Day -02

View of the Mediterranean from our breakfast room

My first trip to Europe in 2 and 1/2 years.  Things have changed—— airports are empty (a good thing); most lounges closed; masks must be worn everywhere.   Boarding each flight requires showing your CDC Vaccination Card attesting to your double vaccination.   In addition, we needed a Covid negative test result in order to board the plane (except nobody asked for it). 

 

 Our Air France flight was 4 hours delayed.   They said mechanical, but I think they just consolidated two flights from LAX to CDG (Paris) to save money.   First class and Business class totally full;  Economy almost totally empty, probably because college has restarted and young people are not traveling.   Upon arriving in Paris we took a quick hop to Nice on the Cote d’Azure.  The best news is that all of our luggage arrived safely.

 

From Nice we took a car and driver 50km up the coast into Italy and into Sanremo where our rally starts.  Next day we spent most of the day catching up on jet-lag,  which seems to effect me more and more as I get older.

 

Our little baby tucked into the car park ready to 
take us on a 2,500 mile adventure

Today our car arrived from England where we shipped it several months ago.  First mishap:  as they were loading the car in England, the joint that connects the steering column to the front wheels busted.  A very odd mishap, but with some help from our friend Andy Prill in the U.K. and the fellows at the shipper, CARS U.K., they fixed the problem, and all is as good as new.

 

After our car (which is the same car we did Peking to Paris in 2013) was unloaded, we filled it with petrol and Brant went over it to check all the systems. Everything checked out and we parked it in a lot as the other competitors began to arrive.

 

Tomorrow we will go through registration and scrutineering (i.e. safety checks); put the rally numbers on the car; and then go through a refresher course on navigation and rally skills.   Next day, we’ll head north into the Alps.

 

Tonight we will renew friendships with many of the competitors and tell stories about previous rallies.