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My name's Carl Watson and this is Adam Hedley and we've been best friends since we were 4 years old. And now we're doing a 5-day road trip from London, England to Lake Como, Italy. And to top it off, we're going to be driving in Adam's Aston Martin. Up front. Our route's going to take us through eight different countries, sampling the beers in Belgium, having lunch in Luxembourg, spending the night in a storybook village in France. Bonjour. We'll be racing on Germany's Autobahn, riding an Alpine coaster in the Swiss mountains, and driving the legendary Stelvio Pass in Italy.
I thought I'd like to ease myself in, but I think we've done about 35 really difficult corners. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then our wives, Jamie and Grace, will be flying into Milan and joining us for the finale in Lake Como. This is the first trip the two of us have just done together in over 20 years. So, yeah, it's going to be great just to spend some quality time together on this little mini adventure across Europe. Last summer, I was staying with Adam and he mentioned to me it's like this dream of his to drive from London to Lake Como. And me being me, I was just like, "Let's just do it, you know?"
We came to a wedding in Lake Como in 2024. Just kind of thinking, "Okay, well, we're not going to drive down there, but we'll get down there. We'll We'll hire a, you know, a sports car and we'll whiz around the lakes and it'll just be super cool." Yeah. And then, a few months before we went to Como, I then snapped my Achilles. And so, these delusions of kind of, you know, style rapidly went out the window when I arrived in Lake Como wearing a massive moon boot. Oh, we're going to need to get the photo of this off you. Uh which also put paid to any ideas of hiring a car or even doing any driving at all. So, I think in the sort of pain of that and then I kind of thought about it a bit more and actually realized, you know, a lifelong
dream has been to drive the Stelvio Pass. Yeah. And when I looked at those two on the map, I was kind of like, "Well, you know, it's not directly on the route, but Yeah. we can justify Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not several days out of the way. It's just like slightly longer drive. And then when you think, "Okay, you're probably going to go down the Autobahn to do that as well." then the trip kind of starts to come together in my head and I was like, "You know, that that would just be awesome." To sort of maximize the amount of time we had together the four of us in Lake Como and sort of accommodating like time people can get off work.
We could just give ourselves 4 days to drive from London to here. So, when I was kind of picking out routes, I was like, "What can we What's the most we can see and make it interesting and varied along the way?" And it's going to be a very quick road trip, but it should be pretty amazing. Now it is finally my turn to drive the Aston Martin. Are you texting? I'm just telling Mason I love her. Tell me about the car. What car do you have? What are we driving? So, we're driving an Aston Martin DB11 and then the sort of geeky bit is it's a V12, so that's like the ultimate powerful one and it's a an AMR, so it's
a specifically one made by the Aston Martin racing brand. Yeah. Yeah, I'm just nodding like I know what any of this means cuz I'm not a car person. The three things that count with it is like how fast does it go? Does 209 mph. It goes from 0 to 60 in 3 seconds. And thirdly, the most important thing is it sounds like thunder, which It does. Yeah, I'm very easily pleased by engine noises, but uh that really delivers. But it does look amazing. It looks classy. You're not kind of driving around a midlife crisis. It's actually a really you know Yeah, and I have had a couple of midlife
crisis cars prior to that, which you know, kind of open the door and roll out onto the pavement. It's just not a good look for me. So, I think with the Aston I can get out with a reasonable degree of like style. The memory that goes over in my head again and again when I think about like how lucky I am to be able to have fun cars now is when I was in uh German class when I was about 13 years old and we just sat there doodling pictures of like Jaguars and BMWs and all of that and I was kind of thinking, you know, that's that's never going to be something I own, but it only took me 30 something years [clears throat and laughter] Working yourself and you know, kind of got there. So,
it's it's a dream realized, but I didn't ever think I would. Yeah. Yeah, and I've worked really hard to make sure I had a friend who had a car like Just before we get started, I want to quickly talk to you about this video's sponsor, which sadly isn't Aston Martin, but hey, if they want to send me some cash or maybe a free car to do a product review of, then please get in touch. But no, I'm here to talk to you about the new Ultra plan by Holafly. When you're traveling, the last thing you want to do is be worrying about staying connected, dealing with travel problems, or trying to figure out what to do when things go wrong. That's where Holafly Ultra comes in. So, this is a subscription plan that renews until it's
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I touched down in London then made my way out to Southend-on-Sea where Adam lives, and we got ourselves ready for a very, very early start tomorrow. I'm not used to being so low down in the car. Hey, do you know where we're going? We are going to No. no idea. Central? 4:30 in the morning. For our first day, we're heading to Bruges in Belgium, which begins with a 2-hour drive from Southend to Folkestone, then we'll take the Channel Tunnel, and then it's another 2 hours to Bruges.
