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Day four was to start
with the water fight on the beach our soldier was Dan who bravely went into
battle against the Home to Rome crowd. The rest of us deciding to stay
dry!
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Leaving Sottomarina John
the satnav was as usual taking the morning off, but as there is only one road
on to Sottomarina and one road off, how could Al possibly get lost? half hour
later we had done a few back roads and camp sites. Dan offered directions which
Al ignored, after all hes only 16 and what the hell does he know about driving.
Half hour later Al takes Dans advice and we head out of Sottomarina in the
right direction!
This was it, the last leg
of the journey and mainly motorway all the way to Rome, the obnoxious challenge
of the day was to photograph a shed load of number plates (I forget how many)
and with a few mathematical symbols get a sum equal to 100,000, Adrian "the
accountant" proudly declared that he had done the challenge and had 9999 !! now
the rest of us are not mathmatician's but we knew that was 90001 short of the
target, which we helpfully in an adult manner pointed out. OK so we may have
been a little childish.
But being a typical
accountant he crunched a few numbers without the aide of a calculator (strange
chap!) and come up with 100,006 we were very impressed, but we won't tell him
that!
It turned out I was to have the joy of the last leg and drive into
Rome, we hit the ring road just short of rush hour, every man, woman and Dave
for himself!
We found our junction and headed off into what was total chaos, but I
soon worked out the Italian road rules,
If your bonnet fits
through the gap you have right of way.
If you drive fast
enough, your bonnet will fit through the smallest of
gaps.
Pressing your horn for
long periods of time indicates to others that you have the right of
way.
If there is two set of lanes drive in the center as this gives you
right of way.
Mopeds, cyclists and
pedestrians are all fare game, infact the more you hit, the higher you rank in
the "I have right of way league table".
At some point during the
madness I was heading down a road with some "crazy fool" coming straight at me
with his horn beeping and lights flashing, it took me a few seconds to work out
that I was on the wrong side of the road. I am pleased to report that hand
signals are international!
Somehow we managed to
survive and find our way to the hotel without killing anyone. Thats after we
asked directions using the international language of the Dave.
We
made it, no dents no breakdowns no road kill. "Dave" that £100 car bought
unseen, with no testing, no maintenance had just taken us 1600 miles to Rome
without missing a beat, that brave Mazda chariot was now a much loved team
member but tomorrow he had 6 more miles to cover and it was going to be his
last journey!
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So there we are just
outside Rome city centre in what appeared to be the Bronx, plenty of graffiti
and dirt and rubbish, we soon found that graffiti is everywhere it must be some
kind of passtime. We jumped on a train covered in Graffiti and headed off to
the finale in Piazza Navona, a major square in the heart of Rome where
the final speech was to be made at 8:30pm, but as we already knew that their
had been some bickering amongst the marshals, accusations of stealing and
police involvement we were not surprised to find that the final speech happened
eventually at 10:30pm it was a real anti climax! and meant we did not get to
enjoy the sites that evening. But the comradeship between the teams made up for
the organisers short comings.
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Don't forget to visit our
sponsors Loquax the UK competition
Portal |
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Day 5 >> |
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