I’ve never actually paused to add up just how many racing circuits around the world which I’ve visited, but, although you may find it hard to believe, I do also very much enjoy travelling without an underlying theme of fast F1 cars and the related crowds, exhaust fumes and noise. My wife Sue and I like to fly off to discover new destinations, but for many years we have also so enjoyed undertaking road trips, be they in the UK, Europe or much further afield, including New Zealand and many in the endlessly different vistas of the USA.

Let me backtrack briefly to early 2020 when we had decided that during that season’s four week summer F1 break we would head off on another European road trip, this time an extended one down as far as the Italian Lakes. However, within a couple of months the awful global pandemic had arrived and, in short, our summer 2020 adventure was postponed to 2021 and then again to this year, when fortunately it actually happened, if with slightly later timing.

The plan was basically to head via seven other European countries down to Lake Maggiore and back and I’m pleased to say all went really well apart, that is, from our time in Italy when an excess of biting insects and, yes, a scary encounter with a large scorpion rather spoiled things, but more of that later.

Our trusty automotive steed for the journey was an excellent turbocharged two litre Audi TT, whose petrol engine produced a healthy 245PS and endowed the car with a 0-62mph time of just 5.1 seconds and a maximum speed of 155mph, making the car feel suitably nippy. With so many miles to cover, an average mpg of around 50 despite some perfectly legal high speed three figure cruising in Germany also helped. Although the TT is a relatively small three door coupé, it was surprising too just how much luggage you could fit in if you used the rear seat as a well as the boot and packed carefully.

P&O’s overnight Hull-Rotterdam route was our preferred means of leaving and returning to the UK, avoiding any need for a journey much further south to cross to Europe by ferry or through the Channel Tunnel and this was so appreciated. After a very calm outbound crossing on the aptly named Pride of Hull and a lovely dinner onboard in the Brasserie restaurant, the next day saw us heading across the flat terrain of the Netherlands and then down through mid-Germany to the picturesque Rhein valley area where so many old castles feature. Time then to pause and enjoying discovering what this particular stretch of one of Europe’s mightiest rivers has to offer.

Three nights later it was time to drive further south through Germany to the beautiful Bodensee (also known as Lake Constance) where the country shares borders with Austria and Switzerland. A wonderful newly built modern apartment with breathtaking lake views was our home for the next week as we explored the area, helped by tourist passes which enabled free use of all local trains and busses. Of course the slightly later start of our road trip meant that I had to report on the Belgian Grand Prix from the Bodensee, but this wasn’t a problem with the pandemic having led to so much Fotmula 1 reporting being done these days remotely and far more efficiently re costs and the environmental impact.

I have to admit to one minor moment whilst staying just outside the attractive Bodensee city of Überlingen. It was on my birthday and we had decided to take the train east along the shoreline to a picturesque place called Lindau Insel, but due to a rare error by the usually so efficient Deutsche Bahn rail network we and everyone else on our local station’s sole platform boarded a train which, instead of heading east, departed in the opposite direction. To make matters worse, it was also a limited stop service to Basel and we couldn’t get off until half an hour later in a town called Radolfszell. Fortunately it too was an interesting destination and we laughed about our experience and had fun there before returning to our lovely base, catching the right train to Lindau a couple of days later.

Our stay in Überlingen was subsequently extended to nine nights after we’d discovered that our intended accomodation for two days in the nearby western end of the Austrian Tyrol had, without telling us, chosen to become a summer building site with multiple cranes, piles of material in the car park and with work starting every morning at 7am, with the aim of increasing their accomodation capacity for the forthcoming winter ski season.

This meant we chose to head south from the bottom edge of Germany via the fringes of Austria and Liechtenstein into Switzerland. We chose of course to drive over the St Bernardino pass into Italy rather than use the far more boring tunnel way below before carrying on to our intended base for a week at Lake Maggiore. It was soon apparent though that driving standards often left much to be desired on the busy and at times narrow lakeside and urban roads and an extra degree of caution was always advisable, Sadly our prebooked villa there was such an awful disappointment and so failed to even remotely match the owner’s online description and images. It was smelly and dirty and, worse still, we received 34 insect bites there on our lower legs during the first two days despite using plenty of repellent lotion, but on our highly disappointing arrival day I at least still managed to report from Italy on the Dutch Grand Prix.

Even worse was to follow though at the villa late on our second evening when a frightened Sue called out from the ensuite bathroom six words I thought I would never hear leave her lips, namely “Graham, there’s a scorpion in here!” Yes, a real live four inch long one with a truly menacing attitude and scary biting and stinging capacities, the like of which we never even knew existed in Europe! Needless to say, poor Sue didn’t sleep that night and we very much felt the need to leave the next morning, returning back into far more guest friendly Switzerland. On the up side, this gave us plenty of time to drive over the world famous high altitude Simplon, Grimsel and Susten mountain passes, which were simply amazing and a real drivers paradise. Pure bliss for both of us after what we had just endured. Visits to scenic Interlaken, Lauterbrunnen, Grindelwald and historic Stein am Rhein in Switzerland followed too.

Germany’s extensive Schwarzwald area was next on our itinerary and we loved spending six nights in a couple of excellent small rural hotels near Schopfheim and the Schluchsee, exploring so many more places new to us and of course reporting too on the Italian Grand Prix whilst there.

Then it was time to drive north through Germany, enjoying another chance to stretch the TT’s legs with some 100mph+ autobahn cruising, before arriving at our longtime favourite part of the country, the Mosel valley, just north of Trier. We can so recommend the Gästehaus Moselblick in the riverside village of Trittenheim, which we’ve often returned to for holiday/motorsport reporting/car testing duties since first discovering it about 20 years ago on our way back from a trip to Austria. Surrounded by miles of vineyards, it was a great opportunity to slow the pace and enjoy plenty of walks amongst the grapes which were almost ready for harvesting. Then it was time to head via Belgium back to Rotterdam for our return ferry to Hull, pausing of course as a Formula 1 correspondent for the latest of so many visits to the iconic Spa Francorchamps racing circuit, a venue steeped in motorsport history and the longtime home of the Belgian Grand Prix.

In conclusion, if you exclude our awful Lake Maggiore experience, our European road trip was a superb adventure which I hope might make you think of trying something similar at some stage. We shall surely be back.