Roadtrip Through Germany
I'm assuming this fits in the remit of this comm, so here I am with some meanderings on a recent trip to Germany (we were at Hockenheim to cover a motor race, and then spent some time in the Mosel valley for a brief break). The following is very picture heavy...
So the great 2009 German roadtrip...
It's been a long time since we last did a road trip of any great note, probably because flights are so much cheaper these days than when we first started travelling to races in Europe quite so frequently back in 1989. Some of these trips became frankly ridiculous - for example the three weekends in a row when we travelled out overnight on the Thursday or Friday and came back overnight on a Monday, including 1989 when we did Spa, Jerez (OK, so we flew to Madrid but it's still a damn long way from Madrid to Jerez, espcially in a car with maladjusted headlights), and Le Mans on consecutive weekends in September. Or the time we did Spa and Silverstone on the same (bank holiday) weekend. At least this promised to be far less strenuous than any of those!
We got off to a reasonable start too, getting the car packed and ready and setting off at 9.30 prompt as planned, and making it to Dover in time to get on the Eurotunnel train half an hour earlier than planned - settled on the train we munched our way through two packets of Waitrose's sandwiches (smoked salmon and cream cheese, and crayfish and rocket) with a latte from the terminal coffee shop. Once clear of the tunnel and out onto French roads, we set off on an epic drive across France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany (passing Zolder and the Nurburgring en route), with our annoyingly stupid StaNav trying very hard to take us off the motorway, drive us round in a circle and take us back on again, for preference one junction further back from where we'd got off in the first place. (Thank you, Charlotte! Very funny!) The result was we hit Brussels around 3pm, and promptly got stuck in traffic on the ring. It got so bad that I hauled us off the motorway myself at that point, and we detoured through Woluwe and Evere. I knew all that time I'd spent living in Brussels would come in useful one day! Anyway, we finally extracted ourselves from the anarchy of Belgian driving, and made it across the border, but not before we'd crawled past Louvain/Leuven at about 15mph. It was 6pm by the time we hit Germany. A brief coffee stop and some sushi, followed by fresh fruit salads was enough to keep us going, and finally we were on the autobahn. Charlotte kept informing me "Warning: your speed is excessive!" to which Lynne was heard to darkly mutter "You ain't seen nothing yet". And she was right. With the SatNav giving us an estimated arrival time at Hockenheim of 21.30 it was time to floor the accelerator and join the ranks of the German starcruisers (not easy in a Vauxhall Astra but we did our best!) And we did, handling roadworks, dimwitted lorries and sudden rain showers with ease. The time reduced, we hit Hockenheim at 21.00 and made our way to the Hotel Motodrom, which had several advantages over any other hotels in the area, starting with being a five minute walk from the press office. It also has clean and comfortable bedrooms, a very good breakfast buffet included in the price:
HOTEL MOTODROM 001
Originally uploaded by smtfhw
And excellent views over the pits and start/finish line from the restaurant.
HOCKENHEIM SCENES 001
Originally uploaded by smtfhw
A quick change and we were downstairs meeting up with Glyn, as well as a very drunk representative of the F3 teams (who should probably remain nameless), plus several SRO officials who weren't quite as worse for wear but can also remain nameless. Beers were sunk, food was procured and wine was drunk and we staggered off to bed, stopping only to unpack and reorganise our stuff for morning.
Friday was sunny, warm and very reminiscent of previous trips to Hockenheim in the early 1990s. For old times' sake, having signed on after a very good breakfast (the mushrooms with herbs were especially good), Lynne and I wandered out to the infield and the Sachs Kurve. It didn't seem to have changed much out there, though the monumental grandstand on the Sud Kurve wasn't there back then.
HOCKENHEIM SCENES 028
Originally uploaded by smtfhw
It was fun to spend most of the day just doing nothing of any importance apart from wandering around with my camera in hand, and I realise I don't do test days often enough. There's nothing that needs to be reported on, so it means that I can get out and about and just take photos.
