Europe

France and Germany

Our journey started with a rather interesting surprise, it was 7am, cold, damp and the odometer read 666666.

Essential to get some miles under our belts quickly.

We arrived at the ferry terminal with moments to spare, within the minute we had before boarding Lucile dropped her passport, which was found and handed back with a smug “you won’t get far without that!” Technically that wasn’t right; we would have made it to Croatia without passport controls… Daily checks of passports now in place.

The journey to Freiburg was its usual lengthy dull drive, the only excitement being the French motorway “art” between Nancy and Metz and of course one of my favourite games “guess how much this toll costs”. We arrived at around 9pm after our first off road experience in a French service station – the pizza restaurant was just one small (ish) grassy verge away. Lucile’s screams of “NO” only served to spur me on.

We stayed with Darren and Sabine in Emmendingen, close to Freiburg, they have a fantastic loft apartment where we stayed for 2 days. I showed Lucile around the city the first day, it’s always odd coming back to Freiburg, but it was nice to see everyone – especially Verena.

Austria

After a relaxing day in Freiburg, a decent night’s sleep we set off for the Alps. A few wrong turns and bad road choices left us rather behind schedule and we found ourselves driving through the Alps at sunset. Never having skied it was my first time in the Alps, I was suitably impressed, and feeling slightly smaller by the end of it.
Things that kept us amused en-route? A town called “wank”

and Lucile’s map reading.
up = north
down = south
left = west
right = east
1cm away – depending on which map we’re looking at 50 – 100km away
Etc…

Once you’ve deciphered that it’s actually quite easy!

We suffered a near breakdown, M had overheated, and had I not spotted the temperature gauge being off the scale sooner could have been a bigger problem. Logic suggested it was due to a 2200m climb, mostly in 2nd, occasionally 1st, and rarely 3rd gear to be the cause of the overheating – I’d checked the coolant level that morning and had the quality of the coolant checked by Douglas Motors the previous week when the full service was done… a ½ hour wait, and the knowledge we’d soon be going down the mountain seemed to suffice. But still – it was the first time I had the trusty Haynes manual out during this trip J so worthy of note!