ok on thur evening, 26th june, my frens and i went on a road trip!!! we planned this during our prague trip when we were watching F1 Monaco Grand Prix at some cafe! so the prague gang then decided to go to monaco, and we thought since its super small, around 2 square kilometers, we will couple it with nice in france!
so we rented a car and drove there, since it will be much cheaper than to fly or to take a train there. gosh but tons of things happened along the way! it was quite a crazy trip. we had to first go to freiburg to pick up another fren, then continue down to nice, where we already booked 2 nights of hostel. we left munich about 8pm, and reached her place in freiburg around midnight! anyway the plan was to drive through the night and we should reach nich about 7am:)
here’s my fren, jh driving! we got a Volkswagen Golf, 4-door but with a small boot which we had trouble figuring out how to open!! wasted much time there. haha.
BUT to get to nice, we had to cut through switzerland and italy, according to google maps, which helps u find the shortest route possible. isnt that ridiculous!! not only that, swiss and italien roads have many tolls! only the great german autobahns (also with no speed limits) have no tolls. so we drove through switzerland, got stopped at the border just for normal passport checks and to buy the swiss toll ticket, then continued on. n cos we were so used to the german roads, we travelled at the same speed and *flash*, think we got caught on camera on the swiss roads. damn. but we havent heard no news about that until now. fingers crossed.
and after a while, another fren, kh lost the papers that we had printed the google maps directions on! along with his keys. so we turned back to the customs checkpoint cos he thought he left it there. but NO, the helpful border police did not find it either. n he had padlocked his bag, so he needed his KEYS, which he currently could not find, to open it. after much time wasting again, he decided to squeeze his hand into the small gap btn the zips on his bag n he found his keys, and the papers! greeatttt.
so on we go! this time i took over. hmm havent driven a manual tranmission for a while, so took some time to warm up. then guess wat. somehow there was some detour off the highway due to road works, so we could not follow the directions we had. and this tour was WEIRD. it brought us into the SWISS MOUNTAINS! the car was practically crawling, with all of us and our baggage. and it was in the middle of the night, around 3am, really dark outside. and suddenly, the right front wheel hit something. maybe i was too tired n stoning, but i really did not see it!~ just meters away there was a pit stop so we stopped. and found out the tyre was totally FLAT, with the hubcap gone. so went back to pick up the hub cap, with some parts broken, and saw that we hit some rock on the road! it was freeeezzzing when we came out. but we had to change the tyre! so no choice. anyway the sun comes up at about 4plus, 5am, so it was already turning bright.
here’s us taking out the spare tyre from the boot! snow everywhere! n we were dressed wrongly, for the sunny nice/monaco. but guess we were all kinda used to the cold, so no problemo!
so after we were done with changing the tyre, and taking some gorgeous photos (that i unfortunately havent received from my fren), and also some snowball fights, we continued! at this point, the sun was already coming up.
bad news: even after changing the tyre, the right front portion of the car made weird klinging noises everytime we turned. so we stopped again, to check if all the bolts were tight.
2nd pit stop.
great view here!! the car is on the extreme right lane, prob cant see cos its too small.
unfortunately we found out nothing was wrong with it, after double checking the tyre! so off we go!
the noise was kinda annoying and scary though, we had no choice to stop a 3rd time when we saw houses along the way. n we thought, hmm switzerland right. great they speak german! mayb we could ask for help.
3rd pit stop. sun was up up up! cool but sunny weather. very different view! more green now! since we were coming down the mountains already, and we saw signs to milan, which was where we were headed.
we were really unlucky! the people in the house spoke italian. then we realised we were lost among the italian-speaking part of switzerland. so our german was utterly useless here. anyway we at least found out from their basic english/german that there was a garage just 10mins drive down so we drove super slowly down the mountain. and we found it! at least there was hope. n it was already 730am! saw that the garage only opened at 8am so we just waited.
they were really helpful, they told us that the inner shaft was bent/broken, so the tyre was not in the centre of the wheel arch, hence the stupid noise. anyway they said it was fine to continue driving, they asked us to drive to the SIXT in lugarno, the nearest branch of our car rental company. but that was 2hrs away and we did not know if we should risk it with the noisy car.
but we drove down about 10mins to the city centre/train station of this place, which we found out was AIROLO, and managed to get the number of SIXT in lugarno. we called them n they said they would send some people down soon, so we could only wait. and all this calling was drying up our prepaid cards/phone batt one by one. it was so difficult to tell them where we were!!! in some ulufied town in switzerland. bleah.
while waiting, we walked around the town, and wanted to check out the supermarkets. on the lift up, we got trapped!!! shit! like as if we werent already kinda stranded. luckily the supermarket staff forced open the door for us. after that i found out he was employee of the month. cos his picture was stuck on the wall. haha but the things there were all in swiss francs, and were really expensive!
anyway there was this guy who came with a truck, around 1030am, and asked us to follow him to his garage. amazingly he is italian but spoke some german (same standard as me so it was great!) think SIXT called him. so we followed him, and there we called sixt again, who said they will send a replacement car! we were thinking, oh thats really nice of them! so we all waited again…hungry, tired and bored.
here’s us at the garage! waiting for the replacement car that never came!
anyway around 1pm we were SOOOO sick of waiting, we called SIXT in lugarno. n no one was around at the garage, cos u know, italians. slackers too. took a really long lunch break or something. anw now the guy at sixt in lugarno asked us to take a train down from airolo to lugarno where we could pick up the replacement car. after all this waiting!!! so we walked back up to the train station and bought train tickets to lugarno at 2pm, about €18.
