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So, I arrived at the French Riviera after a 900 km drive in a total of 12 hours, crossing the Alps, passing three country borders and experiencing various climate changes with no major problems.

Haven’t ever really been driving my Fiat, it was great that my journey started in Stuttgart, a location I’m very familiar with. It was also perfect getting used to the car by first traveling on the German Autobahn south to the German-Swiss border at Lake Constance (Bodensee), before entering a not so familiar country. During the journey, I saw some incredible things.
The Autobahn I used passes Rottweil, the oldest city in Baden-Württemberg, which was new to me, as well as the river Danube, that I know from my home town. But it was just a small creek there – weird for me to see. Some amazing ruins on hill tops from mid evil are near the border, which would have been worth visiting, if I had more time.

Passing the border was no big deal. The Swiss customs even let me in with a keg of original Bavarian beer from Weltenburg that I brought along for the Adobe crew. Officially you can only enter Switzerland with a max of 2 Liters alcohol. I entered with 10. Next on the route was passing Zurich (Zürich). Zurich is the only city on my trip that doesn’t have a by-pass for cars. So a lot of traffic goes through the city itself. I lost a little bit of time there, but at least my car got a lot of looks from the locals. So, basically I had to travel completely through Switzerland from north to south using the St. Gotthard tunnel as the pass through the Alps. But that was still a few hours away. Getting there I passed some of the most beautiful places I have ever seen.

After Zurich there is this really nice lake called Lake Zug and the cute town Arth directly at the south end of the lake. But really mind blowing is central Switzerland. The impressions around the Lake Lucerne (Vierwaldstätter See) were just too surreal to be true. High mountains with snow peaks and cliffs directly hitting the surface of the crystal clear water and powerful south winds blasting through this steep valley creating perfect conditions for the wind surfers, who were out that day. According to the numerous and other bad ass cars I saw, like two 1960s Ford Mustangs and a AS Cobra, real estate prices must be really high in this area. The nature in this area was just too breathtaking to put into words. Soon after I arrived at the Gotthard Road Tunnel (St. Gotthard Tunnel), a 17 km long tunnel that records over 800 accidents in 20 years and 30 deaths. So knowing this, it’s a bit scary driving trough this tunnel with a car that could break down any minute. But all went well.
The crazy thing was that the side I entered had completely different whether conditions, than the other side of the tunnel. Driving into the tunnel it was nice sunny and going out there was rainfall and it was a bit cold. But it cleared up very fast and then more indescribable impressions waited for me: The rain created waterfalls dropping off mountain cliffs that every base jumper is dreaming of. From there on it went down hill.

Shortly after that, I hit the Swiss-Italian border. It was very crowded there and I had to wait a bit in traffic. With the car been running constantly well for hours, the strong sun and warm temperatures the wait was quite comfortable. Not so enjoyable was that the temperature of the coolant rapidly climbed from 190° F t0 250° F. I assumed that either a hose of the coolant broke and therefore the coolant didn’t cool the motor any more. But that wouldn’t have the effect of the fluid constantly getting hotter. So the coolant isn’t being cooled down anymore. The only reason for that is that since the car is standing now and not moving anymore, the air stream to cool down the coolant, produced by a forward movement, wasn’t existent any longer. So the best I could do is to shut off the motor as often as possible to stop creating more heat. That worked out fine and after the border the car was moving again and the temperature went back to normal. Lucky me.

Driving through Italy wasn’t much of a blast. There’s basically just a lot of agriculture around Milan and south of that. But a lot of Italians recognized my car and I could see a lot of smiles on the Italian faces in the cars that past me. Especially the women in the 50s like it a lot. I guess I released some memories.
It felt kind of nice bringing a Fiat back home, which was build 1979 in Turin, which is just around the corner, and then directly exported to another continent and stayed there for 15 years.

The last part of the trip from Italy to Cannes was a bit exhausting. A lot of dried out vegetation and hills and not much to see. When you travel for hours, mostly on highways over mountains and hills, through numerous tunnels it is really weird to exit a tunnel and all of a sudden there is nothing in front of you. Because there is was: the Mediterranean See. All I had to do now is follow the cost of the Italian and French Riviera, past Nice to Cannes to finally arrivea at my destination. All went well the last part, but it really take a bit traveling the cost highway…

So I arrived in Cannes and all the preperations are running on full speed to make the 60th Cannes Film Fesitival one of the best ever. I really wish I had found my camera. That’s why I don’t have pics. But Mel has a camera here in Cannes so some pics are to come.