DANIEL RICCIARDO 168
Originally uploaded by smtfhw
We also established that we were going to be pretty well fed at this meeting. There were soft drinks, teas and coffees, and water, as well as open sandwiches of cheese, ham or salami, and a seemingly never-ending supply of bockwursts and bread rolls. Made the offerings at Silverstone look a bit sad (machine made coffee and pre-packed biscuits that run out as soon as the photographers get to them) - the Motor Club that organised the meeting even invited us to their pig-roast and party this weekend, but it's a bit of a long way to go for a party, even for us! Anyway, at the close of the working day we pottered back to the hotel, showered, changed and headed out to dinner. The Michelin Guide, when consulted the week before, suggested a couple of restaurants nearby in Ketsch (about three miles away), so I booked one for Friday and one for Saturday. And a very good thing they proved to be too. Friday we ate at the Restaurant Hirsch, conveniently located on the Hockenheimer Straße, which made it very easy to find. It was oddly empty for a Friday night, which suggests either the effects of the economic crisis or a very strange short-sightedness on the part of the locals. It was, of course, asparagus season in the area (Schwetzingen is a major growing centre and during the season in this part of Germany and restaurant worthy of the name will have at least a couple of asparagus-based dishes on the menu, and will often have an entire separate Asparagus Menu) so there was a great temptation to just go for the little white spears - they grow them white here in the main rather than green; it's done by keeping the plants covered with earth so photosynthesis can't occur. However, the restaurant was also very big on game, and neither Lynne nor I can ever resist...
And so we launched into Asparagus soup (for Lynne):
HIRSCH, ASPARGUS SOUP 005
Originally uploaded by smtfhw
The Scandinavian starter plate (smoked salmon, smoked trout fillet, sweet water prawns and rollmop herring) for Glyn and I:
HIRSCH, SCANDINAVIAN STARTER (SMOKED TROUT, SMOKED SALMON, SWEETWATER PRAWNS, ROLLMOP HERRING) 006
Originally uploaded by smtfhw
After that it was time for Aberdeen Angus Rumpsteak, with herb butter, salad and chips for Glyn:
HIRSCH, ARGENTINEAN ABERDEEN ANGUS RUMP STEAK WITH HERB BUTTER 007
Originally uploaded by smtfhw
While Lynne and I moved on to the venison medallions and wild mushrooms in Dornfelder sauce, with celeriac, green beans, cranberries and spätzle:
HIRSCH, VENISON WITH WILD MUSHROOMS, CELERIAC, GREEN BEANS AND CRANBERRIES 010
Originally uploaded by smtfhw
We drank some excellent locals wines, and managed to share two desserts between three of us, namely the excellent hot raspberries with vanilla ice cream:
HIRSCH, ICE CREAM WITH HOT RASPBERRIES 013
Originally uploaded by smtfhw
And then we staggered back to the hotel, had a drink in the bar (strangely with the same drunken rabble as the night before, but with the addition of Carlos Huertas' mum, who is delightfully nuts):
CARLOS HUERTAS' MUM 001
Originally uploaded by smtfhw
And then we lurched off to bed.
Saturday was a busyish day, with qualifying and one race, though it could have been worse. The weather wasn't too good, but again that was pretty immaterial really. It had been an odd sort of race, with quite a few unexpected incidents, including Riki Christodoulou ending up parked on top of Robert Wickens, possibly the world's most unlucky Canadian (certainly the world's most unlucky Canadian racing driver), and the B class lead pair wiping each other out and handing Litespeed F3 and Victor Correa an unlikely class victory on the grounds that he was the only one left! At the end of the afternoon we sat on the reports, based on the fact that just about every team manager in the series was outside the Clerk of the Course's office when we headed back to the hotel to shower and change. It looked as if there wouldn't be a result till morning (pretty much as there hadn't been from Friday's qualifying either).
On that note we headed back to Ketsch again, this time to find the Gasthaus Adler, where we were booked to eat at the Restaurant Stecker. This time we partly went for the asparagus menu - but only for starters. I had the wonderful asparagus with lobster, in a rich cream sauce, and very good it was too:
Lynne had the asparagus with tomatoes, basil and olive oil, which was a lot lighter.
To be honest, after that starter, I probably didn't really need a main course, but I had one anyway, in the shape of half of the rabbit with noodles and a rich sauce, and half of the duck with potato pancakes, both of which were excellent.
The wines weren't bad either!
And after that, dessert was fruit and ice cream:
And then we again headed back to the hotel for one last night.
Sunday's race was bizarre, the chaos starting well before the actual lights went out when the cars set out on their exploratory laps, rather than lap (weather conditions had changed since qualifying which means the drivers are entitled to two laps instead of one before they line up on the grid). Unfortunately the ADAC grid girls were already in place...
Queue lost of excited shouting, 20 yellow clad high-heeled models diving for cover and one poor sod desperately trying to get the Safety Car out of the way before 20 angry bees became 20 racing drivers going full pelt over the grid on their way to start their second lap. It was quite funny really! Anyway, once that was all over, and the race was run, we gathered all the information we needed, settled out hotel bill, and headed north, aiming for the Mosel (Moselle) valley and a brief but much needed break.
