We headed down the other side and off on the A2 autostrada when the car coughed twice and stopped, p managed to crawl into a lay-by thank goodness as the cars go by at 110 km per hour .
We waited a while to cool the engine as it has been a steady high 30's.
It wouldn't restart so we were at a loss and in the end called the UK AA , they were great they arranged a tow truck to come and pick us up and tow the car away. While we were waiting a motorway patrol stopped and checked we had called someone and to approve that we had the flouro vests on and the shiny triangle on the road to show we had stopped.( a requirement in EU) .
We then sat off the road waiting, only 35 mins and the truck took us to the garage in Asti.
The mechanic said it was a blown gasket and quoted €1500 and 15 days to fix as is was the weekend and the main holiday month of the year so no one round to fix it.
Oh my god what should we do!!!!! We couldn't stay 15 days in a hotel and all our hotel bookings and the euro tunnel would be wasted.
We found a hotel and got a taxi there to ponder our options.
We spent the night cancelling the rest of the hotels, all but two gave full refunds and one has said we can keep a credit. The euro tunnel gave an open credit till April next year. Then we sat and looked sad for a while.
The city of Asti turns out to be lovely , they have a horse race here each year where they fill a piazza with dirt and create a race track. Each church and suburb has a flag and horseman. It has been going since the 1500's
Images of the race
Next day we decided to try a "no more leaks pour a bottle in" solution, after checking on the web, so we walked to an auto shop and bough a bottle of radiator goop.
We went to the car yard started the car and then after a while poured in the goop. Sadly it didn't work and although the car started and ran for a while as soon as P accelerated the car stopped. We really had not choice then but to scrap it, as sending to uk to get fixed was too costly and fixing it in Italy then having to fly over collect it and drive back to uk was not a viable option either.
So we told the mechanic to scrap it, we bought it before my first chemo so we have had it 3 years and it only cost £2000 so I guess we had a good run. Thank goodness it was near the end of the holiday and not the start.
We then had to take everything out of the car, including our gumboots and tools and brollies and all those things that clutter up a car. We took them back to the hotel, went to a shop and bought a cheap suitcase and repackaged everything.
So then we had no car and no hotel bookings and no way back to the uk.
We looked at trains, buses, hire cars and flights. In the end the flights was cheapest and by far the quickest ( still £500) and we have booked to go to Turin for two days to finish our holiday and will fly from there,
Bit of a pain really, I don't get to go to Mont Blanc which was one of the highlights of the planned trip.
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