21st May 2024, 12:00
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| Distinguished - BHPian  | Five Alfa Spiders, a very wet Eiffel and a very nice car museum We get together with our old friends from the Dutch Alfa Romeo Spider Register every year. We have known each other for decades. We used to be very active in the Register in various functions. None of us are anymore. But for the last 8-9 years or so, we plan a trip together in our Spiders once a year. I have posted about these trips before. Usually, we go to our Spideristi friends Cees en Annelies who run a beautiful Bed and Breakfast in France. (https://leparadis.nl/2023/) Due to unforeseen personal circumstances, they had to cancel our visit this year only a few weeks in advance. We quickly decided to still go ahead with our trip, but needed a different destination and hotel/B&B. This was also the Pentecost weekend. Which is a popular holiday including a bank holiday for most. We were very lucky to have our friend Alex find a very nice hotel in Daun, Germany. Daun is in the Eiffel area. Very pretty, lots to see and do and fantastic driving roads. We all know it well, we have all been there before multiple times. Alex, his wife Bianca and I have organised at least two events for the Alfa Romeo Spider Register in the past. Over the years we have built up a certain routine. We all live in different places in the Netherlands. Some of us will drive south and check into a lovely little B&B in Sint Geertruid. A small village southeast of Maastricht, near the German/Belgium border. We have stayed here before. Excellent accommodation with a fantastic Italian restaurant right opposite. Alex had booked us rooms and dinner at the Italian. Just like last year. We were the first to arrive in our Spider S3. Soon Alex and Bianca rocked up in their gorgeous creme Spider Coda Tronca and a few minutes later Peter in his green Cod Tronca. The B&B owner moved his cars out of his carport so we could move our Spiders in. Unfortunately only two of us.  Simple but well-equipped rooms, excellent wife, bar and a very good breakfast.   The next morning Bianca's Spider had gotten very wet. All of our Spider hoods leak, but hers is probably the worst. Unfortunately, this would become our daily morning routine. Emptying and drying out the Spiders!   Bart and Marian arrived in their British Green Spider S4 and soon Niek joined us as well with his metallic blue Spider S3. With a nice route along only rural little roads, we set off. We usually stop every hour, hour and a half for coffee, a leg stretcher, or to admire a particularly nice view. Our lunch stop was in Monschau. A very touristy, but still pleasant little town. Gorgeous buildings.  One reason we always stop in Monschau is to get some of the local mustard. https://www.senfmuehle.de/start/Mustard-Mill/index.html We arrived at our hotel in Daun around 1600 hours. Alex had booked us the Burg Daun Schlosshotel Kurfürstliches Amtshaus https://www.daunerburg.de/index.php/de/ Look at this:  This was a proper old-school hotel! An absolute gem. Very pleasant staff, they would accommodate all our wishes. Look at this room of ours! None of that modern rubbish furniture.   One thing when we book hotels we always want to make sure we can park our Spiders somewhere safe. So Alex had arranged with the Hotel we could park our Spiders every evening, in the hotel front courtyard. Away from the regular car park!!   Nice view:   We had a nice dinner and turned in early. The weather for our long weekend in the Eiffel did not look too great. As you will see, it turned out to be a very very wet weekend with lots of flooding around the river Moesel. The next morning we all met up for breakfast. A pretty substantial layout. Set me up for the rest of the day I can tell you!    During breakfast, we discuss what we will be doing the rest of the day, and what places to visit. And most importantly, the route we will be driving. We sync up our TomTom's and head for the Spiders. It had rained a lot and all of us needed to dry out our respective Spiders to some extent. We always drive top down. Unless it pours down very heavy you stay perfectly dry. That is until you hit a red traffic light!  We had decided to visit the Eltz Castle. There are endless castles in Germany. But Eltz castle is arguably the prettiest and most intact castle of them all. https://burg-eltz.de/en/homepage From their home page:  Some more amateur shots from me:  We did the tour, ze Germans provided an English-speaking guide. The castle has been owned by the same family for more than 900 years! In all of its 900 years, it was never involved in any major conflict. There was a five-year siege at one time, but no real fighting. The next day we decided to visit Cochem. A nice little town along the river Moesel. But boy, were we in for a bit of a surprise. The buildings near the waterfront were being evacuated. The river was rising fast and by the evening, parts of the town would be flooded! Look at this:    all the shops near the waterfront were being emptied. They also put up these sorts of scaffolding footbridges so people could still reach their homes when the water would flood the streets.  We had a coffee and went back to our Spiders for some more touring. Whenever we tour our Spiders it is almost inevitable something will break. These cars are on average 40 years old. Although each of us maintains his/her spider very well, it is still an old Italian car. We only had one little mishap this year. Pretty mundane too. Bart and Marian's Spider had a flat tyre. Left rear. So we pulled over and quickly put the spare on. Yours truly finally able to do some spannering.  Although Bart has asked his mechanic to check the tyre pressure of his spare as well, we found it was pretty low on air. Luckily, Alex had brought one of these portable compressors/powerbanks.  Breaking down in this company is always a bit of a thing. Because you will be on the receiving end of many jokes. Also, tradition demands you pick up the bar tap that evening!  Can't quite remember where I took this image. It was somewhere along our route when we stopped for a very simple lunch in a small roadside cafe. It gives you some idea of how heavy the rain was!  Last edited by Jeroen : 21st May 2024 at 12:12. |
