Plans trains and automobiles

[Hurricane 1600]

Firstly thanks all for an amazing trip, had a blast with the other Cambridge cars, loved the 10cr as always 🙂

So the car – just one more pass in Italy to go and the engine goes
(Loud banging noise as revs increase)
The engine hadn’t been an happy bunny all trip so not that big a surprise

So the trip home is where the adventure really began

First off call the recovery people and an hour later they recover the car and us, all good so far

Plan A - get a hire car and continue on with the 10cr
No cars to be had in the middle of nowhere northern Italy

Plan B - get a 2 hour train and to Bolzano get a hire car and continue on with the 10cr
Again no luck, no hire cars to be had on Saturday and no one open on Sunday
At which point the insurance company said they’d fly us home instead

Phones ran out of charge at this point 🤔 so sorry for not letting people know where we had got to

Plan C – Train to Munich and fly home from there
Went back to the train station and the nice man in the ticket office told us to get on the Austrian train leaving in an hour and to pay on the train. He totally failed to mention that this was the refugee train that the Italians are shoving people on to send them up North!

4 ½   hours on a packed train full of refugee’s, no seats, no refreshments sitting on the floor outside the toilets. What can I say it was an experience.

Arrive at Munich to be meet by hundreds of German police and reporters. Refugees all herded back onto the train and sent back to Italy (whatever your views people should not be treated like this > )

Despite having my worldly goods in a bin-liner and looking quite ruff at this point we just about managed to avoid being sent back to Italy.  

Next train out to the airport and we miss the last plain back to London by 20 mins 🙁

So the only hotel room is at the Hilton £200 ouch (hoping the insure company are going to cover this as well)
Flight home Sunday and finally picks up a hire car for the final leg

An experience

[Raider]

Oh yes I can relate to that.

I am writing an article for Club Torque.

Basically hours of not quite knowing what was going to happen, being stuck in a bar in a bowling alley in PLzen in the Czech Republic before finally getting sorted.

No hire car available at Dover when we got back as it was the weekend - clearly as Dover is the major port into the UK for ferries it's not necessary to have hire cars avaialbe at the weekend

Sounds like you had quite an experience there though even more "interesting" than ours

[Beans]

Quoted from Raider

Oh yes I can relate to that ... being stuck in a bar

At least you had the comfort of a bar to wait  

[Velocita Rosso]

Never known such a run for bad luck
Snapped half shaft, recovery,130 Euro taxi fee, hire car....with 900 Euro repatriation fee swap to a 2000/V8 time machine,with flux capacitor,puncture and slow boat back to blighty

Ten page novel being written