I always find the start of road trips like, yes, we're off, but it's like going to see some spectacular stuff, right now we're just in the suburbs of Southend, I would say. Woo! Saying the suburbs of Southend aren't beautiful. Nothing wrong with them, it's just not It's not spectacular. It's not I'm going to show you all the speed cameras in Southend. As we race past the pub. All right, so we've made it down to Folkestone and we're about to get on Le Shuttle, the Channel Tunnel across to France, [clears throat] which when I chat to my friends and family in Canada about this, they were fascinated by it. They were like, "Wait,
you drive your car onto a train which goes under the sea?" And as a piece of engineering, it's incredible and it's way quicker than getting the ferry, but as an experience, yeah, it's it's fine. This is it. Real exciting. Look at the view. All right, so this is it. Cars parked up. Yeah, we have an incredible view out the window of the inside of a tunnel. It takes half an hour and that's it. How's the adrenaline, mate? Oh, great, honestly.
Oh, no, it's a pilot. All right, we have made it into France. Uh we're going to be spending a night in France tomorrow night in a very different area. So, right now we're just going to get to Belgium as quickly as possible. All right, so we're just pulling into Bruges. Uh we've got 1 mile to go, but it says it's going to take 15 minutes cuz of the traffic jam, so but nearly there. Got through France nice and quickly, which was good.
We can almost see the beer. There's beer finally. [screaming] We're going to have a bit of explore around in a bit, but it's raining right now, so we just thought get a beer and ourselves, get a little snack in. And then we'll go and see the town. Bruges is one of Belgium's most beautiful and best preserved medieval cities with cobble streets, historic buildings, and picturesque canals winding through its center. The city became a wealthy trading hub during the Middle Ages with its canals connecting
it to the North Sea and earning it the nickname the Venice of the North. Brewing was an important part of medieval life with beer often safer to drink than contaminated water, and Bruges developed a long tradition of local breweries and distinctive Belgian ales. You haven't been to Bruges before, though? No, I mean I'd seen In Bruges. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The challenge was not just to quote that film the entire time during the day. Yeah. I know I'm awake, but I feel like I'm dreaming. All right, so we're just going to go check out the famous tower here. I think it's like a 300 odd stairs to walk to the top. All right, we bought some tickets. Uh you have to book a time slot
to go up. And it's 1:00 now, we couldn't get a time slot till 4:00, so we're going to have even more beers inside of us by the time we climb up the But it'll be worth it. Cheers, mate. See, we are trying to do touristy stuff, it's just it's not open yet, so Yeah, there are tourists. Yeah, yeah, we're we're by the city tour buses, but we're just not on it. The weather wasn't really behaving, we'll just stop for a quick drink. And you're like, "Oh, let's try this local one." Have a sip, taste a bit sweet, and then we kind of like Google it. It's like, "Oh, it's 11%." And then
it's like, and the day went from there. Who would have thought that something called triple literally means triple strength. Oh, boy. Again, these stairs are going to be real fun in this town. All right. So, we're finally heading up. There he is. We're waiting half an hour for you. Come on. Basically, one of the most popular things to do in this town is a canal boat tour, cuz they call it like the Venice of the North. I would like to do it today, but gray and rainy again.
They've all got umbrellas out. It looks like a waste of time, so we'll see what happens. [bell] All right, it's 4:30. [bell] How did they know to play my favorite tune? I'm all like Doc Brown in the clock tower. I'm like, "Oh!" After this, we went to check into our hotel, which wasn't cheap, but also not crazy expensive. But, we picked it because it's right in the center of town. All right. So, this is the room. Lovely bed. I've got a little balcony as well. Check this out. Looks lovely, but if you want the bathroom, you have to go down this corridor.