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21st May 2024, 12:20
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| Distinguished - BHPian | Re: Five Alfa Spiders, a very wet Eiffel and a very nice car museum 22 years ago Bianca and Alex got married in a little church here on the river Moesel. In attendance were some 20 Spideristi. Bianca let the wedding procession in her creme Spider Coda Tronca with her veil trailing over the boot. Nice memories. We decide to revisit the little church. We put together a nice 2,5-hour drive to get there. Gorgeous driving! Very nice view from the church!  This is where it all started for Bianca and Alex!!   Some cool Alfa Spiders out in the Churchyard!  Getting back to the hotel was a bit of an issue. The water in the river was rising rapidly. More and more roads got shut down. TomTom traffic information could not keep up. So we ended up driving quite a long distance finding a bridge that would take us across the Moesel again. On Sunday we went to BernKastel to visit the classic car museum and visit the old town. We must have been to BernKastel at least 4-5 times, but I had never noticed the car museum before. It is quite sizeable! https://www.zylinderhaus.com Inside it is all about German cars, bikes, mopeds and a few other German things. As you enter the museum a nice lineup of various classic Mercedes Benz.  .On the other side a more diverse lineup of classics.  I was impressed by this display with all the cut-away models. Very interesting, would love to have some of these!  A different kind of display, but still classic I would say!  You will always run into some of these in any German classic car museum  I was fascinated by this contraption. Essentially a tape deck. Sort of an early eight-track. Those things on the left are the actual cassettes holding the tapes. Never seen anything like it  Not so much my thing, but always interesting to see and walk past. Various German motorbikes and mopeds.  Neither Peter nor I had ever seen this car, a DKW Auto Union Fissore. A one-off prototype made in Argentina.  Can't quite remember what these were, apart from German obviously.  The VW K70. Quite an innovative design. First VW with a water-cooled engine, at the front. In fact, the K70 was designed by NSU, which was taken over by VW. Even so, the K70 introduced a liquid-cooled front engine and VW never looked back. My dad had one of these, red though. Very nice car for its time! (Notice the Ro80 with its Wankelengine next to the K70)  The K70 engine. Each valve has its own valve cover!!  Some nice BorgWarner cars  Obviously, in a German museum about cars, there are going to be some Porsches too. In the very front and a good overview of some of the other cars.  I always liked this VW; the Kubelwagen. The German answer to the Jeep. But it had only rear wheel drive so in difficult terrain its performance was pretty poor.  Not the very first series VW Golf, but close and a very early Audi A3 right behind. The Audi A3 was just a posh VW Polo.  Love these engine testers. Those who follow my "fiddling with car thread will have seen me buy and repair one of these. Different brand. I had three of these to make into one workable unit. Almost succeeded. For those of you who have never seen one of these. Until cars became fitted with OBD interfaces, say late 90s, every decent garage would have one of these testers. You can run multiple engine tests on it.  All in all, a very nice classic car museum. Not too big, all German, but worth a visit. Entrance is Euro 14 for an adult. The museum shop was a bit disappointing we thought. We had hoped to see/buy lots of nice model cars. The museum is just on the outskirts of town. Takes less than 5 minutes to drive to the centre. We had another look around the river first. As you can see, the water is still high!!  Last year when we visited we parked our Spider right in front of this hotel. Now 1,5 meters of Moeselwater!!  Impressive all this water!!   We crossed the bridge on foot and walked around the pedestrian area on the other side of the Moesel. No flooding here, but plenty of cellars were having water being pumped out by the fire brigade!  Very nice old town. Touristy of course, but pretty and pleasant. Lots of little shops, cafes and restaurants.  Last edited by Jeroen : 21st May 2024 at 21:57. |
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21st May 2024, 22:01
