Happy New Year!
Welcome to 2017. Seems pretty much like 2016 to me so far but, there we are. I went for the first bike ride of the year today and whilst getting some exercise managed to freeze my feet so solid I had to stand on the central heating hot air vents at home! Mind you, it was a gorgeous day and if you weren’t outside, more fool you. Anyway, let me step back in time with you for my next few posts…
A while back, I verbalised a wish I had harboured for a while of visiting the Nurburgring in Germany. If you know nothing of this place, you can read of it here. Essentially, it is a 20 or so kilometre endurance race circuit in the Eifel National Forest that petrolheads from around the world (although mainly Europe) flock to to test their mettle as a driver. However, more of this later in other posts because I found, through research, that the track was located in the historically interesting and visually impressive Eifel National Park. Before you all say Eifel has too few “L”s in it, this is correct. The tower in Paris is not related in any way :).
Anyway, I set my mind to going and off I popped on the t’interweb making bookings in my bestest pigeon German (which I have a GCSE in, thank you very much for asking) and before I knew it, I had a hotel and the Eurotunnel booked. I don’t do flying. Anyway, what kind of car lover turns up at a race track in a taxi from the airport? But, never fear, these posts won’t be full of cars and discussions over torque figures as I found plenty besides in the local area to keep me amused, but I can’t promise 100% freedom from cars…
But, let’s start at the beginning. How was I going to get there? Where would I stop? I had planned this very well, even for me so there were only two legs to the entire journey where I was driving but they were pretty long. Essentially, I would drive along the M4 to Folkestone from Pembrokeshire, stay overnight, then get up ridiculously early to load my beloved Fiesta ST180 on the train, then scoot through northern france (avoiding the gendarmerie) to Germany. Easy. First hurdle to be greeted was the weather. Now, we shouldn’t complain about decent weather but it was HOT. It doesn’t get too hot in South Wales so, the closer I drove to the south-east to get to the hotel, the warmer it got, until we were pushing high 20’s in celsius on the display. As I say, not warm in most respects but warm enough when you have leather seats and minimal supermini air conditioning. Having fought my way around the madness that was the great London Orbital Car Park (otherwise known as the M25, renowned for awful drivers and delays) I arrived at my first stop, Folkestone, or more specifically, the Portland Hotel, Folkestone. Not having visited the area before, I was pleasantly surprised and the views evoked a Summery feel….
The seafront was buzzing in the afternoon and it was very nice to stroll in the warm of the evening as the weather cooled off a little. I even had my dinner “al fresco”! Once it got dark, things got interesting. Due to the heat, some storms had formed in the English Channel and that night was the flashiest, bangiest, rainiest evening I recall in a long while. Unfortunately, I couldn’t catch the drama on my camera as I don’t have the proper bits and bobs, but, take my word for it, people instinctively retreated to cover to watch rather than be soaked!
Next morning, freshly rinsed car, it was sunny again so off I zipped to the train, making sure not to damage my expensive alloy wheels on the low sills in the carriages…nerve wracking stuff. However, the continent awaits! I cannot recommend Eurotunnel enough if you are up for a driving holiday to France or even that you wish to be a foot passenger in one of the cities they service. I have used it twice for big holidays I have taken and had no issues. Bear in mind too that I do not get commission, it really is good. Less than an hour later I was in northern France and the motorway speed limit was 80mph so, understandably being a Brit, I did at least 90mph on most occasions. Well, after all, you are bound to get away with a few mph if they try to clock you and you may as well get a decent fine for speeding….
A few hours further on from this and after a very scary circuit of the Brussels ring-road later (less said the better, blooming truck drivers), I was entering Germany and heading towards Cologne where I would then head south from the more industrial part and into the Eifel region. The warm weather continued and the roads were kind, well made, smooth and relatively empty so progress was easy, bar the odd coffee stop. I wasn’t too far from the end of my journey when I took this picture illustrating the lovely open tree-lined routes I was plying…
As the train was very early morning, I arrived in good time to be able to explore a teeny bit before dinner and then have a rest in my final stop of Adenau. What a find. Shows you what a bit of research can do. Such a charming and historic place near an extinct volcano of all things! My hotel was quiet, I had my own parking spot (as things were not all that busy) and a supermarket spitting distance way for snacks and lunch supplies. Result.