All of it is in my room, but yeah. We have two rooms booked, the same room booked, next to each other, but your bathroom is not down the corridor. No. And it doesn't have a patio. But, that's also someone else's balcony. This is still my balcony. That's someone else's balcony, but someone could walk from there, and then the toilet's right there. Yeah, well, so you have a balcony on your toilet.
After settling into our hotel, we head back out to continue exploring the town. Are you sure you don't want a tablecloth or a baby doll dress? I want a mannequin that likes to think it can make lace things. Can you find one for me? I have just the thing for you. Waffle time. Nice. Satisfying. That's so good. Yeah. I was skeptical about waffles, but All right, so we've come to the beer wall by the canal. Looked like a bit of a tacky touristy place on the way in, and then we come out back to actually really nice.
Sitting by the canal. Tastes a lot more like a normal beer rather than a 11%. We got ourselves a shay. I don't think we're going to get to do the boat. With the weather continuing to misbehave, we spent the rest of the evening enjoying some of Bruges' finest drinking establishments before calling it a night. See, cobbled streets are lovely until it's 7:00 a.m. in the morning and you got to leave. For the second day of our trip, we're going to be driving 565 km to the French village of Ribeauvillé, and we'll be stopping for lunch along the way in Luxembourg. All right, so we had a lovely, lovely time in Bruges yesterday. Feeling a little tired this morning, but not too rough after those sneaky high percentage beers, but we're on our way to Luxembourg right now.
114 miles to the next fun. All right, made it to Luxembourg. This is a brand new country for me, so we're going to give it the good hour that it deserves. Really get under the skin of it. I'll just have a little wander around and get some food before we hit the road again. Luxembourg City was founded in the year and its strategic position made it one of Europe's most important fortified sites with its massive walls and defenses earning it the nickname Gibraltar of the north. Today, Luxembourg is one of Europe's major financial centers and is also one of the founding members of the European Union. So, you know, you think of Luxembourg,
you think, "Well, it's a place where, you know, companies reside for tax purposes." Um but it, you know, does it have any character or, you know, do people even live there? Um and uh turns out it does, you know, it's it's a really beautiful medieval Yeah. town. The whole place looks like a medieval town still. Yeah, we spent the whole time just comparing it to where we grew up, which is Durham, so I didn't even know what Luxembourg City looked like before we came here, so I'm very impressed.
Hello. So, there's a dragon's claws breaking out through the building there. Yeah, if we weren't traveling at such a fast pace, it'd be nice to spend an evening here and just enjoy it a bit more. Seems like a very peaceful and lovely place. Like it is a Sunday morning, but would have been nice to actually spend a night here if we were going at more of a leisurely pace. Jamie would love this market, actually. We'll find something random for the club. Find something random for the club here. Barbara Streisand on vinyl. Find the winner of the year.
I don't think I'll fit in there right now. Well, if we had a little more time we might have set ourselves a challenge to spend 10 years and buy the weirdest thing possible, but that Chewbacca clock would have definitely won for sure. It feels like we're on a proper European road trip now that we're like just stopping for lunch at a place like this. Yeah, guy playing an accordion. So, after all the meat and carbs we had yesterday, I've ordered a vegan sandwich to get some nice grilled vegetables. But, I still wanted some meat so I got a side of chicken tenders. We hit the road again and we've still got about another 3 and 1/2 hours and 250 km of driving before we get to Ribeauvillé. But, once we've gotten out
of Luxembourg City and on the auto routes, we pulled over so I could finally have a go at driving the Aston Martin. Right outside a beautiful KFC in France now. Going to do the switch over so I'm very excited but also a little bit terrified cuz this is Adam's baby and I don't want to crash it so how are you feeling about me about to drive this car? Yeah, I'm feeling really relaxed about it. Let's give it a go, eh? All right, Adam's briefed me on how it works. Hey, it moves. Okay. All right. Don't crash it here, I'll be Are you learning to drive as well?
I don't think they are. It was lucky it was very like easy to drive. Like I was worried cuz it was a sports car like maybe you know tap the accelerator and just you know fly through a wall or something like that, but actually it was like very smooth, handled very well which I guess you'd hope for a car that cost that much. But, so far it seems to drive quite nicely. This is my detailed review of an Aston Martin. Oh yeah, it's pretty good. Ready? I'm ready. Let's do this. All right, let's just get some petrol. All right. Here we go. All right, on the road. Adam's heart still just like a turd.
