Haven't posted in a while but just got back this week from a Euro trip with my OH. We had a great time, and we even took Spec-D around the 'Ring a couple of times each, albeit in terrible wet weather!

We had a lot of fun though, and the car was brilliant - the perfect roadtrip companion. We visited Germany and went to the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart, as well as the zoo, and of course the Nurburgring.

We also visited the Rhine Falls in Switzerland and Lake Constance which were both amazing.

The German Autobahns were fantastic, and we saw some nice metal on them and the roads in and around Nurburg were just amazing. I honestly can't wait to go back. The Hawkeye hit 125k on the trip and is now on 126500 miles! And I bloody love this car!!

The fuel cost a fortune in Germany, €1.90 a litre for V-Power It is 100 RON there though, but strangely only 98 in France. Anybody know the reason for the regional variations?

I'm a little drunk and very tired tonight so will post some pics tomorrow if anyone is interested, but here's a quick one:

 

The perfect trip!!

 

It was great. We had such a good time. We had planned to go and do the Stelvio but in the end we ran out of cash and decided to head back. We'd had that good a time that in the end it really didn't matter. Had a play with a convoy of 911's on the 'Ring

I have to say, Germany is such a lovely country. Everything is clean, and well kept. People take pride in their homes and seem to have respect for other people and their property. A fantastic place.

 

so its the exact opposite to the uk then

glad you had a good time matey,me and a few friends want to do a road trip like this next year so might ask you for a few pointers

 

I would love to do this one year, any photos?

 

Sounds like a perfect holiday to me. I wish my wife was more in to cars, road trips, etc....

 

Planning something similar in august next year to Italy via France and Switzerland so reading this story is great news!! ! Pictures would be good..... just together excited. Ha.

 

France is not the place it was for Scoobs: their roads have at least one new speed camera per region per week.

As a French friend sdaid: "they are growing like mushrooms".

The French call them "money boxes". They are usually at ground level, but you rarely see one damaged.

 

Would love to do that trip, we had a mini Wales/SW/New Forest trip for our honeymoon and the bug behaved perfectly, couldn't have had a better car for the job, especially those tiny twisty Welsh roads!

 

I'm struggling now to remember the exact route we took etc. but we stayed over in Folkestone and then the next day went across on the tunnel, and drove all the way to Dusseldorf, travelling through France, Belgium, Holland and Germany

It was a long day but we had to get it done as we had tickets to see Green Day in Monchengladbach that evening. That was a highlight as they were superb as always

Doing a Euro trip was a bit of a lifelong dream fulfilled for me, but next time I'd like to do the Stelvio and maybe go down to Monaco. One of the things that amused me was how the Services in Germany and Belgium were loaded with beers in the fridges, moreso than soft drinks in some places! The Germans were great too, and the guest houses we stayed in were superb.

The trip to the 'Ring was brilliant, and we did 2 laps each. It was only open 17:00 til 19:30 so not a massive amount of time, but it was such good fun. We both really enjoyed it, and there were a couple of nice motors on hand. We also spent some time at the Ringwerk museum and had a look around the visitors centre and Nurodisney - I don't believe they have ever run the rollercoaster they built, have they?



We stayed in a small village called Wimbach, just next to Adenau at a beautiful guest house in the countryside, surrounded by scenery and wildlife. We also managed to get down to Pinocchio's in Adenau, for one of their legendary pizzas, shown in the pics below. The next night we ate the awesome steak at the Pistenklause, where we got chatting to a bunch of fellow Brits about all things cars and 'Ring related They were a nice bunch.



From there we moved on to Stuttgart and visited the Zoo and the excellent Porsche museum. We planned to do the Mercedes museum also, but just didn't have time. On the way to the Zoo we passed the Mahle factory, which had a nice sculpture of a set of pistons and rods outside it!

The Zoo at Stuttgart is brilliant BTW, so if anybody likes that sort of thing, I would highly recommend it

From there we went to Gailingen, a small town near the Swiss border and stayed in a guest house which was also fantastic, and served us the best rump steak I have ever eaten The next morning we went over to Konstanz to see Lake Constance, before heading up the the Rhine Falls, the largest waterfalls in Europe:



The water here was crystal clear, and teeming with Salmon! It was an amazing sight, and the boat trip we took was fantastic, taking us right to the edge of the waterfall. I got pretty soaked by the spray but it was great!

From there we were really just heading home, and stayed overnight near Saarbucken. We then drove all the way home the next day, which kicked the hell out of us, but was worth it, as I was contacted by an agency about a job I was in for, to tell me I had a final interview and they wanted to see me the next day! We got back, and I got the job So good news all round

We did make sure we passed through Reims on the way back though



I will post a few random pics from the near 2000 we took between us! Let me know if you have any questions about the trip, I'd be happy to help anyone planning anything similar

 

Now we are back and settled again, I have managed to wash the Scoob, who now wears the Obligatory 'Ring sticker:







Nice and subtle, in true Spec-D spirit!

 

Sounds good mate! I have been round Europe in my Impreza too a few years ago, and this year we went round in the missus Volvo as it a lot more economical!

We went from the UK to Prague, then to Slovakia (missus is from there), Northern Italy, Monaco, Saint Tropez, then back up through France. We did approx 3500 miles in total

 

mate that looks superb just the sort of thing i want to do,what sort of costs were involved in total? and how did you get on with the roads over there? never been or done anything like that so not sure what to expect

p.s your mrs must be cool.............she likes metallica

my mrs isnt cool...........she likes adele which i might add will not be polluting my speakers if we do go

 

Cheers, it cost us around a grand I think, although I haven't had the time/dared to add it up properly!

My Mrs is very cool, I'm very lucky She likes cars, football and good music, what more could a guy want?!

The roads on the continent were fine. Most of them were great, nice and smooth, but we did get the odd rough, bumpy, pot holed road. We adjusted to driving on the right fairly quickly and we never once got stuck in a long traffic jam. As soon as we got back into the UK, that was the first thing that happened!

I only took the car to about 140mph on the derestricted sections of autobahn, but that was pretty intense! I didn't wanna push the Hawk too far

Anyone who loves cars and driving should visit the 'Ring. I was sorry we only got a two and a half hour session there, but the upside was that the place wasn't busy and my Mrs even got to drive a lap completely clear of any other cars. It was wet and we weren't pushing it or trying to set any records, we just went there to have some fun, which we did. I did one of my laps following around what looked like a Porsche club outing, which was fun I showed them the Scooby could eat them for breakfast on the last straight too

 

somehow i dont think my bus would work well on the ring so i think i will give ring trips a miss

 

Looks like you both had fun, more photos needed!

 

I have about 50 to post but I don't want to spam!

 

We saw the Alfa above the next day, pulled up on the grass and fluid all over the track!

 

Awesome, did you manage to get on the GP circuit?

 

 

Not this time unfortunately, but I think next time we may do that, plus Spa and Hockenheim

 

DROOL!

 

A few from the 'Ring!



Went in too fast here and had the ABS going, but that was my only "moment", fortunately!

 

One word - PAIN!!

 

Hi, Frau Cartay here. Just in case you want to see more pictures of the Porsche museum, the Ring and Stuttgart Zoo, here's a public link to our entire album of photos. Do ask us any questions about our trip, I think we learned a lot =))

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?...3&l=cd2d88bb0b