Day 23, Nuremberg to Trier

We had a long day in the saddle today, some 260ish miles. Brekkie was taken amongst a load of school kids, none of them apparently with any manners or respect for elders. Hey ho! 

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

 

A helicopter, no idea what

TU144 First Supersonic Passenger Aircraft

A submarine

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.

 

Day 22, Nuremberg Sightseeing

Had a bit of a lie in this morning. Even Grizzly set his alarm for later. Never known before in the history of Wild Hogs tours, as far as I can remember.

We went down for brekkie. There's a screen that asks you to sign in, using the QR code. We don't have one. Oh well! We filled our faces, as usual and took to the streets. I had installed an app for the transport system in Nuremberg and thought I had it all sussed. 2 single tickets, lasting 90 minutes. Plenty of time to get us to the Documentation Centre on Tram 8. Grizzly wanted to visit a pharmacy, for a problem we shan't go in to, so we made our way to the main train station. They didn't have what he wanted. I was fiddling about trying to work out how to pay, so we missed one tram. The next wasn't far behind but just before it arrived a swarm of teenage students arrived. I told Grizzly we needed to get on quick. The doors opened and on went the swarm. I managed to grab a seat for Grizzly but not for myself. I spent most of the journey standing and trying to pay for the 2 tickets but kept getting an error, so we had a free ride, saving almost €7.We went into the documentation Centre, a museum in the north wing of the remains of the Congress Hall of the party rallies, at the Nazi Party Rallying Grounds. There is a lot of improvement going on, so the exhibition space is greatly reduced. Still, very interesting. An interesting fact I picked up from an English speaking guide was, the Nazi Brownshirts outnumbered the regular army, restricted in size after WW1 to 100,000 men, by 20/1, a staggering figure!

Having finished inside we were able to look around the Congress Hall's exterior. I have done this before with my brother, 9 or so years ago and boy has it changed. Here again they are doing works building a new centre. The hall is shaped like a horseshoe with an open end, which Paul and I rode into. That's almost gone, being built on.

We continued around the grounds, picking up various sign boards, explaining what used to be there and what still exists, such as the grand road, a 60m wide 1500m long road, made from 60,000 marble slabs. This is all where parades would have come up during the rallies. The Americans used it as a landing strip after they occupied the city. Now it's used as a car park for big events held on the site.

Making our way around a huge lake, we came to the zeppelin field, named apparently, after a zeppelin landed there in 1909. The field became a parade ground under the Nazis and you can still see where the stands for the public were. Fronting this area, is the huge stand, with the podium Hitler used to speak from. You will almost certainly have seen videos of him up there. Unlike my last visit, we couldn't go up there. Shame, a picture of a little short fella with a moustache would have been quite good. They are redeveloping it into a more visitor centre type area, hence it's all fenced off.

The whole 16 sq km area now has been transformed. There are all sorts of sporting activities using the area, including the Nuremberg football stadium and a car racing circuit, that's been in use since 1947. Given the amout of barriers tyres, plus scaffolders building stands, race day can't be far off.

Our final stop on the tour was at Burger King. Yes, we had a snack/drink but there was another reason for going there. It is housed in a former Nazi power station and on the wall outside, you can still see where the symbolic eagle was etched.

The plan was to get the train back to the city centre station, if only I could get the app to work. I jumped on BK's wifi and this time managed to book us tickets. The error before must've been down to a poor signal on my 4G.

The train, as was the tram earlier, was spotlessly clean. No grubby upholstery, no litter. The tram actually looked brand new, the seats were that fresh looking. 4 stops took us to Nuremberg Hauptbahnhof, otherwise known as Central Station. I was expecting to have to scan the tickets here at least, though we'd just walked onto the platform the other end, but it seems the system is based a lot on trust and maybe fear of being inspected. Incredible. Back home the oiks around Kent would have a field day! They're always trying to cheat the system now.

Back in town, we had to visit another pharmacy. This time a purchase was made. We had a quick suss of somewhere to eat later, then returned to our room, where Grizzly took what he calls a benjy hour, an afternoon nap!

Having identified our restaurant earlier, we made our way for dinner. It brews its own beer on site, a light and a red. I tried both, along with pork, 3 sausages, sauerkraut, potato dumplings and horseraddish. The latter just looked like grated cheese. I had expected something akin to our horseraddish back home, creamed in some way. This was jusr grated raddish. It was all very tasty, though the potato dumplings could have done with some seasoning. 

The evening was sort of spoilt when it came to paying the bill, the waiter almost insisting I add a tip to the bill.. In 22 days that's the first time anyone has ask for a tip. Leaves a bit of a sour taste in the mouth. I caved, he got about €2.50. Beer count +3 to 52.

Back at the hotel we're prepping for tomorrow's ride, to Trier, still in Germany.

Pics from our sightseeing day.

The Historical Tram, not our one

The Grand Road

The Congress Hall from across the lake

My number on the starting grid!

Burger KIng, previously a Nazi power station

It's the last night of the tour for me tomorrow. We come back on Grizzly's birthday, so there might be a surprise for someone tomorrow evening. 😉