The weather en route was horrible, with heaving downpours, gusty winds, and zero visibility interspersed by very short sunny outbreaks. We had booked into an offshoot of the Hotel Zeltinger Hof.
In fact we were staying in a building we already knew, the Ratsschaenke.
We'd originally stayed in Zeltingen-Rachtig 25 years ago on a holiday in the area with Bob, and my parents, and had a wonderful time wandering from vineyard to vineyard, going to wine fairs and generally meandering about. On that occasion we drank in the local bar which was what the Ratsschaenke was at the time, and were introduced to the lethal, sinus-clearing local version of grappa, otherwise known as Mosel Trester. It seemed a little odd to be going back to stay in the same building. It was converted to two hotel rooms and a penthouse suite in 2008, and is beautifully done. unfortunately, the one thing they can't fix is the local church, St. Stephanus, which kept us awake till midnight every night of that previous trip, and then made sure we were woken at 7.00 every morning... The bells! The bells! is really all you can say. Oh, and I wouldn't recommend the place to anyone who isn't sprightly enough. The medieval stairs to the second floor were tricky to negotiate, especially with a suitcase.
Once we'd unpacked, and finished our reports, the weather had improved substantially, so we took a stroll round the town, finding it to be much as we'd recalled, vine-covered, pretty, quiet, meandering along the banks of the river and surrounded by vineyards.
That evening we opted to dine in the hotel, the whole idea of going out anywhere seeming far too complicated and demanding. The hotel proved up to the job, serving a solid and well-cooked meal of home-cured and home-smoked hams, cut using their own historic Dutch ham slicing machine.
After that we moved on to venison in a cream sauce, with cranberries and quince slices.
The wine was again excellent, and we drank a local red as well as a superb local white, before surrendering and refusing dessert.
It just couldn't be done. Instead we headed back for the Ratsschaenke and an early-ish bed.
Monday dawned sunny and fine, so we had a late, leisurely and extremely good breakfast. The hotel specialises in organic produce from the immediate area as much as possible and also various smoked and home-cured meats and fish.
After that we spent twenty minutes fighting the local bank machines (and NatWest's enquiry line) to a standstill so we could extract some cash (there was wine buying to do after all). After that we decided to catch the boat to Traben-Trarbach for the morning, buying a round trip ticket that allowed us to hop off and on the Europa if we wished. It was lovely sitting on the open top deck, drinking coffee in the sun and taking lots of photographs.
We enjoyed taking it easy while the vineyards and villages drifted past, the whole being overtly (and possibly maliciously) picturesque, including the ruined castle just outside Traben-Trarbach. Lynne reckoned it was all being wilfully "Germany at its most Romantic or even Fairytale" in places and ought to be reprimanded for overacting.
On arrival in Traben-Trarbach we got off and spent some time admiring the swan and cygnet that were hanging about near the various river cruise ships that often stop there.
Then we strolled about a bit.
We finally stopped for lunch at the Aacher Hof, reputedly the oldest building in Traben-Trarbach, dating from 830AD. All we were really bothered about was the fact that the terrace was sunny but shaded with vines. Once settled at a table overlooking the river we continued the theme of being overtly Germanic by ordering Bitburger beers and bockwurst with mustard, because, well, we had to.
Opposite was the delightful Hotel Bellevue, which looks fabulous from the outside, a restored Jugendstil gem of a place. We nipped inside to request a brochure from the reception desk, and then wandered around admiring the details.
It helped that there was a wonderfully cute amphibious car outside (apparently they use it as a river taxi).
In addition, our inner petrols heads were catered to further by the discovery of a British-registered Bentley, whose owner was just packing luggage into her.
Turned out he was a member of the guild of motoring writers and they'd just completed a tour of the area. He was heading off for Le Mans (quite right too), and had had the car since the 1960s. She looked as if she'd been used quite a bit in that time, and I approve wholeheartedly of that. It's always struck me as a shame that people buy and restore vintage cars only to let them moulder in a garage somewhere. Her proud owner chatted with us for a while, remarking that we seemed remarkably well-informed about cars and racing so we came clean and admitted we'd spent the weekend at Hockenheim, which was when he admitted he was the man behind Race Tech magazine, and gave us a free copy when I admitted I hadn't read it in a while as I couldn't afford the subscription (I used to steal a copy from the business lounge when I was travelling all the time).
