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5 Alfa Romeo Spiders' road trip to Paris: Overall drive experience

13th June 2024, 18:02 by Rahul Nagaraj

Whenever we tour our Spiders it is almost inevitable something will break.

BHPian Jeroen recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

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.

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.

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!

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!!

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!