Europe on Ice

Synopsis of a
cold journey undertaken during Dec 31 and Jan 19 2016
(to view route just zoom the map back to Europe)
Around mid “winter”
(July) we had spent a day at
Dreamworld where the theme of the month had been "Snow". Dreamworld
had constructed a dome-shaped building and installed a snow making
machine. The artificial snow looked and
felt more like icicles instead of snow but nevertheless, Amy enjoyed walking
around on top of the snow piles. I think
it was at that time that Paula and I discussed taking Amy overseas to
experience the real thing and eventually the arrangements were made.


A day before our
departure our good friend Gert had arrived from Holland to look after our house
and pets. Poor Gert, he faced a lonely 17 days.


I don’t think I will ever get used to long distance travel in a plane. Even the ten hours to Seoul seemed to be a lot longer than it was, never mind the next section of over 12 hours. During the nearly 24 hours stopover the cold in Seoul invaded our lives for the first time as it was around zero degrees.

My mate Ted was
waiting for us at the Amsterdam airport terminal and took us into Gert’s house in Zoetermeer. While Gert had to come to terms with driving Paula’s car on the left-hand side of the road in
Australia, I faced the same challenge the next day driving his car on the right in Europe.

Our first day was spent driving to a few familiar places around the city of Haarlem where I
was born.Early the next morning around 9 a.m. we crossed the border into Germany near Venlo, in front us the German Autobahn and the first snow visible in the fields nearby.


The planned route lead to Koblenz on the Rhine as the scenic route along the river is, of course, preferable to the monotonous freeways of Germany where cars pass at times at speeds over 200km/hour. Close by we passed the tiny town of Kottonforst. What is significant about this? Well, I happen to be a model railroad enthusiast and happen to have a copy of the station at home. I thought it would be fun to see the real Tudor style designed building, and it was - as you can see in the pictures. Via the Rhine Valley, while passing dozens of castles, we arrived at Wurzburg where we continued the following day along the Romantic Road. This road is about 350 km long and passes through many medieval towns surrounded by fully enclosed high walls and the most beautiful buildings.
Towns like Dinkelsbuhl, Donauworth, Augsburg, and Rothenburg are connected by this road. Plans are only plans. In Rothenburg I had been looking forward to walking along the narrow streets and along the top of the wall which encloses the town, but as it turned out, we did not go any further than “Kathy Wolfart’s largest Christmas store in the world”, and a walk down
two streets and see the inside of a coffee shop where the only interesting thing to see was the goose-stepping Geese on display. No doubt this may be where they got the idea from.

As it turned out, the wind was bitterly cold and the heavy snow coming down at a 45-degree
angle. The comfort level was such that I advised Paula and Amy to stay behind a wall while I was getting to the car - no need for all three of us to be getting very cold and wet and I would get to the car quicker. Well, not so perhaps, as I slipped and fell heavily on my shoulder. After 10 seconds I got up. Glad no one saw me but what would have happened if I had passed out?

Heavy snowfall and the tail end of a snowstorm made it impossible to continue to the famous
Neuschwanstein castle at Fussen. We chose the autobahn, but even there the going is hard as the snow is slowly layering the roadway. On the evening of the 5th, we arrived at the beautiful house of Gerd and Christiane, the couple my brother Frank and I met in South Africa a few years ago and where I stayed for a few days in the summer of 2014. Gerd and Christiane live
outside Innsbruck on the slopes of one of the mountains overlooking the
city. We came to enjoy the snow and were not disappointed as Christiane took us for a long walk along a mountain track with, in places, a 30 cm layer of fresh snow. Amy just loved it and threw herself into it several times, face down. Close by, a cable car took us up high up the mountain. The temp had dropped to minus 14. Amy didn’t mind as she enjoyed herself tobogganing down the slopes while Paula and I watched.

At night the snow kept falling at a steady pace and reached a depth of around 40 cm. The car
was snowed in. After my attempt to clear it all we faced the next hurdle - how to drive it safely down the mountain. In the end, we just left it. Our host Gerd was so kind to drive us to the station from where we boarded the train to Salzburg. By sheer luck the hotel was close to the station and the only problem was that we had to drag the suitcases through the snow. The Sound of Music tour was less than expected. Many places were just a drive-by. So, in our case, it was a “been there, done that” affair. Definitely not worth the 40+40+20 Euros we had to fork out for it. After our arrival back in Innsbruck we stayed one more night and made an early start for Munich as snow had continued to fall in the area. We had a great time at Gerd and Christiane's place and are very thankful for the opportunity to stay with them.

The B road takes you straight to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, a town famous for its beautifully
decorated buildings and houses. Every building has a different paint scheme. At times unplanned things can suddenly appear out of nowhere and turn out to be a highlight of the day. Near the border of Germany, we passed a skiing area right next to the road. “Let’s have a look, ” we said, as it was lunch time anyway. Within a few minutes, Amy was away on a sledge.
Paula said: “Maybe I should try and get some skies and just do it”. It had been 20 years, but maybe it is like riding a bicycle, once you know how to do it you won’t forget - 20 minutes later she was going down the minor slopes whizzing past me with a smile from ear to ear saying: “I love it, I love it!" That night we arrived in Munich, the birthplace of BMW. I had contacted the factory tour desk about two weeks before but was told that all tours were already booked out but to check when we were there as there are always cancellations. At arrival the next morning it was the first thing we did and, yes, we could join the 4 pm tour of the car manufacturing plant. Meanwhile we spent our time in BMW Welt which is a two story showroom filled with BMW cars and motorcycles which can be sat in and on (please touch) and two other brands owned by BMW, Rolls Royce (just look and don’t touch) and Mini (which is not so mini anymore) The girls loved it as much as I did. Next door is the BMW museum which
was a bit less than expected. The display is changed every few years so one's
expectation may or may not be met. The factory tour was very interesting. To describe the whole process it would take a separate blog page. Around 8500-9000 people are employed at the Munich plant. During the tour, I wondered where they were as most of the labour employed” was carried out by fast-moving robots.
Interesting to note that of say 1000 cars built (of the same model) only 2 or 3 may be exactly the same. It was fascinating to watch the final spray painting action where the robots spray a car in less than a minute and may change colour from car to car. On our way back to Holland we called into Heidelberg and several other picturesque towns along the way to the city of
Aachen and followed on to Maastricht where we made a stop at the only American
WW2 War cemetery in the Netherlands. I remembered having been there at the age
of about 10. My father was visibly moved and said: “never forget that these soldiers died for you to be have been born in a free society”. And so it is still today.



During our final wo days, we visited my friend Michael’s factory (whose other factory, Gert and I
visited in Taiwan last year, and who came over to Aus. in Nov 2016 (last blog)). The nearly 10.000 m2 assembly plant, which is located in Beverwijk, is very impressive. The items I have seen produced in Taiwan I was now able to see eing assembled here. The same day we toured part of the province of Holland
and the town of Volendam which was bitterly cold with the light mist coming in
across the lake at around zero degrees. I think it was here that my body
finally signalled that I had had enough as I got sick the same day and could
not stop coughing on the way back home. Later it was diagnosed as bronchitis
and kept me low for several days.



Before leaving,
at the last minute, we decided to detour through the centre of Amsterdam and walk through the inner city for a while. For Paula, this was another unplanned highlight as she loved it walking through the narrow streets of the inner city.

Gert had been good to us, watching over our house and feeding and walking the dog, looking after the cats and fish, plants etc. and was ready to go on our planned motorcycle journey but for now, it had to wait until my bronchitis cleared and energy returned.