| |||||||
 |
| Search this Thread |  4,107 views |
5th September 2024, 16:30
| #1 |
| Distinguished - BHPian  | 2 guys, 2 Alfa Spiders, 5 days driving, 5 countries, 6 museums, 2000km My best friend and spanner mate Peter and I returned from our annual Spider trip a couple of weeks ago. Over the years we have done endless of these trips. We reserve the time in our agenda usually at least 6 months ahead. We aim for the end of August - mid-September. This means the school holidays are over in Western Europe and the weather might still be pleasant. Last year we went to Scotland (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/trave...gine-room.html (Scotland, Spiders, Concorde, Secret bunkers and a visit to an engine room!)) You can find several of our other travelogues on the forum, from the North Pole to Italy and anything in between. We never make a detailed plan on where to go and what to see. Usually, we have a rough idea of what area we want to drive. Sometimes we combine it with a specific (car) event we want to attend. E.g twice in all these years we combined our Spider drive with the Beaulieu Autojumble/car parts. This year we decided we wanted to visit the Technic Museum in Sinnsheim. Peter had never been there. For me, it was at least 20 years ago. We have some very good threads on the Technic Museum in Sinnsheim and its sister nearbyTechnik Museum in Speyer. We checked the two websites. By and large, everybody seems to agree that the town of Speyer is much nicer than Sinnsheim. But the Technik Museum at Sinnsheim has a larger collection. Sinnsheim is a little to the northwest of Stuttgart. So that would also bring us near the south of Germany and the gorgeous "Swartzwald". Twenty years ago, I did both of these museums in one day. But we wanted to spend the morning driving to Sinnsheim (500km), spend the afternoon visiting the museum and move on the next day. We booked a small hotel in Sinnsheim for our first night on the road. We usually don't book hotels ahead. But this time we knew we would be in Sinnsheim at the end of a very long day. Might as well stay there. Peter lives about an hour and forty-minute drive north of us. So he arrived at our home the night before so we can set off early the next day Both Spiders ready to rock!!!  We had breakfast the next morning. Tradition has it we plan the morning leg of our route during breakfasts. So we bring maps, iPads, iPhones and our TomToms. It was a simple plan. Hit the motorway 3 km south of our home, after 500 km of motorway driving, leave the motorway, drive 3km and park a the Technik museum. Driving an old Classic Alfa Spider on the motorway isn't all that great. We prefer little winding country roads. But to get to some new sights and great driving regions you need to put in the miles. Some of the stretches were ok scenic and view-wise. We cruise, top down always, at approx 105-110 km/h. Which means the engines are running around 3200-3300 RPM. Easy going. We usually stop for coffee and a bite to eat every 1,5-2 hours or whenever we feel like stopping. When we are out on our road trips, there is no such thing as a diet sheet, anywhere!  The Technik Museum in Sinnsheim is known for many of its exhibits. But it is probably best known for these two iconic planes. As they are on display on top of the roof of the museum you can see them from afar; The Concorde and the Concorski (The Russian TU144)  We climbed to the cockpits of both these machines. Very different. Somehow the Concorde feels much more complex and high-tech than the Tupolev.  Flight engineer workstation  I am an avid aviation enthusiast, very frequent flyer and pilot myself. I have flown as a passenger on Concorde and had the pleasure of piloting its original Flight Simulator used to train the British Airways crew! https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/comme...simulator.html (Experience: British Airways Concorde Simulator) As we have several excellent threads on this museum I did not take any other images. If you are near this museum, or the one in Speyer, I can recommend visiting it. It is an amazing collection of planes, trains, locomotives, cars, trucks, tanks and so on! https://sinsheim.technik-museum.de/en/ It recently acquired a German submarine. It was transported on a barge from the Netherlands into Germany where it made the last few miles on the road. It is on display in front of the museum, but unfortunately, they were still working on it and you could not enter it. I always meticulously wash, polish, wax, vacuum and clean my Spider for all my trips. Peter is a little less concerned. However, even he had to admit his Spider looked terrible and decided to wash it down at he DIY car wash next to the museum before we drove to our hotel.  Our hotel was only a five-minute drive from the museum. It had a private underground, free, parking garage. Perfect for our Spiders. We checked in and went to explore Sinnsheim. Not too much exploring because it is a very small town. We sat down to have a drink whilst figuring out where to have dinner. We have another tradition. On our first night in Germany, we always google "best schnitzel in ........." . We love Schnitzels. Even though it is an Austrian dish, the Germans do very good Schnitzels. As luck would have it, google told us the place we were sitting also had the best Schnitzles. So we ordered some Schnitzles with some more alcohol-free beers.  