Anyway, we hopped back on the boat for an afternoon meander back to Zeltingen, which was to be followed by some wine tasting and buying. But first we ordered a bottle on the boat, which to Lynne's distress was not served in the "proper" local Roemer glasses, but instead came with two very ordinary wine glasses.
She got over the disappointment enough to drink the wine though and we spent part of the trip back being amused by the riverside caravan sites, especially with the neatly lined up vans with their awnings all pointing the same way, and their precisely aligned satellite dishes on poles. Only in Germany...
Once off the boat we dived into the nearby supermarket and bought beer, mustard, various ready-to-cook dumplings, potato pancake mix and curry ketchup, all of which can be got in the UK but at a much higher price. We then leapt into the car and headed off for various villages, starting with Erden (Erdener Treppchen being the wine we were looking for).
Then we moved on to Urzig to buy wines from the Urziger Wurzgarten.
And after that it was Wehlen for some Wehlener Sonnenuhr examples, and with that we had spent our allocated budget (we went over by €1 on the wine but we were under by the same amount on the beer so it levelled out).
We then drove to Bernkastel-Kues and wasted 20 minutes trying to find a filling station somewhere (anywhere!) so we could refuel the car and not have to bother on Tuesday morning. A very helpful lady at the campsite on the edge of the town was able to tell us where we could find the last remaining source of petrol, so we filled up and then went back to Zeltingen. After all, we needed a coffee break after all that wine tasting, and as I muttered at the time, I couldn't come to Germany and not have Kaffee and Kuchen just once. So we did:
After that it was back to our hotel to shower and change for dinner at the Hotel and Weinhaus Moselschild in Urzig. Oliver's Restaurant came highly recommended (and justifiably so as it turned out). It being a low season Monday evening the place was very quiet, but that was fine with us. We had a table overlooking the river and the terrace (indoors - it was raining by then). After some consideration we opted for the Krautermenu (the Herb Menu), and settled down to enjoy some local sekt with wild strawberries as an aperitif.
It was a good way to start, even if the berries weren't too cooprative when we tried to fish them out of the glasses to eat them. Some splendid breads were brought, including some made with turmeric, and some butter and quark and herbs to go with them. However, we restrained ourselves, because we knew there were a number of courses to come.
Matters commenced with "Greetings from the Kitchen", amuses bouches plates with a tomato cream soup, a horseradish mousse and a small piece of fried pike-perch (zander fish) on some cabbage. It was looking promising now.
Next up was a pancake and home-smoked salmon roulade, with a creme fraiche dressing and salad.
The soup course was a real revelation. It was a foamy herb soup, light but richly flavoured, with some fried eel that was crisp-coated and delicious. I've always liked eel (except when barbarically massacred by being jellied) and I assume this was the chef's take on the Flemish speciality of paling in 't groen as it's known in Belgium.
Next we were presented with a canteloupe melon sorbet as a trou. It cleared our palates beautifully ready for the main course.
And the main course was guinea fowl with a lemon thyme risotto, carrot and vanilla flan and mangetout. It was quite, quite wonderful, the guinea fowl full of flavour and the risotto with just the right amount of bite left to the grains. Beautiful!
And then they insisted we have dessert! Well, it would have been churlish not to. Dessert was a woodruff mousse in a chocolate tear, with lavender ice cream and a mango coulis. It was very pretty to look at and it tasted even better than it looked.
I wish I could tell you what wine we drank, but as we'd selected the wines to match option, and they weren't listed in detail anywhere, I can't. Suffice to say they were excellent, and we left the restaurant much later, full of food and very happy.
Tuesday was coming home day, though we still planned on taking it easy. We made a 9am start and hit the motorway, finding the relatively new road away from the Mosel to be very quiet and very smooth. We hit Brussels, or more precisely Jezus-Eik/Overijse, around 11.30, which had always been part of the plan. Unfortunately, Lipsius is closed on Tuesdays, as is the Auberge Bretonne, both favourites of ours. We settled instead - and by way of a change - for Wang Kaew, where we had the set lunch, starting out with prawn crackers, moving to the mixed starter of satay, Thai spring rolls, crab noodle salad, and fish cakes. It's always very good there and Tuesday was no exception.
For mains we had Pad Thai and Duck Curry and finished off with coffee to make sure I didn't need a post-lunch nap.
By 2pm we were back on the road, and we made it to Dunkerque to get the Norfolk Line ferry about two hours before our sailing. Our intent was to relax over a beer in the bar, but instead we ended up getting loaded onto the earlier sailing, much to our surprise. So that meant I couldn't get a beer and had to have coffee instead. Lynne got her beer, and everyone was happy. We drove away from Dover at 6.30pm and were home two hours later, unloading the beer and wine and feeling far more relaxed than we had when we left on Thursday.