I'm really enjoying this. Are we there yet? Who are you texting? I'm just having a It's kind of nice that I love that. Yeah. The drive was going great. I'm just taking it nice and easy. I was just doing around the speed limit most of the time. Not going any faster than any of the cars on the road. And then about a couple hours in, I made this clean stretch of motorway. Just no cars in it whatsoever. And by the way, at this point, I'd finally got comfortable with your driving. And had dozed off.
Yeah, so Adam was asleep. And I was just like I made a clean stretch. Just like just down downhill this motorway. Not a single car on the road. I was like, "I'm just going to put my foot down just for one bit." Just And then immediately these police bikes just showed up. Good news is the car is absolutely fine. Nothing happened to the car. Did get pulled over for speeding though. The [snorts] uh the policewoman was thrilled to find out we were British. And Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cost me 90 euro. But car's in one piece. That's the thing I'm happy about. And then Adam's most happy about.
Your heart rate's gone down now. Yeah, paid the fine. Had to basically go the other way on the motorway a bit to sort of get back to go direction we were. So, when we sort of did like the loop and then getting back on the motorway, I was so busy concentrating like you go around these like big kind of roundabouts and curvy roads to get on out to the motorway. And I was so busy concentrating on just you know, the road and everything that I didn't realize I was now still going 10 km over the speed limit. And we went right past the police again. Luckily, they didn't They just kind of waved. I was like, "Oh." But I like my heart was like do Yeah, I don't think they'd set up their speed gun again yet.
Adam was just like, "You idiot." Yeah. So, after that Adam took over the driving. For the last 40 km as we got closer to the village, the route took us off the main roads and to our surprise and Adam's delight, road became a winding pass to take us up through the hills. This is why we swapped over before this bit, Adam gets to drive. Are you enjoying the road, mate? Yes, absolutely. Loving it, mate.
It's like the French Stelvio Pass, just you know, fewer trees, a little bit of cobbles. We can forgive a few cobbles. How many cobbles? It's like a fairy tale. Wow. This is like a proper storybook village. It actually looks like a Disney set. So, you want to go that way. It's beautiful, but it's a labyrinth of tiny streets of one-way streets as well. So, yeah. It's getting there. It's getting tighter.
I'd picked a hotel that was like on the edge of town, so I thought it'd be easy for parking, but then cuz the one-way system had to go around the town and then drive all the way up the main street. Yep, which was full of people and was only about 12 ft wide. Everyone was just staring at us like, "Hi." Hello. So, gingerly going up there making an awful lot of noise and in the ascent ingratiated us immediately to all of the locals.
Yeah. We're just driving up the main street. Which is the only way to go. It's the only way to get to our hotel. Unless it's another car. Yeah. [__] hell, that's beautiful though. It's a gorgeous town. It's like Belle singing her song from Beauty and the Beast and just, you know, skipping round and then we're just Oh, see most of the town at least. It's definitely awake. Oh, thank god. All right, we got a sweet double bed, a single bed. We do have a hot tub we can use as well, but we're only [snorts] here for one night and the place is so beautiful I think it wouldn't be the best use of time,
which is a shame. Can safely say this is the most picturesque village I've ever been to. We'll have a wander around in a minute, but first our hotel has a lovely restaurant, but across the road is a pub where we have a little beer to decompress after the drive and then we'll go for an explore. Yeah, it's going to taste great after a long day of driving. Cheers. Well, that's lovely. How you feeling after today's journey? I mean, it was fairly uneventful. So, feeling very feels like the journey's really started now. Uh, we had a little bit of fun in Bruges and now we're kind of in the picturesque scenery and
uh, yeah, so very excited for the next couple of days. All right, ridiculously picturesque village, let's see what you got to offer. Ribeauvillé grew up under the influence of the powerful lords of Ribeaupierre, whose three castles still dominate the hills above the town. For centuries, the town prospered through trade and wine making, and its vineyards remain a defining part of the landscape today. After many years of changing between French and German rule, Riquewihr is now one of the most beautifully preserved historic towns along the Alsace Wine Route.
