I don’t know if it was the anguished cries from my partner in crime, the fear in the eyes of the tourists in our path or the cameras being produced to capture our misdemeanour that brought it home to me but it was clear that our journey had reached its nadir in Verona.

The simple idea of buying a convertible car in the UK and driving it to the Italian lakes, Tuscany, back along the French Riviera and via Paris seemed like an obvious way to kick off our new lives of less work, more leisure. In retrospect, this turned out to be a more novel idea than we had realised. And an experience that was not without incident.

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For a non-UK resident buying a car unseen, registering it, taxing it, insuring it and having the right to actually drive it in Europe was the first set of challenges. We thought we had all the bases covered until we did a last minute check to see if Covid restrictions were still lurking in the wings (they weren’t) and discovered that you can’t just drive in mainland Europe on an Australian driving licence. You need what is called an International Driving Permit. Who knew?! But no worries, you can simply pick one up at your nearest Service NSW office! Or not so simply, if you are sat in Hampshire at the time and it’s less than a week before you travel. Through the good offices of the Australian Automobile Association and the not so good efforts of DHL we set off a day late but with all paperwork in order. I have taken the opportunity to enhance the DHL customer proposition to reflect our experience:

Express Delivery Services and International Shipping

Fast. Door-to-Door. Courier Delivered. Closed at Weekends

Emerging from Le Shuttle onto French roads we started to observe the registrations of the cars around us. All EU number plates are similar in design with the EU flag showing alongside a discrete letter nominating the country of origin. Proud of their Union and compliant in unison they present as one big happy club. British cars on the other hand, in an apparent act of ‘f*** you we voted out and we’ll do our own thing,’ display plate numbers that are instantly recognisable as being different in design. And for those Brits (or UKers as we might now refer to them since the 2021 change to the national motoring nominals) who have decided not to have the built in country identifier on their plates, ie nobody, there is the ignominious display of the UK sticker. No doubt some will display it with pride but I would have preferred ours to say “look we didn’t vote for this, in fact we’re really Australian so don’t blame us for spoiling the club, do be nice to us”. But there’s no room for that. I might try a QR code.

As it turns out there are advantages to having UK plates whilst travelling in Europe. Namely that those within the club have low expectations of those who have stepped out and, more significantly, the fines for motoring misconduct are not going to find their way back to drivers from the UK are they? Particularly those that actually live in Australia. I don’t really know if this is the case but it stands to reason and if I’m wrong it might cost us a few Euros so I’m sticking to the theory until proved otherwise. Which brings me onto our little mishaps.

Now firstly I would like to lay the blame firmly at the door of Apple Maps. I don’t know if the people who run that service think that all road systems operate with the ease and simplicity of a car dominated society like the US but it would appear that the terms ‘UNESCO World Heritage’ and ‘Low Traffic Zone (LTZ)’ have evaded their attention. Which is how we ended up driving down the most populous pedestrian only tourist street in Verona. Like, the one that goes past Juliette’s balcony. We had been assured that our Airbnb booking gave us a free pass to enter the LTZ but it turns out there is a distinction between shared streets and pedestrian only streets. And those fools at Apple HQ had directed us down the latter! My trust in technology is severely diminished.

As you might imagine Florence does traffic restrictions with a gusto. Try as we did to avoid any transgression the site of the Ponte Vecchio on our immediate right as we passed through the city and a distinct lack of local traffic suggested that we might have wandered into the LTZ. Ok, I admit we did see the red signs but there was just a part of me that thought bugger it, there has to be some benefit from Brexit, let’s see if the smart people in Brussels will work out how to get the fine to me. Fair play to them if they do.

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