The next morning at breakfast, Peter suggested we might want to visit the Mercedes Benz Museum. We were not that far from Stuttgart. Peter and I visited it, many years ago. Also, on one of our annual Spider trips. At the time we parked our two Spiders into the museum forecourt.  One is not supposed to drive an Alfa Spider into the MB museum forecourt. No car, no matter the brand is supposed to be parked there! But we had our iconic image, despite ze Germans not being amused. This time we behaved impeccably and parked in the parking garages!  Again, we have several excellent threads on the Mercedes museum. So just one image. The Mercedes Simplex 40PS. The oldest Mercedes still in existence. Designed by Maybch and produced in 1902!!  This museum, as far as I am concerned holds three different attractions. There is an outstanding collection of Mercedes cars, duh! The building is a work of art. The third is part of the exhibition. You start at the top floor and work your way down. Along the walls, as you make your way down from floor to floor, they have put up a timeline made of images. So as you walk from the very old MBs (later 1800/early 1900s) to about 1980s. the images show major events of the various times. From the moon landing to the concentration camps in WW2. Makes for very interesting reading! We had a quick bite to eat at the museum, jumped into a Spiders and started heading South to the Schwartz wald. We put together an attractive route. Tom Tom on its website allows you to plan a route with various degrees of bends, corners and hills. We always set our TomToms to; No Motorway, thrills, maximum number of corns and maximum altitude variation.  People who see our Spiders for the first time always comment on how small they are. Yes, they are indeed. Chair for reference!  Stopping on the way for some coffee and refreshments. I swear, German small towns and villages are the neatest!!  As always, our trips are first and foremost about driving our Spiders and enjoying our friendship. We drive all day unless we see something that might interest us. As we drove through the small town of Schramberg I spotted the Auto- and Uhrenwelt museum. That sounds like it could be of interest to us, so we pulled over. https://auto-und-uhrenwelt.de/de/  It was not just one museum, it was four separate museums. The said auto and clock museum, a diesel engine museum, a model railroad engine and another car museum. Just a couple of images from the auto and clock museum.  Showcasing an upside-down (accident) VW Beetle  How about this Ford 12M with its famous Weltkugel (Globe)  This museum has four floors, and lots of interesting cars on display. Don't expect Ferrari's or Lambo's. These are mostly ordinary middle-of-the-road (pardon the pun) cars. But those are the ones we like most! Of course, lots of clocks and watches on display as well. This town houses the Junghaus factory. Nice watches. Across the road was the diesel museum. We were given the key to the museum door. It is very small and you let yourself in! It is an old power generator. (Peter for scale!)  Cylinder lubrication pump.  Rockers and camshaft  Very small, but nice to see. When we were done, we turned off the lights, locked up and went next door to the rail model museum. Lots to see. They have several large tracks. Most of the rolling stock is all handmade on a pretty large scale! I took some images of the displays which I thought were really amazing.   In the end, we decided not to visit the fourth museum. It was a very nice classic car museum. Private collection. We had a quick peek inside. It all looked very nice and neat and well displayed. But these sorts of museums rarely hold something unique. We decided we wanted to get some more miles across the Schwartzwald.  Stopping for some scenic shots!  Last edited by Jeroen : 15th September 2024 at 11:59. |
|  (23)
Thanks
|
| |
|
15th September 2024, 12:34
| #2 | ||
| Distinguished - BHPian | Re: 2 guys, 2 Alfa Spiders, 5 days driving, 5 countries, 6 museums, 2000km The Schwarzwald is a gorgeous area. With, most importantly, some great driving roads. Small, virtually no traffic and windy all the time!  As per our SOP we stopped for coffees and lunches in some very charming little towns and villages. Along the way we decided we wanted to drive through the famous "Ballons des Vosges". We have been there several times. Gorgeous areas and the "Ballons" are one of the best driving roads in Europe. All the way up to about 1600 meters, endless bends and hair pins! We decided to head for Cernay. For no other reason, the entry road to the "Balons" starts right there. At one point I felt a little wobble in the rear of my Spider whilst driving. I also heard a funny noise. Initially I thought I had a rear right flat tyre. So I stopped and checked but the tire looked fine. So I got in and drove off again, but the noise and wobbly feeling came back right away, so I pulled over again. Only than did I notice the right rear rim was missing a lug nut. And the other three were loose as well!!  