It's like every single direction it's just perfection. It's not like, oh, if you go stand over there, that's a really good view. It's like, no, everything's like just perfect. See, I want people leaning out of these balconies and windows just going, "Bonjour." So, if you think about how busy this street was when we drove up it 2 and 1/2 hours ago, and now it's so quiet. So, I think a lot of people come here on a day trip or they're eating right now. Uh but yeah, we just had a bang average meal. He's still chewing it. It's okay. We'd planned to have like a nice evening of like, oh, let's check out a few places, but because it was a Sunday night, we were just walking down the
street after dinner going, like, why is nothing open? And then like 8:30, it was all shut. Looks like the entire town's now gone to bed. And we're like, can we get one more? Good morning. It's such a gorgeous morning here. It has that kind of fresh mountain smell to the air, which just makes you want to go hiking, really. But we're not going to do that. We're going to hit the road again. A lot of distance to cover today, but it's going to be I think today's going to be the best day so far. So, let's go. Today, we're going to be driving 475 km through five different countries, and we'll be making a stop in Valensay
in Switzerland to ride an Alpine Coaster. Then, we'll be having lunch in Liechtenstein before driving the Flüela Mountain Pass into Italy, where we'll be spending the night in Trafoi, which is right by the base of the Stelvio Pass. But first up, we're going to be heading into Germany so we can drive on a stretch of the Autobahn. First 2 days, all we're doing is driving on motorways, but doing this little road through all of the little villages and farm fields has been rather picturesque. We're now about to go on the Autobahn in Germany, and if you don't know about the Autobahn, many stretches of it, there is no speed limit at all. You can go as fast as you want. And according to the internet, the stretch we're about to do has no speed limit.
What's the top speed of this car? 209 mph. What's the fastest you've ever gone in it? No comment. The Autobahn is legendary amongst drivers, cuz with no speed limit, you can legally put your foot down and see what your car can really do. And with the Aston Martin, this promises to be something really special. How's your driving? Oh, I love a good queue. We are all British. I mean, we set off at 6:30 in the morning to train. Beat some of us, but I think we failed. We're on the Autobahn and we could officially do this speed in the UK.
Yes. So, it's a cruel mistress. The Autobahn. We're now in Switzerland and we have our first views of the mountains, which is pretty sweet to see. And we've got Lake Zurich just down here, which we're getting a glimpse of on the left-hand side. It's a gorgeous day for it as well. It's a sweet But I think you're, you know, you've been to Switzerland so many times, you're kind of used to that vista, whereas for me, I've never really driven through Switzerland and so seeing that is just absolutely incredible. Like mind-blowing. Just the backdrop to the what was a fairly, you know, plain driving road. Ultimately, you have this beautiful backdrop.
Well, you can't come to Switzerland and not go on a cable car. So, that's exactly what we're going to do now. We're just driving along Walensee and I was just looking at things to do on the route and there's a cable car goes up to Flumserberg and there's a toboggan ride at the top. So, that'll be a fun little excursion to do on our way. How's the car? Still in one piece? Yeah. So. So, we're going to take two cable cars all the way to the top to check out the mountain view and then we'll head halfway back down to take a chairlift up so we can ride the Alpine Coaster. Look at that view.
Bro, we're not in Southend anymore. The famous mountains of Southend. Just find that sound so soothing. It's just like, "Ah, you're in the mountains in Switzerland." Could have driven up the first bit. Where's the fun in that? So this is the toboggan slide we're going to do in a minute, but first we're going to go right to the top.
And yeah, there's basically Xeroxes all over there. Well, that's a beautiful view, but we best be getting on. We've got some tobogganing to do. All right, so we made it back down so we can go back up to do the toboggan. How did you find the toboggan? Yeah, it was more fun than I was expecting actually. Yeah, once you got behind the wheel, although there was no wheel. Behind the stick. Behind the stick, it was actually yeah, pretty exhilarating. The thing you fear the most is catching a slow child and you just go down super slow, But, we had a good clearing. But, it's great. It was so much fun,
really good fun. So, we're now going to head back down to the car and get some lunch in Liechtenstein, as you do. We're now heading to Liechtenstein, which is the world's sixth smallest country, covering just 160 square kilometers. And so, we figured we'd pop in to grab some lunch. That's Switzerland. That's Liechtenstein. All right, we made it to Liechtenstein, country number four for today. If you weren't paying attention, you wouldn't know you've come to a different country, cuz there's no like giant welcome to Liechtenstein sign or anything.