So the great 2009 German roadtrip...
It's been a long time since we last did a road trip of any great note, probably because flights are so much cheaper these days than when we first started travelling to races in Europe quite so frequently back in 1989. Some of these trips became frankly ridiculous - for example the three weekends in a row when we travelled out overnight on the Thursday or Friday and came back overnight on a Monday, including 1989 when we did Spa, Jerez (OK, so we flew to Madrid but it's still a damn long way from Madrid to Jerez, espcially in a car with maladjusted headlights), and Le Mans on consecutive weekends in September. Or the time we did Spa and Silverstone on the same (bank holiday) weekend. At least this promised to be far less strenuous than any of those!
We got off to a reasonable start too, getting the car packed and ready and setting off at 9.30 prompt as planned, and making it to Dover in time to get on the Eurotunnel train half an hour earlier than planned - settled on the train we munched our way through two packets of Waitrose's sandwiches (smoked salmon and cream cheese, and crayfish and rocket) with a latte from the terminal coffee shop. Once clear of the tunnel and out onto French roads, we set off on an epic drive across France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany (passing Zolder and the Nurburgring en route), with our annoyingly stupid StaNav trying very hard to take us off the motorway, drive us round in a circle and take us back on again, for preference one junction further back from where we'd got off in the first place. (Thank you, Charlotte! Very funny!) The result was we hit Brussels around 3pm, and promptly got stuck in traffic on the ring. It got so bad that I hauled us off the motorway myself at that point, and we detoured through Woluwe and Evere. I knew all that time I'd spent living in Brussels would come in useful one day! Anyway, we finally extracted ourselves from the anarchy of Belgian driving, and made it across the border, but not before we'd crawled past Louvain/Leuven at about 15mph. It was 6pm by the time we hit Germany. A brief coffee stop and some sushi, followed by fresh fruit salads was enough to keep us going, and finally we were on the autobahn. Charlotte kept informing me "Warning: your speed is excessive!" to which Lynne was heard to darkly mutter "You ain't seen nothing yet". And she was right. With the SatNav giving us an estimated arrival time at Hockenheim of 21.30 it was time to floor the accelerator and join the ranks of the German starcruisers (not easy in a Vauxhall Astra but we did our best!) And we did, handling roadworks, dimwitted lorries and sudden rain showers with ease. The time reduced, we hit Hockenheim at 21.00 and made our way to the Hotel Motodrom, which had several advantages over any other hotels in the area, starting with being a five minute walk from the press office. It also has clean and comfortable bedrooms, a very good breakfast buffet included in the price:
HOTEL MOTODROM 001
Originally uploaded by smtfhw
And excellent views over the pits and start/finish line from the restaurant.
HOCKENHEIM SCENES 001
Originally uploaded by smtfhw
A quick change and we were downstairs meeting up with Glyn, as well as a very drunk representative of the F3 teams (who should probably remain nameless), plus several SRO officials who weren't quite as worse for wear but can also remain nameless. Beers were sunk, food was procured and wine was drunk and we staggered off to bed, stopping only to unpack and reorganise our stuff for morning.
Friday was sunny, warm and very reminiscent of previous trips to Hockenheim in the early 1990s. For old times' sake, having signed on after a very good breakfast (the mushrooms with herbs were especially good), Lynne and I wandered out to the infield and the Sachs Kurve. It didn't seem to have changed much out there, though the monumental grandstand on the Sud Kurve wasn't there back then.
HOCKENHEIM SCENES 028
Originally uploaded by smtfhw
It was fun to spend most of the day just doing nothing of any importance apart from wandering around with my camera in hand, and I realise I don't do test days often enough. There's nothing that needs to be reported on, so it means that I can get out and about and just take photos.
