Sunday 12th October 2008

Nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnneeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeyyyyyyyyyyyyawwwww and NYOM - Sunday 12th October 2008

Today is a very special day, not only did we have many exciting holiday based travel things to be getting on with, it is my birthday. So, in true birthday style, got up, felt like crap, shit, shower and shave and a spot of brekkie. Same as the day before, that lion bar cereal is ace, I must get a packet tomorrow to take home. It has the tendency to be REALLY addictive.

I got two cards, which was great, one was in German and had a picture of a mouse giving a cake to a giraffe. This was from Sean and Laura and the other said 26 ans! on it, this was in French and from Anna. I love her.

We left the house and started to drive. After about an hour and a half of driving through thick fog, we arrived at our first destination. The Nurburgring! It turned lovely and sunny and the car park, overflow field and the surrounding roads were packed with cars. It was nice to see a delegation from the “Pistonheads” forum there. I found it really difficult to get insurance for the trip round the ring. No one in the UK is currently supplying it as far as I can tell. For the money you pay, it is almost worth getting a ‘ring taxi’ as you will get a great drive round the track and there is no risk of you crashing and having to pay out a crap load of money.

I took some photos and got a souvenir sticker for the back of my car.

We then left to go to one of my favourite German cities, Koblenz. The town of Koblenz sits on the confluence of the Rhine and the Mosel rivers. At the join, there is a huge monument to Keiser Wilhelm (the chap that unified Germany in the 1800s). The monument is a stone built ‘temple’ with a giant horse with Keiser Wilhelm riding. The coolest thing about the horse was that, being anatomically correct, it had mahoosive balls. This amazed everyone standing around looking at the thing and taking photos – made me chuckle anyway.

After the monument we went for a spot of lunch. Between us we had Curry-wurst, Bock-wurst and Bratwurst and beer – the four main German food groups.

The rest of the afternoon was walking round Koblenz in the fantastic sunshine, looking at the wonderful architecture. We saw the palace, it was pretty huge, but in true Sweeney style, the thing was covered in scaffold.

We left Koblenz and went to our last destination of the day, this was the quite frankly gorgeous town of Monchau.

Monchau is really lovely. A tiny German town set in a valley, built out of the rock on the sides of a river. We went there last Christmas with Chris and Faith and at that time of year, it is MENTAL because of the Christmas Markets. October is a little different. It is still really cold but a lot less manic. We had a wander round the beautiful medieval town before settling at a riverside restraint for Schnitzel and more meat! NYOM!