I mean, the jokes just write themselves. What's the population, sorry? It has a population of 40,000 people, which I think is less than Durham. That's the entire country? Yeah. Apparently, Liechtenstein was part of the former Holy Roman Empire. The House of Liechtenstein bought two areas of it, and then, after all the various wars happened over the 18th to 19th century, just no one thought to annex it. So, they just let it be independent. I think, basically, people forgot about it. But, we didn't. Yeah. We are here. Yeah, we had to put it back on the map. For 1 hour. That lunch was expensive, though. Like, in Switzerland, breakfast and rosti is usually about 20
Swiss francs. Here, it was 29 Swiss francs. So, we spent 75 pounds on a quick lunch. But, time to move on. We've still got nearly 3 and over 160 km of driving to do today and the route is going to take us past Davos and then over the Flüela Pass to take us into Italy. Adam was like, "I do want to do some more of the driving." But we were then heading up to the mountains so I was like, "You focus on that and I'll focus on the filming and especially the mountain passes I want you to enjoy and properly experience." This road is amazing. Look at this. Adam's in his happy place. I'm obeying the speed limit. It's the equivalent of getting stuck behind kids on an alpine slide. It's trucks in a mountain pass.
We've been looking forward to doing the Stelvio Pass tomorrow so I was kind of thinking the drive across in Switzerland is going to be to get there. Yeah. And it turns out that we have 50 miles of Stelvio Pass to get to the Stelvio Pass so That was absolutely perfect. I just was not expecting that at all. Every corner was just beautiful. Have you driven that car on pass like that before? Uh no. No, I mean I've I've driven a few slightly lighter cars on those sort of roads in Germany but never a sort of cruiser GT car like that um with lots of power so it was a bit of an adjustment to It took
to get used to it but um once I managed to work out how to handle this. times. Loved every second of the driving. The weather was great for it. Really locked in. And yeah, could couldn't [clears throat] ask for anything more. We have made it to Italy though. So, that's our eighth country of this trip. Eighth and final country. Eight bloody red tapes to cross borders and so it's miraculously good. Once we made it into Italy, it was just another half hour's drive to our hotel in Trafoi. We have just arrived to the most amazing views, but look at the puppy.
How are you? Hey. What a welcome. I love about this place right now. Yeah, it's like the Italian Fawlty Towers, I would say. For me, it's it's beautiful. Great setting. But, um yeah, it's there's a certain element of professionalism there that's uh that you might say is missing. They're very sweet. They're lovely people. But, they were just like I was like, "Oh, have we a booking? That's the name there." And they were like, "Uh oh uh and they just didn't know what to do with uh like checking customers into their own hotel. But, uh but it's all good. But, this location is just stunning. Like I always just get reinvigorated when I'm back in the mountains. I just feel my mood is just way better. I wasn't in
a bad mood at all. I was in a great mood the whole trip. But, now it's just up a notch from seeing this. That evening, we had a four-course dinner included with our reservation. Then the next morning, it was time for the final driving day of the trip. It's going to take about 3 hours until we reach the tip of Lake Como, but we'll be continuing on to Milan Airport to pick up Jamie and Grace. And then it's another hour's drive back to Como, where we'll be staying in the village of Argegno. But first up, it's finally time to do the Stelvio Pass.
It's looking good. We have woken up to find ourselves in a cloud. You can barely see the top of the hotel, never mind the mountain pass we're about to go on. A little bit of hope. All right. Are we wearing matching t-shirts today? Stelvio Pass t-shirts. We genuinely didn't plan I only just noticed this now. I didn't notice this looking at you, but just now. Anyway, we're cool. The sky blue gang. Yeah. We're the color that the sky is not right now anyway, but yeah, we're going to have to see what we're going to do the Stelvio Pass, but whether we'll see anything, we don't know, but let's go find out.
