Euro Tour 2009
Another fantastic holiday with great Friends, Cars, Roads, Scenery, Hotels etc special thanks to Eugenio for guiding us around Italy and finding some of the best drives ever

Friday 17th July, We set of from the UK, sadly roof up as it started to rain as soon as I opened the garage door
We met up wth Jan and Bruce in their 430 Scuderia at Eurotunnel and headed for our first night's stay with Veerle and Ton in Belgium, Thanks to them for their fantastic hopitality ahead of them joining the group in Tuscany the following Week assuming Ton get's his car registered in time!
18th July we head South to the bottom of Lake Constance in some pretty horrid weather to stay at the Brauerei Froshinn, handy staying at a brewery!
19th July Up early for the drive to Davos to meet Eugenio and Maura and drive the Fluela, Offen and Stelvio Passes, there had been quite a lot of new snow fall and hte ploughs had been out early to clear the roads. On to Bormio for an overnight stay at the Sant Anton Hotel and a well earned Beer... highly recommended.....the Beer and the Hotel!. A fantastic days driving although the 355's clutch took a beating on the Stelvio!

20th July We head for Desenzano at the foot of Lake Garda, Eugenio takes us the long way via the Gavia and Tonale passes which prove to be fantastic drives with virtually no traffic and perfect weather, however the last 30kms or so along the shores of Lake Garda are to be avoided, basically it was a 30km traffic jam moving at an average of 15kms an Hour
21st July Time to take the Cars home to Maranello and do the whole Ferrari tourist thing, Lunch at the Cavalino, Factory Tour, Dinner at the Montana and stay at the Planet Hotel, Huge thanks to Franco and Christina who helped us to organise our restaurant bookings etc and treated us (and all their guests) like royalty, photocalls at Fiorano and the Galleria but this time round no access to the classic gates
22nd July on to Tuscany via the hills South of Maranello, if you've never driven it, it's worth every minute following the test routes for the production and pre-production cars, spotted a 458 test mule in a 430 body on the way down
We're in Tuscany for 5 Nights and above is the view from the Dinner terrace!. Veerle & Ton and Lesley and Steve joined us on 23rd in their 348 and 355 Spiders (Ton having managed to register his car at 11am the day before!), time for the pool and a well deserved beer or two. Great food, some superb drive outs, Florintine Steak Night, 35+ degrees of Sun, stunning!
26th July, Veerle has had to head for home and whilst Ton took her to the Airport the Girls drove us to Volterra for a quick look round and an Ice Cream. Our last full day in Tuscany coincided with the Hungarian GP, I had asked if we could have a television to watch the race and our hosts kindly obliged, they then completely astound us by laying on a huge lunch with unlimited drinks, the whole lot on the house!!
27th July, we are sad to leave our friends in Tuscany and head cross country to Pisa then along the Mediteranean coast enjoying the many tunnels to Genova turning North to Alesandria and on to Lago D'Orta. We've been going to Orta for more Years than I can count and yet it always feels very special when we are there. The Giardinetto Hotel was, as usual, superb working hard ot make our stay special even providing reserved parking for us
We have 5 Days in Orta, on arrival we met Simon a veteran of the 1st Tuscany tour and who'd come to join us for dinner and a drive up to Monta Rosa the following day. Thanks to Maura and Eugenio's for a fantastic meal on Thurday. Saturday 1st August and Steve and Bruce have their Cars collected for return via transporter while they fly home, we drove back Sunday 2nd August, 10 Hours to Calais and 13 Hours door to door, a long day!
500+ of our Photos here , Eugenio's here, Ton's here and Steve's here