Fifth Figaro After Summer Tour – Sunday 17th September 2023

15 Dutch members enjoy lunch, driving skills tests and awards.

Words and Pictures: Joyce & Pascal Snel

It was somewhere in January that Joyce and I went to a lovely part of the Netherlands, called Drenthe to look for nice locations for the start, lunch and finish for the fifth Figaro After Summer Tour.

It all went so well, we found a hotel that was perfect for the start and finish, lovely roads and streets for the tour and a restaurant on the border between Drenthe and Groningen that was willing to open for lunch for us, so we said to each other, this can’t be true, all so well in one weekend…… but then, Joyce found out that in our traditional last weekend of September Drenthe was taken over by the European Championship cycling! We had the choice to move to another area for another weekend.

All in Drenthe looked so good and it was so early in the year that we chose to change the weekend. September 17^th, started less sunny than we were hoping so about half of the Figaros started with the roof closed but during the day all roofs went down.

We had 15 attendees at the start and one visiting Figaro at the lunch.

5 x Lapis Grey, 3 x Emerald Green, 3 x Pale aqua, 1 x Topaz mist and 3 x black and the visitor was a pink one. And of course, our own Lapis was there all day.

Drenthe is known for grave monuments called “Hunebedden” so we made a tour with as many as possible of those to see. That was not easy because these are mainly located along places that are difficult to reach for a Figaro. We need to buy a Land Rover then and organize a Land Rover tour instead for this we said often to each other.

In 2023 it was 125 years ago that the famous painter, Vincent van Gogh, came to Drenthe. So it was one of the targets Joyce as route maker had, to make sure the church from one of Vincent’s Drenthe paintings was part of the tour. She managed to do this in the morning part.

After an excellent lunch buffet, we were able to use the very large parking of the restaurant to do a small driving skills test. We made an object that was low enough that you lost sight of it as you got closer, and the task was to park as close to it without hitting it.

LET THE FUN BEGIN!
The fun that the participants have watching others do this test turns into bitter seriousness the moment they sit behind the wheel themselves. There was one participant who managed to stop 1 cm (0,4 inch) away from the object where you can think, luck or wisdom, but in any case, the maximum number of points.

In total, there were 290 points to score this day and with 200 points it was the team of Jan and Ilona, who were award-winning before but now for the first time as winners who won the trophy.

The second place was for Dennis & Martin and the third place was for Dick & Wyhncke.

As we know from the club events of the Figaro owners club, this year we also had a trophy for the participants who had travelled the longest distance to be present at our event. Inge and Johan won this trophy, living in Hoek van Holland, 258 Km (160 Miles)

After a small drink and bite, we said goodbye to most of the attendees and still had an excellent dinner with a small group.

We had a lovely Figaro day and are already thinking and daydreaming about the next event!