Negotiating our way out of Nuremburg wasn't too bad and before we knew it, we were at our first fuel stop. Next up, was a coffee stop or at least should have been but we never made it there. I was in a lane to turn left, when Grizzly appears at my side and says the road is closed up ahead and Garmin says to take another route. OK I say, you lead, which he did. I followed, Tomtom telling me to take this turn, that turn, none of which matched where we were going for a good few miles. At one point I thought we were on the same page but after about two corners, that was it. As I followed I watched as the time to destination increased, along with the distance. Where is Garmin taking us I asked myself but I trusted Garmin and Grizzly, until we ended up on a motorway slip road! We were excluding motorways at this point! Grizzly pulled over. It was my turn to be cross, especially when he got off the bike and said how did I got us lost! The nerve of the little twonk. He leads the way with his beloved Garmin giving him directions, then when it f*cks up, he still blames me! Just goes to show, neither of these systems is perfect, not that Grizzly will ever admit it.
We decided to skip the coffee stop and go on to the next stop, which was the Technik Museum. This turned out to be fairly close, which made me think, maybe Grizzly had put the wrong route in his Garmin. One of them was to to blame for the situation, that's for sure.
The Tecknic Museum is amazing. We didn't have time to go in but just the outside was enough for us to take loads of photos. The main attractions, probably, are an Air France Concorde AND a Russian TU144 (cheap Concorde copy) on top of a building. It has to be seen to be believed. Yes, two full sized supersonic aircraft, on metal supports over the museum roof! The entire place has aircraft on steel supports, from small fighters, to old airliners and helicopters. It's not restricted to just aircraft either, there's a submarine in the car park! It blows your mind to see it all. Each aircraft is accessible too, so the two supersonics have spiral staircases from the roof of the museum, up into them. I really wished we'd had time to go inside and do a proper visit. On the bucket list!
There was a McDs just up the road, so we made a pit stop to make up for Garmin's mistake. Then we were on our way again, this time including motorways, as we still had a fair way to go. Initially, there was a huge tailback, we filtered. I'm not sure if it's allowed in Germany but we've done it before, so we did it again. As Grizzly would say, fuck 'em! Once we cleared the cause, some roadworks, we made good time to our second fuel stop. Happily, it was 9c a litre cheaper. Every little helps. Back on the road and back on another motorway, I was cruising at 70mph. Grizzly dropped back and by the time I came to some more roadworks, that was us seperated.I spent the next 50 odd km on mine own bombing along at 70mph again but mindful not to get in anyone's way, as this was autobahn and unrestricted.
Coming off the motorway towards Trier was fantastic, Down in the valley, a great sight, was the river Mosel. Trier has quite a lot of Roman buildings, from what I have read, an ampihitheatre amongst them, however, our hotel is 2km outside the town, so there wasn't a chance of us getting to see anything of interest. Besides, it had been a long day, and it was nearly 6pm when I pulled up at the hotel. To my surprise, Grizzly was only about 2 minutes behind me. He was buzzing, as he'd been 'giving it some welly', Seems he enjoyed himself. There goes his high mpg figures!
I was told I had to book for dinner and more or less given 7pm, which didn't give much time to freshen up. The hotel is quite full and so there was quite a lot of demand on the staff/kitchen. This seemed exacerbated by the fact there were only 2 people serving and apparently only one chef, a grumpy bastard at that.
We waited quite a while for anyone to come to us to ask about drinks, a woman and a younger chap, just seemed rushed off their feet, so service was slow. Once we were 'in the system' though, things weren't too bad and the food was good. Grizzly rated this his best meal, even if it took ages to pay the bill! With the town of Bitburg a little way up the road, it was no surprise Bitburger was the beer on tap. We had 3, Is that now 55?
After the meal, I gave Grizzly a birthday card and present. He said he'll open them tomorrow, his birthday. He'll be 73. For an old git, he does alright on these tours. They've not always been plain sailing. Will there be another?
Technik pics
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| A helicopter, no idea what |
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| TU144 First Supersonic Passenger Aircraft |
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| A submarine |
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| The best supersonic passenger aircraft, Concorde! |
This is the last night of the tour. Tomorrow we'll be on motorway all day and tomorrow night I'll be in my own bed, whilst Grizzly will spend his birthday on his own in a travelodge. Come back to see how it all ends.
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