Everybody's Autobahn Driving
Trip Start
Sep 07, 2008
1
17
33
Trip End
Oct 10, 2008
Rhine Valley,
Germany
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Today was a big drive day to get us up into the Rhine Valley, where we had planned to do a lap of the most picturesque portion of the Mittel-Rhine from Mainz to Koblenz. The Germans are quite renowned in Europe for their autobahns which don't actually have a speed limit, just a maximum speed suggestion of 130km/hr. As a result you see a constant stream of expensive German vehicles like Audis, BMWs and Mercedes whizzing past in the left hand lane at incredible speeds. Matt had the advantage of being able to see them coming in the rear view mirror, but I would be taken by surprise by a flash of movement as they passed. We were travelling at a very comfortable 120km/hr and some of them passed us like we were standing still. Matt thought it was great and started up his Autobahn driving song. It is sung to the tune of Kung-Fu Fighting and it goes like this...
Everybody's autobahn driving, do do do do do
Those cats are fast as lightning
It's just a little bit frightening, do do do do do
Everybody's autobahn driving.
Well it kept us amused for most of the way!!
What was supposed to be a 4 hour journey took us nearly 6 hours as every truck in Germany seemed to be on the road between Munich and Stuttgart.
The Rhine Valley - like a model train set
Also the clever Germans had decided to rip up the entire motorway for repairs in sections, so that you would sit for an hour in crawling traffic and just as it would start to move again you would see signs for more roadwork ahead. We eventually arrived in the Rhine Valley at about 5pm and were both absolutely exhausted from a long days drive. Our plans for seeing the Rhine went out the window, although we did drive along the West bank to get to our hotel. In this stretch of the river there is reportedly 30 different castles perched on hills overlooking the Rhine. I counted 17 on our short drive alone, helped by the fantastic view I had through the sunroof of the Renault (or castle roof as we like to call it.)Our hotel was another of Matt's great little finds off the internet called Alter Posthof, which is an old post-office from 1802 that has been converted into a hotel. It is a gorgeous place in a sleepy little village along the Rhine called Spay. We had just enough energy remaining for a walk down to the river and around the streets of the town. We were amazed to walk past one of the local houses to see the Aussie flag flying proudly in the backyard. We really are taking over the world one tourist at a time.
Dinner was at the hotel in their restaurant which was full of locals when we arrived. We even had the chef come and sit at our table to translate the menu for us item by item as they see so few tourists they don't even have an English menu. The menu was full of traditional German fare and we were both feeling a little adventurous so I opted for the venison ragout with potato dumplings and Matt for shoulders of rabbit in a dark sauce. The meal was enormous and very tasty. The highlight for me was the potato dumplings which I had never tasted before. They look like deep fried whole potatoes when they arrive but when you cut into them you realise they have a consistency like gelatinous rice and are filled with bacon bits. They are very tasty and sit so heavily in your stomach. It was the first time either of us had tasted rabbit and it was quite nice. It had a very gamey flavour and was served in a dark sauce that was so rich I couldn't have finished it. Matt did very well and after a while his plate was full of little rabbit scapulas. We washed all this wonderful authentic German food down with a bottle of Rhine Riesling of course. Not the best food and wine match we could have managed but what better time to try the local produce than when you are staying amongst it. The bottle we had was fantastic and came from a vineyard only a few kilometres down the road in the next little town of Boppard. It was also called Mattias Muller which Matt thought was pretty cool.
