The only drawback with a Volkswagen Beetle, when you are
planning a fifteen hundred mile, road trip, for four adults, is the limited
amount of luggage space. We had to be in
Trento for a specific date, so the less adventurous among you will now expect
me to have planned to cover a certain amount of miles per day, moving from one
pre booked hotel to another. How wrong
you are. We were four young people
seeking adventure, so we jumped in the car and set off. To navigate my way around Europe I chose to
use an aeronautical chart. I think the
scale would have been somewhere in the region of fifty miles to the inch, so I’m
sure you are impressed at the space saving efficiency I was already employing.
We left Germany and cut through the southern tip of Holland
for no other reason than to follow and access the most appropriate motorways. We crossed Belgium and drove straight into Luxemburg. Holland was and always will be a favourite country
for me to visit. The people have a
certain love of life and a wonderful approach to it. Belgium was veering toward the boring but Luxemburg
really had nothing to offer us. We
parked up in Luxemburg city and wandered about and were suitably under-impressed. In fact it was so boring, and I could not
think of one cultural experience that we should visit in Luxemburg, that we got
back in the car and left for France.
I had nothing planned for France and decided that Paris was a
little too far away for us to visit. My
plan was to cross France and to enter Switzerland at Basel. I had hoped Basel would be interesting as it
sat on the border of three countries, Germany, France and Switzerland. We came across a lovely little French village
somewhere between Metz and Nancy. I can’t
remember the name of it but for me it matched the image I had in my head of
what a typical, small, French village should look like. There was a hotel on the main street so we
booked two rooms and settled down for the evening.
I noticed from my bedroom window that the police station was
almost directly opposite and hoped that we didn’t get too drunk that evening. I wasn’t worried about getting arrested, but I
was quite aware that all one had to do was walk in to any police station in
France and declare that you wanted to join the French Foreign Legion. Within twenty four hours you would have a new
identity and life. It was the sort of
thing I knew we would probably do, as they say back home, just for the
craic. I didn’t even tell the others
because I knew that, after a few scoops, it could turn into a dare. We came downstairs to the main lounge area of
the hotel and went to the bar. There
was a handful of French locals enjoying a drink and I asked if they served food.
“What do you think this is,” said the manager. “A hotel?”
Well; what he actually said was “Que pensez-vous de cette c'est un
hôtel?” but then you already knew that. I didn’t give him the reply you might think automatically
popped into my head, see, I was becoming more diplomatic, so asked for directions
to a nearby restaurant. It was a
typical, small, family run restaurant and we found a corner table and settled
in for the night. Not only was I a
literature lunatic but I was also a cultural sponge. I always believed that if you were in another
country you should respect that country by eating whatever the locals ate, or
drink what they were drinking, I thought it was only good manners.
I had explained this to my wife and friends who scoffed at me
for settling, like them, for the steak and chips option, although I was the
only one to attempt the snails as a starter.
I hadn’t the heart to tell them that it was horse steak, but as they say,
what you don’t know won’t hurt you.
After the nosh we remained, probably for far too long, at the table
tasting bottle after bottle of local French wine. It was a fantastic evening and when we left,
with my three compadres, trying to speak French with an Irish accent, we staggered
off to a fast food van for hamburger and chips before returning to our hotel, that
wasn’t a hotel, and crashing for the night.
The girls were frightened of the hotel as it was quite small
and basic. With one bathroom serving half a dozen rooms so they were quite keen
to leave the following morning, and as it wasn’t a hotel there was no
breakfast. We drove off and I glanced at
the police station breathing a sigh of relief that I hadn’t signed my life away,
again. A transport café provided
breakfast and it was thoroughly enjoyable, sliced spiced meats, tomatoes, fresh
bread rolls and strong coffee and all in the comfort of a bright yellow Beetle. I absolutely love driving through
France. It’s so relaxing and the sights that
continually pop up keep one interested and amazed.
Basel didn’t disappoint either. I didn’t really know much about Basel. It was somewhere that I was aware of but not really
much more. With no real insight into its
history or culture we satisfied ourselves with dandering around the city
centre, lunching on the pavement, at a restaurant, and just enjoying life. Unfortunately we had a sort of schedule to
follow so set off again. My only plan
for Switzerland was to aim for Lugano, where I could cross into Italy by Lake
Como and then drop down to Milan. But I also
wanted to get as close to the Eiger as possible while in Switzerland, which was
going to be impossible so my only other ambition was to visit Zurich, which we
did. Zurich was lovely and very Germanic. We had a laugh and watched a man engrave
brandy glasses, bought some chocolate and left, as for me Switzerland was about
mountains, not chocolate.
I don’t normally give advice, well; I suppose if I tell you
something that I did, you would probably know that the correct thing to do is
the opposite, so that’s a sort of advice.
So I would usually never knowingly give advice but on this occasion I
feel qualified and confident enough to do so.
Using an aeronautical chart to drive with is space saving, however it’s
not very good at marking out roads, as it’s mainly concerned with airways, mountains,
airfields and major cities. We were
bombing along and came to a Lake.
I checked my map and saw that we could take the low road or,
yes very good, we could take the other road, the high road. We opted to take the road that ran down the left
hand side of the lake and set off. It was
a brand new motorway and didn’t have very much traffic on it so a very enjoyable
run through the Swiss countryside, until the road ran out. Well; when I say ran out I mean stopped, it
was no more, hadn’t been constructed yet, although it existed on the map. I left the motorway, not that I had much
choice and drove down to the lake side. There
was a small village. I stopped outside a
hotel and went in to ask for directions.
In Belfast, as a child, I had a bulldog try to take my left
knee cap off for its lunch one day, so I never liked or trusted dogs after
that. I breezed in to this small hotel
to see two Alsatians sitting staring at me and can safely say my exit would
have put Usain Bolt to shame. The dogs
alerted their owner that a total coward had left the building. The owner came out and explained that we should
travel another ten or so miles along the side of the lake where we would come
to a ferry terminal and be able to cross the lake and continue our journey. Strangle enough the ferry wasnt marked on my
map.
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