Built nearly 200 years ago, the Stelvio Pass climbs up 1,800 m to a peak of over 2,700 m above sea level, and the road has a dizzying series of 48 hairpins on the northern side, with another 34 waiting on the southern side. The pass was featured in Top Gear, and they described it as the greatest driving road in the world. I didn't know what it was going to feel like in my car cuz it's a grand tourer car, so it's very fast but it's heavy as well. Yeah. And so I was kind of thinking, you know, is it going to struggle in those corners? But it actually was just perfect for it because I think you could floor it in between every corner and then so well wasn't pushing it too hard in the corners.
If you could see the look on Grace's face right now. How are you finding it so far? Oh, wow. Ambition. Enjoying it? Yeah. Yeah, so an early morning wake-up call. I thought I'd like to ease myself in, but I think we've done about 35 really difficult corners. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's really, really cool. of holding a 360 camera out. Holding on for dear life like Adam's whizzing around the corners and I'm just like, "What the Having stopped a few times and in real time seeing the footage that you were getting, Yeah. particularly the drone shots so you could kind of see down the valley, it was just amazing to think that's what we were doing at that time. That might be the top as well. I
wouldn't be surprised. I mean, yeah. That's all for today, isn't Oh my goodness sake, man. Driving through a cloud. How you doing? Yeah, you all right? Perfect car for this. We stopped just near the top of it and there was a selection of very nice cars parked up and everyone got out and chatting away. All Brits, like all middle-aged Brits with their cars. Nice. So, we got the rules down. And there's one guy got out and he was just buzzing like that was amazing and his wife got out of the car going like right I'm sorting the divorce papers for him.
Souvenirs? Pull over somewhere and have a little look. I expected some kind of random mountain hut at the top but it's different hotels. They have summer skiing up here. There's a big cable car going up. Gift shops. There's loads going on. Heading down the south side of the pass now, we still got another 20 km and 34 hairpin bends to go. Main bit of the pass is done. How'd you find it, mate? Yeah, pretty exhilarating. I'm just starting to breathe again. Me too. After completing the pass, it was about another 100 km until we reached northern tip of Lake Como.
We should have had to drive down Como to get to Milan airport to pick up Jamie and Grace but like when you drive around Como, 90% of it you're in a tunnel. Yeah, and I like going through tunnels in my car. Oh yeah, yeah, that's true actually. From the south of Lake Como, it's about another hour's drive to Milan airport where I also picked up a car rental for the rest of Jamie and I's trip. We got a Mini. It's adorable. It looks really good actually. I'm excited to drive this. We're going to have it for a few more days after the video part of the trip. Um but yes, we just want to get there now. So yeah.
It took about an hour to drive back up to Como, and we're going to be staying for 3 nights in the village of Argegno, and on the last day, we're going to be doing a private boat trip around the lake. All right, so we've successfully made it to Lake Como. 4 days of driving, finally made it here, and we got 3 nights in this amazing little Airbnb. Hi. Okay. It is so beautiful. Wow. All right, where's the wine? Yeah. You're lucky. Yeah. That's gorgeous. And we have all of this.
First time I came to Lake Como, I was staying in a hostel in like a very hot, sweaty, eight-bed dorm, you know. It was like 35° and no air conditioning. It was just So, it's a bit of an upgrade on that. There's two floors to it. So, we should be sharing with some other people, but there's no one else staying here right now. So, we have the whole place to ourselves, including this lovely little terrace, I guess, right on the water. So, yeah, not a bad spot at all.
Cheers. Once we'd settled into our villa and spent a nice evening in Argegno, the next day, we took the ferry around the lake to check out some other places. So, we're at the Grand Hotel Tremezzo, very fancy place. I've never been to a place this fancy before. They're our cool friends. We would never stay here. Oh, not with that attitude. Or money.
Uh but, yes, we thought we'd just come in for a cocktail, and then they had a really fancy one for like €40. I was like, You can hear the water all around. It's called Deep Dive, and apart from having some rum and other ingredients, it has cuttlefish ink and dried caviar. Dehydrated caviar. That's so It looks so bad. I mean I'm not going to lie. It looks disgusting. Anyway, cheers, guys. Cheers. It smells like a tentacle of the Kraken. even want to touch it. Cheers. Oh, it is nice, though.
