31 October 2001 - Hello Ladies
There was a bit of an unusual start to the day today, as we actually made it to breakfast for a change! This was to be our last day on the navigational rally, and the plan was to drive down to the seaside. How pleasant!

The first leg of the journey would take us to San Marino, the oldest republic in europe (or is it the highest, or the smallest? Not sure...). The journey down to San Marino was extremely foggy, so Dan took it easy for most of the morning. On arriving at our destination, we were greeted with glorious sunshine (actually the place is so high up we were above the clouds!!). San Marino is quite an amazing place. Plonked right on top of a rather convenient mountain, the views from the fortress at the top of the town are more than impressive. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about the souvenir shops in the town... we still havn't worked out why anyone would want to buy a model of a sioux indian in San Marino!??

Alex took over at the wheel for the second leg of the day. As usual, as soon as he gets into the driving seat, the roads become twisty and supremely fun. Surely this can't be coincidence! The second leg took us all the way down to the Adriatic coast. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't great, and we were lucky to find the coast at all in the fog! And we can't believe that we brought the power kites nearly 1200 miles only to find that there wasn't a breath of wind....

Back to the hotel along some more amazing roads, and this final night in Italy was to be celebrated with a Black Tie dinner. It has to be said we looked very dapper in our penguin suits, lets hope the ladies agree! (photographs to follow)

A lively affair, with plenty of fine wine to keep us happy. Half way through the night, we were discussing one of our sponsorship deals. Basically, a couple of our sponsors had agreed to give us £1 for every lady that we could get a photo of standing next to our car. We were pondering over the fact that we had failed miserably in our quest so far, when Alex had a brainwave....

A quick word with Freddie, the organiser of the event, and the plan was in place. We were going to announce this slightly unusual sponsorship deal during the after dinner speaches, and ask all the ladies to join us after the meal for a quick photoshoot by our car!

The response was fantastic, not only did ALL the ladies on the event join us, we also got all the female catering staff, waitresses and a few guests to join us too! Well, it was all for charity! We're still counting the total money raised (sorry aleks and jovi, but its going to be a lot!), but we'll be posting the pictures on the website when we get back.

The evening was completed in the usuall manner by seeing a few G&T's disappear.

Summing the day up, lets just say that we both had slightly larger ego's after the event!

More soon......




Finally, as we mentioned above, we are now making our way back to England, via a few stop overs in Nice, Reims, and Annecy. Basically, we're going to be miserable, as we don't want to come home really (apart from the trip over the alps!). So we need you to email us your words of encouragement, or perhaps you don't want us to come back either! Whatever you have to say, you can email us at dan@r136xoa.com or alexander@r136xoa.com, and we can pick these up in the car.

Keep your messages coming, we'll even reply from the car if it's not too bumpy to type!

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