint 2nd place in this years rally? This was infact the second best prize either of us had ever won. The first being 3 years ago when we won some suitcases on the Gallery Rally!)

 

.....and picked up our bits and left to pack the car up - which had magically appeared outside the door. Unfortunately, it hadn't magically been cleaned though!

Never mind, there is bound to be some jet-washes along the route of the next few days!

By the time we left, it was around half 12, and we navigated our way skillfully through the centre of Saint--Tropez, enjoying the view of the sea front and all of its wealth...

After what seemed like eternity we eventually hit some decent roads, and evenutually joined a motorway to head in a north-easterly direction.

Some time later, we were passing familiar signs for one of our favourite spots...

Deciding against calling in to say hi to Jenson and Lewis (they'd already told us they wouldn't be back from Canada yet), we continued until we eventually found a new country to cross into...

When I say 'a new country', we of course don't mean one we have found and claimed as our own. Simply a different one to the one we had spent the last 4 days in. (am I over complicating this like it was one of Chips clues?!)

Anyway, moving on before I bore you (too late?) (you ain't seen nothing yet!)

We drove until around 3pm, and decided it was time for the first fill-up of the day. We'd deliberately left it till we got to Italy as we had been told it woud be cheaper here.

The first garage we stopped at only sold Unleaded 95. I mean really. Thats just disgraceful! They did have something called Tamoil WR100, which we've yet to work out what it is, but it had a red pump handle like the old 4star days, so we didnt think it was worth chancing it.*

Instead we headed for a good old fashioned Esso station. They're bound to sell 98!

But no, not only do they not sell it, the man there said the only place in Italy that does it is Shell! He even categorically told us that Agip doesn't sell it either (which was only 10k further up the road)

We decided to see for ourselves. Just a well, as it turned out he was lying! They do. They call it Blue Super+! Mind you, it was €2.034 which is about £1.64 per litre in real money.

(Make a note everybody, one day you will thank us for this).

The Esso guy must have been trying to make us buy his inferior stuff! But you can't pull the wool over our eyes, no sirreeee!

*Update on the Tamoil WR100. It's only the Tamoil equivalent of V-Power, but with 100octane. DUH! And it was the same price.

Anyway, (you can tell we didnt do much besides drive today!) we also stopped at the Auto Grill for lunch (steak frites, or whatever the Italian equivalent is!)

Back to the car, and time to motor on. We'd decided we had got bored of Italy. Yes, I know, we'd not even been here a day - but it takes a lot to compete with France.

Lets try this place..

 

 

Having crossed the Swiss border (first buying our Vignette), we were soon feeling a lot more comfortable in our surroundings...

We got higher and higher, the views ever improving...

.....and colder and colder. A bit of a contrast from the 28deg temperature of Saint-Tropez just a few hours earlier - it dropped to about 6deg before we could say 'brrrrrrr' and we were looking across at the snow line!

We went through many of these...

It actually turned out that this one was San Bernardino tunnel, which was opened in 1967. It is 6.6km long, built to take the strain off San Bernardino pass.

The pass itself rises to 2066metres (6778ft) and was featured in an episode of Top Gear in 2007, where the three boys embarked on a challenge to discover the best driving road in Europe. This was actually the one that got their vote at the time!

Of course, this is only information we have discovered now, back in the comfort of our hotel room with free internet access! Oh well, next time!

Talking of which, we continued until around 8pm, when we reached a town just before Sufers, a ski resort with the most stunning views....(which we will treat you too on Day 6's update, as its dark outside now, and apparently Mike's flash gun isn't quite big enough to light up all the mountains!)

Today has seen us do 370 miles; here is our route for you to peruse!

Not bad for a relatively short days driving, and considering that on Day 1 to 4 of the Gallery Rally itself, we only did a total of 880 miles!

So that's it for tonight - what's also a bit of a bonus is that its only just gone 11.20pm, and with a bit of luck and a following wind, we might be done with in the next 10minutes and actually get a potentially decent nights sleep for the first time since we left St Helier!

Anyone who hasn't already, that would still like to sponsor us, the link as always, is here:

And of course, keep those Guest Book comments coming in; it always gives us great pleasure reading them out - in fact other than each others company, the fantastic driving experience, the roads, superb views and the lovely food, its all we have to look forward to!

Until tomorrow, we hope you enjoy....