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| Distinguished - BHPian | Re: Five Alfa Spiders, a very wet Eiffel and a very nice car museum Peter made a little video of some of our driving. It gives a good impression of these very nice German roads! On Monday morning it was time to go home. For us, a little over three hours driving. Most of it is on the motorway. Boring, but convenient and fast. We had one stop for a coffee about midway home. Filled up with petrol too. Germany was known for its cheap fuel, compared to the Netherlands. Not any more, certainly not when you stop to fill up on the Autobahn. Most expensive petrol I have ever put into the Spider in all these years!! I must admit, we like spending time in Germany. It is a vast country with lots of different scenery. Hotels and B&B are everywhere. And they tend to be a lot more reasonably priced than most Hotels and B&Bs in most other Western European countries. (including the Netherlands). Service is very often very good! The same is true for the food and drinks. You always get good simple food, well prepared, at a very decent price. Everything works in Germany, everything is very well organised. We speak enough German to come by. And these days many Germans will speak English too. But the real question everybody has: Do ze Germans have a sense of humor? Well, I can vouch for them smiling and even laughing amongst themselves. Unfortunately, during this trip we mostly picked up German toilet humor. This is the toilet at the Cylinder Haus museum: Three Jokes: 1) a sign saying you do not need to keep a 1,5m distance 2) a guillotine 3) a microscope go figure  This was the sign at the little cafe in Bernkastel. It means "drinks return"  This is another toilet in the Cylinder Haus. Pop the German text into Google Translate. Tatort is a famous German Crimi series (Police series on TV)  And when faced with flooding, your typical German toilet facilities might look like this: The Germans are very pragmatic. Park a pair of wellies at the top of the stairs and nobody will walk down the stairs!  But all is forgiven when you have a view like this from your hotel bedroom window like this  This is what you do in Germany. You wander around a little village. Set yourself down on a little terrace for some coffee and something to eat. Mrs. D and Bianca in Monschau discussing German Mustard. (see the big pot on the table)  Of course, all cafes and restaurants will offer you something to go with your "kaffee". Leave the diet sheet at home!  So despite the rain and flooding, we had a great time. We have already agreed on the date for next year. We will be visiting Cees and Annelies in their B&B Le Paradis in France once again. When it comes to Germany I have two trips lined up. In a couple of weeks, I will drive my W123 up north to Frederikshaven to attend a marvellous Classic car show there. I did so a few years ago. I have booked my hotel, but will only go if the weather is half decent. I might add a short visit to Bremen as well. Have a look here at that previous trip to Wilhelmshaven and Bockhorn: Nice memories! https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/diy-d...ml#post5334650 (My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One) Peter and I will have our annual Spider trip in September this year. We have decided to drive to Sinsheim and Speyer Technik Museum. We will visit one of these or both and then spend some time driving our Spiders across the Schwarzwalt. Stay tuned!! Jeroen Last edited by Jeroen : 22nd May 2024 at 00:21. |
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22nd May 2024, 05:03
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22nd May 2024, 08:51
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| BHPian  Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Bangalore
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| Re: Five Alfa Spiders, a very wet Eiffel and a very nice car museum Quote:
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22nd May 2024, 11:05
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| Senior - BHPian Join Date: Jul 2013 Location: India.
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| Re: Five Alfa Spiders, a very wet Eiffel and a very nice car museum Quote:
 Great pics Jeoren, always a pleasure see an Alfa! | |
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22nd May 2024, 15:09
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| BHPian  Join Date: Feb 2024 Location: Kochi
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| Re: Five Alfa Spiders, a very wet Eiffel and a very nice car museum Quote:
 The Eltz castle looks beautiful indeed. As well as the Spiders lined up. Sorry to hear that the rains played spoilsport! | |
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22nd May 2024, 15:45
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| BHPian Join Date: Jan 2023 Location: Bangalore
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22nd May 2024, 19:58
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| Distinguished - BHPian | Re: Five Alfa Spiders, a very wet Eiffel and a very nice car museum Quote:
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Jeroen | ||||
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22nd May 2024, 20:33
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| BHPian  | Re: Five Alfa Spiders, a very wet Eiffel and a very nice car museum Excellent as always. The Opel fire truck with front mount pump is quite neat. And nice to see some cut-aways on all types of engines including the Rotax/ Wenkel and steering mechanisms. It kind of summed up all we used to teach our budding drivers at one of my training places. Would have loved to have these scale models in some museum here to take them for some visits :-). The Isetta as you rightly say has become quite familiar by its unique design. Keep them coming  |
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22nd May 2024, 22:05
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| Senior - BHPian  Join Date: Mar 2017 Location: BLR
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24th May 2024, 06:53
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