The following day, I decided just to peruse the local roads, to get my bearings in a way. The roads…awesome. It’s no wonder people came here, there were hairpins and smooth curved 100 kmh limit roads that were great fun to drive and that you ended up with views like this from….
However, enough driving talk. I came here for the whole region, not just the track. On my early explore, I came across a car park in the middle of nowhere that seemed quite popular, so I decided to go in and see what the fuss was about. I didn’t see any signs that I could easily translate but saw that there was a path heading off so I just followed it…..
Eventually saw signage relating to “Hohe Acht”. This meant not a great deal to me, other than my very literal GCSE translation of “high eight”. Judging by the constant upward incline of the path I was following, the former part of this translation seemed correct. But eight? Eight what? This muse kept me thinking as I trudged up the path further and further. Bear in mind that the weather was only just cooling down, so I’m not sure this was a wise decision at points, but I was committed now. Eventually I did get to the top to be greeted by….
This I did not expect. The roads that you travel underneath the tower, so to speak, mean that you can’t see it apart from when you are a fair distance away. But, this was Hohe Acht, the summit of the eight highest tertiary volcano (at 747 metres) in the Eifel region, topped by the Emperor William Tower (Kaiser-Wilhelm-Turm), built in 1908…this will be where all the eights came from then! The tower was constructed for the silver wedding of Emperor William 2. The nationally protected tower is over 50 feet high and the walls are one metre thick at ground level (although if you go there you will be impressed by just the thickness of the doors alone which must have used a ridiculous amount of wood). The views from the top are pretty sweet….
When you are atop the tower, you realise why the racing drivers call the track “The Green Hell”, due to all of the trees surrounding it. Even though this is high up on a volcano over a race track, I challenge any of you to see the tarmac. No? That’s possibly some of the most supreme camouflage on the planet, I think you will agree.
To finish the day, I wandered back down the path and decided to zip off-piste with my trusty camera to take a few pictures. It seems that, even though the day was bright and warm, the Eifel is quite a damp place overall (as I would discover later) as the forest walks were bristling with some of the most spectacular examples of fungi I have ever seen..
I have spared you many of the other pictures I took for these two, as I think you would have got very bored with all the permeations. I couldn’t let this one go past though, look at that chesnut colour! Spectacular.
Moving on, it wasn’t long until I managed to get out of the forest path that I had entered….at completely the wrong end. I spent the next few minutes using my best cub scout tricks to try to guess which way I should be going and managed to find a path that looked familiar at last. Close run thing though, someone nearly had a free car! However, as you know me, I just took the opportunity to take some more pictures of different scenes….
Eventually, I was reunited with my steed and headed off in a loop of the forest path I’d just taken past the viewpoint I posted earlier and down to a small shopping centre outside Adenau. Not very exciting I hear you say, but I noticed on my way in that there was a gorgeous little church perched halfway up a cliff on the river the opposite side, so I decided to stop and take a stroll over after a coffee at the bakery. You must try hard to imagine the struggles I had in ordering simple things like drinks and cake, having not used my GCSE for a good 20 years! It got a good giggle now and again, but I think they appreciated me trying and it was worth it for images like this…
Unbelievably, this is only the end of the first day or two of my trip. I think in all it was ten days but I shall be condensing it as much as possible and I have a few videos to pass the time for you that I posted on my YouTube channel a while back. However, as ever, I shall be injecting a bit of history and now some petrolhead thoughts along the way, but I will try to keep this to a minimum. Maybe.
It’s been a hefty one for the first of the New Year but, thanks for reading it. I am going to try my best to post monthly, if not more often. Not exactly a New Years resolution, but more of a promise to myself to get off my bum and do more on here and with saved pictures, as well as getting more new ones! So, keep this frequency clear, I shall return for part two where we venture off to surrounding towns and villages and more gorgeous scenery.
Bye for now!
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