DANIEL RICCIARDO 168
Originally uploaded by smtfhw
We also established that we were going to be pretty well fed at this meeting. There were soft drinks, teas and coffees, and water, as well as open sandwiches of cheese, ham or salami, and a seemingly never-ending supply of bockwursts and bread rolls. Made the offerings at Silverstone look a bit sad (machine made coffee and pre-packed biscuits that run out as soon as the photographers get to them) - the Motor Club that organised the meeting even invited us to their pig-roast and party this weekend, but it's a bit of a long way to go for a party, even for us! Anyway, at the close of the working day we pottered back to the hotel, showered, changed and headed out to dinner. The Michelin Guide, when consulted the week before, suggested a couple of restaurants nearby in Ketsch (about three miles away), so I booked one for Friday and one for Saturday. And a very good thing they proved to be too. Friday we ate at the Restaurant Hirsch, conveniently located on the Hockenheimer Straße, which made it very easy to find. It was oddly empty for a Friday night, which suggests either the effects of the economic crisis or a very strange short-sightedness on the part of the locals. It was, of course, asparagus season in the area (Schwetzingen is a major growing centre and during the season in this part of Germany and restaurant worthy of the name will have at least a couple of asparagus-based dishes on the menu, and will often have an entire separate Asparagus Menu) so there was a great temptation to just go for the little white spears - they grow them white here in the main rather than green; it's done by keeping the plants covered with earth so photosynthesis can't occur. However, the restaurant was also very big on game, and neither Lynne nor I can ever resist...
And so we launched into Asparagus soup (for Lynne):
HIRSCH, ASPARGUS SOUP 005
Originally uploaded by smtfhw
The Scandinavian starter plate (smoked salmon, smoked trout fillet, sweet water prawns and rollmop herring) for Glyn and I:
HIRSCH, SCANDINAVIAN STARTER (SMOKED TROUT, SMOKED SALMON, SWEETWATER PRAWNS, ROLLMOP HERRING) 006
Originally uploaded by smtfhw
After that it was time for Aberdeen Angus Rumpsteak, with herb butter, salad and chips for Glyn:
HIRSCH, ARGENTINEAN ABERDEEN ANGUS RUMP STEAK WITH HERB BUTTER 007
Originally uploaded by smtfhw
While Lynne and I moved on to the venison medallions and wild mushrooms in Dornfelder sauce, with celeriac, green beans, cranberries and spätzle:
HIRSCH, VENISON WITH WILD MUSHROOMS, CELERIAC, GREEN BEANS AND CRANBERRIES 010
Originally uploaded by smtfhw
We drank some excellent locals wines, and managed to share two desserts between three of us, namely the excellent hot raspberries with vanilla ice cream:
HIRSCH, ICE CREAM WITH HOT RASPBERRIES 013
Originally uploaded by smtfhw
And then we staggered back to the hotel, had a drink in the bar (strangely with the same drunken rabble as the night before, but with the addition of Carlos Huertas' mum, who is delightfully nuts):
CARLOS HUERTAS' MUM 001
Originally uploaded by smtfhw
And then we lurched off to bed.
Saturday was a busyish day, with qualifying and one race, though it could have been worse. The weather wasn't too good, but again that was pretty immaterial really. It had been an odd sort of race, with quite a few unexpected incidents, including Riki Christodoulou ending up parked on top of Robert Wickens, possibly the world's most unlucky Canadian (certainly the world's most unlucky Canadian racing driver), and the B class lead pair wiping each other out and handing Litespeed F3 and Victor Correa an unlikely class victory on the grounds that he was the only one left! At the end of the afternoon we sat on the reports, based on the fact that just about every team manager in the series was outside the Clerk of the Course's office when we headed back to the hotel to shower and change. It looked as if there wouldn't be a result till morning (pretty much as there hadn't been from Friday's qualifying either).
On that note we headed back to Ketsch again, this time to find the Gasthaus Adler, where we were booked to eat at the Restaurant Stecker. This time we partly went for the asparagus menu - but only for starters. I had the wonderful asparagus with lobster, in a rich cream sauce, and very good it was too:
Lynne had the asparagus with tomatoes, basil and olive oil, which was a lot lighter.
To be honest, after that starter, I probably didn't really need a main course, but I had one anyway, in the shape of half of the rabbit with noodles and a rich sauce, and half of the duck with potato pancakes, both of which were excellent.
The wines weren't bad either!
And after that, dessert was fruit and ice cream:
And then we again headed back to the hotel for one last night.
Sunday's race was bizarre, the chaos starting well before the actual lights went out when the cars set out on their exploratory laps, rather than lap (weather conditions had changed since qualifying which means the drivers are entitled to two laps instead of one before they line up on the grid). Unfortunately the ADAC grid girls were already in place...
Queue lost of excited shouting, 20 yellow clad high-heeled models diving for cover and one poor sod desperately trying to get the Safety Car out of the way before 20 angry bees became 20 racing drivers going full pelt over the grid on their way to start their second lap. It was quite funny really! Anyway, once that was all over, and the race was run, we gathered all the information we needed, settled out hotel bill, and headed north, aiming for the Mosel (Moselle) valley and a brief but much needed break.