All right, I got some caviar. Oh, I got black ink on my mouth. Yeah. Cool. That's actually really tasty. You like it? Yeah. Is it fishy? No, I'm not. Oh, the rim, though. Yeah, cuz that's the caviar, right? The rim is a little briny. Yeah. Anyway, that's what I call When I was in Belgium, I bought some Belgian chocolates for Jamie, but after sitting in a hot car for a while they now look like this.
Here you go, my love. Just for you from Belgium. Wow. I'll get a knife and fork out for Tomorrow we've got a boat booked to cruise around Lake Como, which is going to be a such a perfect end to the trip. It's not cheap. We're treating ourselves for this thing, but it's going to be pretty spectacular. Excited? Oh, yeah. Hello. Hey. You have chosen wisely. Wow. The name is Villa La Punta. La Punta in English means the point. Because as you can see, the point of the mountain. Now This of the most expensive villa that out for sale for 65 million. All the property, yes.
So up here we've got George Clooney's house. George Clooney, he's just like us. Wow. I think that Clooney came here only for a couple days during the summer season and every time that Clooney is here there is a lot of boat around his house with paparazzi inside. Yes. So this place is very famous for this bridge. Oh, wow. Ready? Yeah, ready. Say salute. So apparently Lake Como, the deepest part is 465 m. I guess all these bouncy things keep going down. Where is very deep but there is a lot of currents under the water but here is only 30 m.
Ah, it's all right. It's a bit cold but it's like it's a refreshing. Yeah, it's refreshing. Thank you. Cheers. Ah, this is the life. Prosecco in Lake Como. Not just on Lake Como, in Lake Como. Good treading water practice as well. From Lecco in the other part you can get to the Dolomites in just 3 hours and it's amazing, yes, because we usually go there in the winter for the car just for a ride because it's amazing. There is all the turns and it's very nice and This guy just drove from London.
Ah, ah, really? By car? Ah, that Aston Martin was yours? Ah, okay. So you had Okay, perfect. It was made out of carbon They sold it for a long time but it wasn't like they reached a price on and after he sold 2 months ago for 90 million, 90 million. Wow. The way the trees are manicured is crazy. And this one is Villa del Balbianello. The Star Wars, the third one. It was a Go there. And yes, not the second one.
Yeah, sorry. Not the third one. That's where he stand with the whole I don't like sand. Yeah, amazing. Beautifully written scene. Adam and I went to see Attack of the Clones on opening night when we were 18 at the Metro Centre. And it's the best example of Geordie humor I've ever heard cuz like the lights go down and there's like a buzz of excitement but everyone's like shh and then comes up a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away and some bloke just goes Yeah, I think I've seen this one.
This one is Villa la Gaieta and it's where it was record the last part of James Bond Casino Royale. He's in. He's cold. Yes, yeah, it's a little warmer. Little How's this, my love? Not a bad swimming pool. It was a swimming pool. That boat trip was just an incredible day and the perfect ending to our time in Como. Thank you very much, guys. Yes. Loved it. And the four of us had a couple more days together in Italy, which I didn't film, and then Adam and Grace drove back to the UK and Jamie and I had a few more days together in Italy before flying home.
But looking back on the trip as a whole, like getting to do a trip like this with my childhood best friend was such a treat because normally when we see each other it's just for an evening or a weekend. So to get to hang out for a whole week and share this mini road trip adventure together was so special. Have fun. And as nice as it is to travel slow, the nice thing about being back in Europe and doing like these mini whistle stop tours is you get to experience such a wide variety of stuff in a short space of time. Bro, we're not in South End anymore. Anyway, coming up next on the channel, I've got a three-part mini series that I've done with France Tourism. The first two will be coming out in the next
couple of weeks. So Jamie and I had a long weekend in Paris together finding some of the lesser traveled spots and doing a bit of a gastronomic tour of the city. And then we had three days in the beautiful wine region of the Loire Valley experiencing all the vineyards and the chateaus. And then the third part of that series will be filming at the start of December cuz we're going to be checking out some of France's Christmas markets. And then the next big series that'll be out on my channel is my recent trip through Central Asia. This was my one and only group tour for the year and we traveled through Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan. And it was one hell of an
experience and I can't wait to edit it because some of the footage we got was insane. And so the plan is to have all of these videos out on the channel before Christmas. So there's loads to look forward to in the coming weeks. So make sure you subscribe so you don't miss out on anything and I'll see you again very soon.