We jacked up the Spider, took the wheel of, just to check for damage to the rim. Luckily it was fine, so we put the wheel back on and tightened the remaining three lug nuts quite firmly.  I really did not fancy driving all the way home with only three lug nuts. So we made a detour to a nearby small town and stopped at various garages. Soon we found out that getting the correct lug nut in France was going to be a problem. Just about all French cars have wheel bolts, not nuts! One mechanic suggested trying a Ford garage. But another one suggested we drive over to another small town, some 25 km further down the road. There was a proper Alfa Romeo dealer. So we opted for that. We arrived at 12.02, to find the gates shut! This is rural France and that means they have lunch from 12.00 - 14.00. We made the best of it and drove into the town centre and had ourselves a nice lunch too. At the dot of 14.00 hours we were back at the Alfa Romeo Dealership. It was a massive outfit! I don't think I have ever seen this large an Alfa Romeo dealer anywhere! So we were pretty hopeful. Unfortunately, the parts manager did not speak any English. So we communicated with him by typing out our questions in Google Translate on his computer. I had also taken some images (see above). It took him some 10-15 minutes to figure out he did not have this lug nut in stock. We tried to explain to him that any Alfa Romeo lug nut would do. It did not have to be this particular chrome fancy one. Almost all Alfa Romeo's use the same nut! But no, he did not have any in stock. So we asked him if we could check with the mechanics in the workshop. Any mechanic will have several tins with bolts, nuts and so on. He was getting a bit aggravated by now. He was trying to convince us, what we needed was not to be had! At one point he pulled open a drawer and pulled out a lug nut and showed it to us. Telling us: "This is what you need and I don't have it!" "This is a nut from a Mitsubishi!" It looked fine to me, so I asked if I could check it on my Spider. I took one of the existing nuts off and compared it to the Mitsubishi nut. Looked identical. On these nuts, the cone must have the correct angle. The thread fitted too. So we fitted it, and the problem was solved. We had a good laugh about this little Alfa Romeo parts episode. The guy finally pulling a nut from his drawer and telling us: this is what I can't provide you with was brilliant! so we went back in and told him it fitted perfectly. He did not want us to pay for it. On our way once again!   Passing the river Rhine, which also happens to be the border between Germany and France here.  The tourist season was truly over. That means it is less crowded, on the road, and in towns, but it also means quite a few restaurants, cafes, hotels and B&B are already shut down. We usually make our bookings via Booking.com, but we could not find anything suitable. We saw one little hotel that looked fine, but it did not have rooms available. So Peter called them and sure enough, they had two rooms. It turned out to be the cheapest room of our trip. The rooms itself were fine. Clean, everything worked, but very pokey little rooms.  The hotel had private parking. Which we like! And we could see our Spiders from our bedrooms too!  We walked into the town centre. Some interesting details here, when it comes to street lights. These look classic, but if you look closely you will see a LED panel mounted at the top!  We came across this park. You are not allowed lots of things! Obviously, the French being French did not take a blind bit of notice. I don't think it is so much that the French have a disdain for anything official as such. they genuinely believe these rules do not apply to them. Must be for somebody else!  In the end, we had a couple of (zero alcohol) beers, at a cafe, sitting on some chairs in front of the cafe, right on the curb. Nice to see the world pass by. We could not find any open restaurant. Apart from some fast food places. Nothing wrong with fast food, but when we have been driving all day, we want to have a proper dinner. But our hotel did have a restaurant. Whilst the hotel bedrooms were the cheapest, the dinner turned out to be the most expensive of our trip. But it was outstanding! Well worth the money. https://www.hostellerie-alsace.fr/en/home-en/ I love escargots, but had never been served them like this:  Its on the menu as Quote:
Quote:
 When they serve your vegetables like this, you know you are in a special place:  The lady who served us, was the owner. She and her husband have been running this hotel/restaurant for a while. They are part of the so-called "Maitre restaurateur". Which means you comply with a very high standard of cuisine. It means that the restaurant operates under the direct supervision and responsibility of the owner and everything is prepared in the kitchen. The next morning we set off quite early. Driving across the "Ballons" is good fun, but not when there is traffic. The early bird gets the empty roads! Sorry, I did not take any images of this magnificent piece of nature. Breathtaking scenery and dito roads! We were enjoying ourselves way to much, to take images. Check out some threads on earlier annual Spider trips and you might find some images. Stopped for coffee at a nice little town, once we had cleared the "ballons".  Some more driving impression, from my Spider Our last evening of this trip was going to be with our friends Cees and Annelies who own and run a gorgeous B&B in the French Lorraine. (https://leparadis.nl/2023/) They own a Spider too (and a 2CV which can be used by their guests). As always we end up talking technical Spider stuff with Cees.  The next day we drove north across endless little rural roads. After lunch we put our TomTom's on "fastest" route and hit the motorway. I got home by about 16.00 hours. Peter had to drive for another 1,5 hour to get home. All in all, another very successful and pleasant annual Spider trip. We drove close to 1800-1900 km in five days. About 850-900 on motorways. So most of our mileage was on small rural roads. Apart from the lost lug nut, no problems with the Spiders. My Spider used about 2 litres of oil, so I am going to look into it, once again. Peter and I have also decided next year Spider trip will be to Ireland. Last night we already booked the two ferries needed to get us there. Booking a year ahead gets you a much better price. Less than half of what you would pay a few months ahead of your scheduled dates! I will be spending a lot of time of ferries and in the UK next year in September. We have a wedding to attend, my wife wants to visit Bath for the Jane Austin festival. And we will be zipping across the Northsea to Scotland, driving from Newcastle to Cairnryan to catch the ferry to Belfast. Belfast Cork is only 400 km, so we figure we can explore just about any rural little road in both Irelands in four days! Looking forward to it! Jeroen Last edited by Jeroen : 16th September 2024 at 10:39. | ||
|
| (36)
Thanks
|
|
16th September 2024, 11:37
| #3 |
| Team-BHP Support   | |
|
| (3)
Thanks
|
|
17th September 2024, 11:02
| #4 |
| BHPian Join Date: Sep 2022 Location: KL-01/MH-16
Posts: 226
Thanked: 297 Times
| |
|
| (1)
Thanks
|
|
17th September 2024, 11:08
| #5 | ||
| Distinguished - BHPian | Re: 2 guys, 2 Alfa Spiders, 5 days driving, 5 countries, 6 museums, 2000km Quote:
Our next trip will be in a few weeks. Something we haven’t been too either. The Auto e Moto d’Epoca in Bologna Italy! Advertised as: Quote:
Jeroen | ||
|
| (8)
Thanks
|
|
17th September 2024, 16:55
| #6 |
| BHPian Join Date: Feb 2024 Location: Mumbai
Posts: 31
Thanked: 21 Times
| |
|
| (1)
Thanks
|
|
18th September 2024, 10:20
| #7 | |
| BHPian Join Date: Jul 2023 Location: Chennai
Posts: 27
Thanked: 36 Times
| Re: 2 guys, 2 Alfa Spiders, 5 days driving, 5 countries, 6 museums, 2000km Quote:
Cheers. | |
|
|
|
5th October 2024, 11:16
| #8 | |
| Distinguished - BHPian | Re: 2 guys, 2 Alfa Spiders, 5 days driving, 5 countries, 6 museums, 2000km Quote:
Peter and I investigated the various ways of going to Ireland from the Netherlands. We wanted to minimise travel time to and from Ireland. We found the best way is to take the ferry from IJmuiden to Newcastle (same ferry we took on our trip to Scotland the year before last). From Newcastle we will drive more or less due west along the Scottish coast to a small town called Cairnryan. We will take a ferry from Cairnryan to Belfast. Effectively it will means we will leave IJmuiden at 1700PM and arrive 1700PM the next day in Belfast. We have booked our ferry tickets already. A year in advance, that makes it a lot cheaper too. Peter has already bought several travel guides. Neither of us have been to Ireland and or Northern island. We are really looking forward to it. I have been studying some maps of Ireland as well. Looking for interesting routes, places to see. We still need to decide where we will be staying that first night in or near Belfast. All other hotels and B&Bs we will book on the fly, day by day as we always do. Our one and a half Italian adventure will be in less than two weeks! Jeroen | |
|
| (1)
Thanks
|
|
6th October 2024, 21:21
| #9 |
| BHPian Join Date: Sep 2022 Location: KL-01/MH-16
Posts: 226
Thanked: 297 Times
| |
|
|
|
6th October 2024, 21:45
| #10 | |
| Distinguished - BHPian | Re: 2 guys, 2 Alfa Spiders, 5 days driving, 5 countries, 6 museums, 2000km Quote:
We usually don't book hotels/ B&Bs in advance. Unless we know for certain where we are going to be. E.g. on this trip, we knew we would end the first day after getting up early, driving 500 km and spending a whole afternoon at the technic museum. So we booked a nearby hotel many months ago. We will also book the hotel for our first night in Ireland, Belfast. The boat docks at 1700 local time. We don't want to be driving anywhere, just straight to our hotel and have a drink and dinner. So we book something ahead of time. Jeroen | |
|
| (1)
Thanks
|
|
Most Viewed