The weather en route was horrible, with heaving downpours, gusty winds, and zero visibility interspersed by very short sunny outbreaks. We had booked into an offshoot of the Hotel Zeltinger Hof.
In fact we were staying in a building we already knew, the Ratsschaenke.
We'd originally stayed in Zeltingen-Rachtig 25 years ago on a holiday in the area with Bob, and my parents, and had a wonderful time wandering from vineyard to vineyard, going to wine fairs and generally meandering about. On that occasion we drank in the local bar which was what the Ratsschaenke was at the time, and were introduced to the lethal, sinus-clearing local version of grappa, otherwise known as Mosel Trester. It seemed a little odd to be going back to stay in the same building. It was converted to two hotel rooms and a penthouse suite in 2008, and is beautifully done. unfortunately, the one thing they can't fix is the local church, St. Stephanus, which kept us awake till midnight every night of that previous trip, and then made sure we were woken at 7.00 every morning... The bells! The bells! is really all you can say. Oh, and I wouldn't recommend the place to anyone who isn't sprightly enough. The medieval stairs to the second floor were tricky to negotiate, especially with a suitcase.
Once we'd unpacked, and finished our reports, the weather had improved substantially, so we took a stroll round the town, finding it to be much as we'd recalled, vine-covered, pretty, quiet, meandering along the banks of the river and surrounded by vineyards.
That evening we opted to dine in the hotel, the whole idea of going out anywhere seeming far too complicated and demanding. The hotel proved up to the job, serving a solid and well-cooked meal of home-cured and home-smoked hams, cut using their own historic Dutch ham slicing machine.
After that we moved on to venison in a cream sauce, with cranberries and quince slices.
The wine was again excellent, and we drank a local red as well as a superb local white, before surrendering and refusing dessert.
It just couldn't be done. Instead we headed back for the Ratsschaenke and an early-ish bed.
Monday dawned sunny and fine, so we had a late, leisurely and extremely good breakfast. The hotel specialises in organic produce from the immediate area as much as possible and also various smoked and home-cured meats and fish.
After that we spent twenty minutes fighting the local bank machines (and NatWest's enquiry line) to a standstill so we could extract some cash (there was wine buying to do after all). After that we decided to catch the boat to Traben-Trarbach for the morning, buying a round trip ticket that allowed us to hop off and on the Europa if we wished. It was lovely sitting on the open top deck, drinking coffee in the sun and taking lots of photographs.
We enjoyed taking it easy while the vineyards and villages drifted past, the whole being overtly (and possibly maliciously) picturesque, including the ruined castle just outside Traben-Trarbach. Lynne reckoned it was all being wilfully "Germany at its most Romantic or even Fairytale" in places and ought to be reprimanded for overacting.
On arrival in Traben-Trarbach we got off and spent some time admiring the swan and cygnet that were hanging about near the various river cruise ships that often stop there.
Then we strolled about a bit.
We finally stopped for lunch at the Aacher Hof, reputedly the oldest building in Traben-Trarbach, dating from 830AD. All we were really bothered about was the fact that the terrace was sunny but shaded with vines. Once settled at a table overlooking the river we continued the theme of being overtly Germanic by ordering Bitburger beers and bockwurst with mustard, because, well, we had to.
Opposite was the delightful Hotel Bellevue, which looks fabulous from the outside, a restored Jugendstil gem of a place. We nipped inside to request a brochure from the reception desk, and then wandered around admiring the details.
It helped that there was a wonderfully cute amphibious car outside (apparently they use it as a river taxi).
In addition, our inner petrols heads were catered to further by the discovery of a British-registered Bentley, whose owner was just packing luggage into her.
Turned out he was a member of the guild of motoring writers and they'd just completed a tour of the area. He was heading off for Le Mans (quite right too), and had had the car since the 1960s. She looked as if she'd been used quite a bit in that time, and I approve wholeheartedly of that. It's always struck me as a shame that people buy and restore vintage cars only to let them moulder in a garage somewhere. Her proud owner chatted with us for a while, remarking that we seemed remarkably well-informed about cars and racing so we came clean and admitted we'd spent the weekend at Hockenheim, which was when he admitted he was the man behind Race Tech magazine, and gave us a free copy when I admitted I hadn't read it in a while as I couldn't afford the subscription (I used to steal a copy from the business lounge when I was travelling all the time).
Anyway, we hopped back on the boat for an afternoon meander back to Zeltingen, which was to be followed by some wine tasting and buying. But first we ordered a bottle on the boat, which to Lynne's distress was not served in the "proper" local Roemer glasses, but instead came with two very ordinary wine glasses.
