America seems to hog the limelight as far as road trips are concerned. Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider and Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited are perhaps the most famous celebrations of the American ideal of the freedom of the open road.

Of course Route 66 is the most famous highway, taking in some of the country’s most archetypal roadside scenes, from the golden sands and sunshine of Los Angeles, past the Grand Canyon and the Native American communities of the desert Southwest, to the gritty streets of St. Louis and Chicago.

In contrast, mention a road trip in Europe and the response is met with little enthusiasm. ‘That’s a long way to drive,’ was the most common remark I encountered once I explained the route Hot Danish and I had planned. Even my Italian friend, Luisa, lacked her usual zeal when I caught up with her, ‘I hope you both have a good time in Italy – driving in this country can be quite challenging. Even for Italians (our fault certainly)!’

Indeed, it took a couple of hours to find a space to park in Lucca and we avoided Cinque Terre, famous for its dramatic coastal scenery but notoriously crowded and difficult to drive to (cars have long been banned from entering the villages) – the area is best seen by yacht, apparently.

The upside of the lack of enthusiasm meant I was pleasantly surprised: I broke my personal speed record on Germany’s autobahn, drove along sweeping highways through the Swiss Alps (admittedly HD slept through the best views), and through the world’s third longest road tunnel (the Gotthard Tunnel is just under 17 kilometres) until we stumbled upon the chic city of Lugano which sits on the shores of Lake Lugano, framed by the Lugano Prealps. We thought we were in Italy (locals speak Italian) until we saw the Swiss franc signs and checked Wikipedia (the city is known as the ‘Monte Carlo of Switzerland’).

Our trip has not been without a few hiccups including a few scary encounters with drivers in Italy and a hotel plastered with shouty youth hostel-style signs, but we made our excuses to leave early, hit the road and enjoyed an unplanned night in a former monastery just outside Siena…

And Route 66 isn’t perfect. It has perhaps been the most impacted by the modern Interstate world; for many stretches you’ll be forced to leave the old two-lane and follow the super slabs that have been built right on top of the old road. But as John Steinbeck famously said, ‘A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.’