This
year, we decided to combine our summer holiday with a trip to
the
ICCCR. The plan was to drive to Italy and spend a week at Lago
di Garda
(Lake Garda) and then to drive to Interlaken where we would
spend a
week.
The day before our departure, my XM's nearside dipped beam
headlamp bulb decided to expire. A quick dash to the local
dealer
ensued since access to the headlamp bulb was next to
impossible. The
dealer had to remove four relays and unplug an electrical
multiconnector and even then, it was a fiddly job. I took the
car home
and later that day, when I went out to start it, the engine
management
warning light came on and stayed on. Coincidence? Maybe. I
called the
RAC but the patrol just looked perplexed. I suggested
disconnecting the
battery to clear the fault codes which he did. The light went
out
immediately after restarting and the following day, we drove
to the
Channel Tunnel. In the queue for ticket checks, the light came
on
again. We decided to get it looked at on the continent. It
extinguished
itself after the restart in France.
That night, we stayed in a Eurocamp mobile home in Luxembourg.
I asked
the courier for details of a Citroën service agent on our
route to
Luzern and was given the name and 'phone number of Garage
Etoile
in Dudelange. I 'phoned and spoke to the owner and explained
the
problem and he suggested I call in the following day. The next
day, we
arrived at the garage and a rather nervous mechanic drove the
car into
the workshop - the first right hand drive car he had ever
driven. Nexia
was hooked up and diagnosed a bad connection in the
turbo-ventilateur
control wiring. He cleaned the connector and all appeared to
be well.
He cleared the fault codes too. The owner of Garage Etoile is
a Citroën
enthusiast and owns a Formule Bleue MEP. I asked him if he
would be
visiting the ICCCR and he said he hoped to. When I asked for
the bill,
he told me there was nothing to pay.
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We
drove to Luzern without any untoward illumination of the warning
light
and stayed overnight in a very pleasant if somewhat anonymous
hotel
after walking around the old town and doing the tourist thing.
The
next day, we drove to Italy over the St. Gotthard Pass which has
some
spectacular views and is a much nicer drive than through the
tunnel. We
crossed the border into Italy and immediately the driving
standards
deteriorated. Italian driving standards are abysmal. And the
smaller
the car, the worse the driving. On the autostrade, straddling
the lane
markings is the norm, as is driving 5cm off your tail and
overtaking on
the right.
Horns and headlamps are used instead of indicators and a solid
white
line means you may overtake. Stopping at red traffic lights is
optional. The technique for dealing with pedestrian crossings is
to
accelerate while sounding the horn at any pedestrian foolish
enough to
contemplate crossing the road. And things deteriorate after
lunch.
The week in Italy was enjoyable despite the awful driving. We
stayed in
another mobile home and visited Verona and Venice and spent a
fair bit
of time lapping up the sunshine. After the week was up, we drove
north
to Interlaken crossing into Switzerland via the picturesque
Susten
Pass. In Switzerland, we stayed in another mobile home just a 5
minute
drive from the ICCCR site. Our Dutch friends Arthur and Ellen
came to
visit several times and we visited the ICCCR several times with
them.
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