luckily all of us brought tons of snacks and sandwiches and stuff, and bcos of this which i call my magic fountain, we did not dehydrate! it seemed like mountain water!
this is the beautiful town of airolo!
we were actually quite glad that we could relax for a while, and most of us just slept since we did not catch much sleep the night before. but also trying to take in the pretty sights along the way, like this!
u can see there’s some chair lift up the mountain, so i guess its prob a ski resort in winter!
and here’s lugarno! its another pretty italian-speaking town in switzerland.
at first we didnt even know if its in swiss or italy. haha.
and finally we have good news! the replacement car was a BMW 3 series!!! damn cool ya!! super funky! think they gave it to us bcos it is a munich registered car and since we were gonna drive it back to munich… hahah n this car we had trouble starting the engine. too high-tech la, these german cars. not even a key hole! it was just some black remote control looking thing where u stick into this slot, step on the clutch and brake, and press this ‘start/stop engine’ button. seriously. but we were finally back on track on our road trip!! woooooott~~
this is already in italy, around 7pm, where we stopped by to get some dinner. felt really gross tho, after 1 day of not showering, we were all sticky. n actually at the italian checkpoint we got stopped by them too. super annoying italian policemen, who refused to speak english!!!! n we got stopped bcos my dear frens were taking photos at the checkpoint n that was obviously not allowed. he made us delete the photos of cos.
but im good. here’s a shot i sneakily took. he did not ask me to delete photos cos he did not see me taking it. heh. u can see the italian flag and the EU flag.
by this time i was already super tanned, cos vienna and berlin was really hot too!! n i was only gonna get darker.
here’s me driving the BMW!! it can go up to 260kmh!! but of cos only on the great german roads.
the italian/swiss/french roads are all terrible!
italian ones had too many tunnels and was too curvy, pretty hard to drive esp with heavy traffic. and they all have tolls!! spent hell lots of money there.
anyway at this point i was worrying about the hostel. i dunno if they would keep it for us since we did not arrive by check-in time or if they would give up the beds. but oh well, we thought reach there then say.
of cos we were not that lucky, after the series of unfortunate events, we reached nice around midnight!!! and reached the hostel, followed some others in cos we had no key, n saw that the reception had closed at 11pm. behind the recept had this door with a sign on it that said no knocking after 11pm! if not there would be a €50 fine for waking up the staff. lame right. but heck, we knocked n knocked but got no answer. we were so in need of a shower at least!
so that night, poor us, we slept in the car!! all 5 of us. at first 4, cos one guy wanted to sleep on the beach. but of cos after a while he started freezing n came back to the car. hahaha can u imainge? 2 nights without proper sleep!!
anyway here’s the beautiful nice beach the next morning! when we got up, just before going back to the hostel! we were so glad we finally made it to nice!!! although we were like 17hrs behind our planned schedule…
anyway we went to hostel, and they sold off our beds on the internet cos we did not appear. oh well, there goes the 10% deposit. and they did not have 5 beds available, only 3 beds and a twin room which was really expensive! so we decided to just take the 3 beds. the 2 others slept in the car that night! so after showering and getting some breakfast at last, we went out! decided to go to monaco that day. was already saturday and we had planned to head back home on sunday evening!!
here’s us fresh on saturday morning at the beautiful nice beach!
we then walked to the bus station to take a bus down to monaco. only costs €1 one way!
monaco, which is obviously a place for the rich, was absolutely gorgeous!!
nice ports with thousands of boats, and of cos we went to see the nice casino!
and bcos its so small, the buildings are all high-rise like singapore and its the most densely-populated country in the world. singapore comes second. heh.
we also checked out the castle! we missed the guard changing tho.
and of cos when u hav rich people, u have nice cars too! here’s me with an aston martin.
another interesting fact: monaco has the same flag as indonesia!!! just that the size is a little differnt, theirs is more squarish. hahah.
another pic of the tiny city!
here’s the carpet at the entrance of the casino! photography was not allowed inside…
u can see the casino in the reflection yeah…
anw it got so hot we called it a day and went back to nice to have dinner!
here’s us at the nice nice beach!
actually the beaches there are not filled with sand, but with huge pebbles/stones, so it wasnt that comfortable. u had to kind of arrange them to make a comfortable spot. haha but after a while we all actually fell asleep on the beach! haha. n also bcos we had to go back to the hostel after 11pm, ie after the reception closes bcos we only paid for 3 beds, but all 5 of us had to use the facilities. so…
the next day we just walked around nice! went up to this chateau that overlooks the city!
anyway we decided to leave nice early, before lunchtime. n mayb stop by at the nice cities on the way back! like eze, villefrance, or avignon.
here’s us playing in the water in eze!
n the unlucky me actually got stung by a jellyfish!! but luckily it wasnt that serious. cos when i felt it i quickly quickly swam away!! it really stung tho!! and it swelled too:(
after all that playing, we left eze, and stopped by at avignon for dinner!! very small and quiet town, and we thought we could mayb catch the euro finals!! but we left at half-time, if not we were afraid we would not make it back to munich on time!!
guess what happened next. we got caught speeding along the french roads. hahah. like many times already yeah. i wasnt driving!!!
this is where we were escorted to from the highway. a french police station. they’re called gendarmerie there. n we had to pay a €90 fine! n it started to hail too! quite painful if u get hit by it!! cant believe the things that happened!!
ok thankfully nothing funny happened on the rest of our way back, so we made it safely home to munich! i think after this road trip, i have experienced all kinds of crap that can happen when u travel!!! but it was really exciting!!!! ciao~ super tired after writing about this la.