She got over the disappointment enough to drink the wine though and we spent part of the trip back being amused by the riverside caravan sites, especially with the neatly lined up vans with their awnings all pointing the same way, and their precisely aligned satellite dishes on poles. Only in Germany...
Once off the boat we dived into the nearby supermarket and bought beer, mustard, various ready-to-cook dumplings, potato pancake mix and curry ketchup, all of which can be got in the UK but at a much higher price. We then leapt into the car and headed off for various villages, starting with Erden (Erdener Treppchen being the wine we were looking for).
Then we moved on to Urzig to buy wines from the Urziger Wurzgarten.
And after that it was Wehlen for some Wehlener Sonnenuhr examples, and with that we had spent our allocated budget (we went over by €1 on the wine but we were under by the same amount on the beer so it levelled out).
We then drove to Bernkastel-Kues and wasted 20 minutes trying to find a filling station somewhere (anywhere!) so we could refuel the car and not have to bother on Tuesday morning. A very helpful lady at the campsite on the edge of the town was able to tell us where we could find the last remaining source of petrol, so we filled up and then went back to Zeltingen. After all, we needed a coffee break after all that wine tasting, and as I muttered at the time, I couldn't come to Germany and not have Kaffee and Kuchen just once. So we did:
After that it was back to our hotel to shower and change for dinner at the Hotel and Weinhaus Moselschild in Urzig. Oliver's Restaurant came highly recommended (and justifiably so as it turned out). It being a low season Monday evening the place was very quiet, but that was fine with us. We had a table overlooking the river and the terrace (indoors - it was raining by then). After some consideration we opted for the Krautermenu (the Herb Menu), and settled down to enjoy some local sekt with wild strawberries as an aperitif.
It was a good way to start, even if the berries weren't too cooprative when we tried to fish them out of the glasses to eat them. Some splendid breads were brought, including some made with turmeric, and some butter and quark and herbs to go with them. However, we restrained ourselves, because we knew there were a number of courses to come.
Matters commenced with "Greetings from the Kitchen", amuses bouches plates with a tomato cream soup, a horseradish mousse and a small piece of fried pike-perch (zander fish) on some cabbage. It was looking promising now.
Next up was a pancake and home-smoked salmon roulade, with a creme fraiche dressing and salad.
The soup course was a real revelation. It was a foamy herb soup, light but richly flavoured, with some fried eel that was crisp-coated and delicious. I've always liked eel (except when barbarically massacred by being jellied) and I assume this was the chef's take on the Flemish speciality of paling in 't groen as it's known in Belgium.
Next we were presented with a canteloupe melon sorbet as a trou. It cleared our palates beautifully ready for the main course.
And the main course was guinea fowl with a lemon thyme risotto, carrot and vanilla flan and mangetout. It was quite, quite wonderful, the guinea fowl full of flavour and the risotto with just the right amount of bite left to the grains. Beautiful!
And then they insisted we have dessert! Well, it would have been churlish not to. Dessert was a woodruff mousse in a chocolate tear, with lavender ice cream and a mango coulis. It was very pretty to look at and it tasted even better than it looked.
I wish I could tell you what wine we drank, but as we'd selected the wines to match option, and they weren't listed in detail anywhere, I can't. Suffice to say they were excellent, and we left the restaurant much later, full of food and very happy.
Tuesday was coming home day, though we still planned on taking it easy. We made a 9am start and hit the motorway, finding the relatively new road away from the Mosel to be very quiet and very smooth. We hit Brussels, or more precisely Jezus-Eik/Overijse, around 11.30, which had always been part of the plan. Unfortunately, Lipsius is closed on Tuesdays, as is the Auberge Bretonne, both favourites of ours. We settled instead - and by way of a change - for Wang Kaew, where we had the set lunch, starting out with prawn crackers, moving to the mixed starter of satay, Thai spring rolls, crab noodle salad, and fish cakes. It's always very good there and Tuesday was no exception.
For mains we had Pad Thai and Duck Curry and finished off with coffee to make sure I didn't need a post-lunch nap.
By 2pm we were back on the road, and we made it to Dunkerque to get the Norfolk Line ferry about two hours before our sailing. Our intent was to relax over a beer in the bar, but instead we ended up getting loaded onto the earlier sailing, much to our surprise. So that meant I couldn't get a beer and had to have coffee instead. Lynne got her beer, and everyone was happy. We drove away from Dover at 6.30pm and were home two hours later, unloading the beer and wine and feeling far more relaxed than we had when we left on Thursday.