A German Birl l(Oder eine Kleine wanderung bei auto)

[Posh Pete]

A final tip about Aachen. We stayed at the Jugendherberge. Yeah, I know but it's perfectly normal for old farts and in fact whole multi generational families to stay at German yoof hostels. They are also always clean with helpful English speaking staff and they sell wine and beer too. The boss was suitably impressed. Once she saw inside our room.

I'd decided on the YH to avoid issues with city centre parking. However you can only bring a car up to the hostel to load and unload. Fire regs of course.

Not a big deal but it was going to put me off recommending the place for a bike tour. Then we came back from the town today and there's a KTM parked near the reception... And a young guy manning it ... Hmm ...

Is that your bike?
Yes.

Can bikes be parked here then?
Yes. In fact the manager is a biker. Bikes are not a problem.

So that's 5 stars for Jugendherberge Aachen! :

 

[gerarddwatts]

Just caught up with yer travels Peter, have a good one! Cherry and I will be following you across the North Sea in July, but turning right for France....also on 4 wheels sadly Just had a week in Northumberland....a great part of the world, hitherto passed by on the way up or down.

 

[Posh Pete]

Just caught up with yer travels Peter, have a good one! Cherry and I will be following you across the North Sea in July, but turning right for France....also on 4 wheels sadly Just had a week in Northumberland....a great part of the world, hitherto passed by on the way up or down.

Thanks Gerry. We're off to Doorn tomorrow for a proper hotel and then a gentle hop to the Wednesday ferry. Try Germany. Beer, wine lots of decent grub. What's not to like?

Sent from my moto e30 using Tapatalk

 

[Posh Pete]

Last night of the trip and we spent it at the Landgoed Zonheuvel hotel in Doorn. If your experience of Holland is motorways and conurbations en route to the ferry, this area would surprise you. It's a national forest park and not unlike a more heavily wooded New Forest.

The hotel itself is excellent although the rooms are a tad smaller than we're now used to. Our evening meal was first class - much better than your normal hotel kitchen food and accompanied by a very decent organic tempranillo. The staff are first class - helpful and friendly and mostly English speaking.

 

[Posh Pete]

Apart from breaking the trip, there's another reason for stopping here - Huis Doorn.

Huis Doorn was the home of Kaiser Wilhelm II after he legged it from Spa in November 1918 until his death in 1941. He's still there. That's his mausoleum in the background, behind the German eagle.

 

[Posh Pete]

The Kaiser's home was confiscated by the Dutch government after 1945 and it's now run as a museum staffed by local volunteers. Guided tours are available in English and they are very good indeed! Ours ( it was only the two of us) was taken by Luisa. Well stricken in years ( look who's talking ) she was very well informed and also very funny! I would never have noticed the bizarre six pack on the baby Jesus if she had not cracked a joke about it!

 

[Posh Pete]

The Kaiser's office. Yes, that is a saddle behind his desk, not a chair. Do the tour to find out why a chair was not good enough !

 

[Posh Pete]

The boy Kaiser's kilt outfit. It was given to him by his gran- Queen Victoria. That's a Royal Stewart tartan by the way. There's lots of other uniforms too, some of which you can spot being worn by Kaiser Bill in old newsreels from the time.

Rather than batter on to the ferry, I heartily recommend a stop over in Doorn and a visit to Huis Doorn. It really gives an insight into someone who did more than any other person to shape the world we live in now.

Ask for Luisa! And ask her what Scots would call the Kaiser's slippers! (A- baffies!)

Sent from my moto e30 using Tapatalk

 

[Posh Pete]

And so to home via Ijmuiden where I chatted at the dockside to Rudiger from Hamburg who drives this beast. It replaced a pickup with a camper insert which had been all over, including 30 times to Norway. That's maybe not quite so impressive if you're based in Hamburg.

He and his wife and collie dog are going to be here for 3 weeks. If you spot them, say hello!

 

[Posh Pete]

We're home now and the Jazz did very well I think. 1450 miles approximately ( the odometer reset when I tried to fix the TPS warning). That took 4 and a half tanks of E10 door to door. The fuel meter on the dash never dropped below 59 mpg and sometimes exceed 65. I've previously checked that by doing a fill to fill and it over reads by 5mpg. So I probably got around 54 to 60mpg over the trip.

Not as much fun as a bike on some of those miles but then again, a bike could not carry case of weissbier, various Belgian biers, German wines etc etc!

 

[Posh Pete]

As promised, I was going to uploaded a GPX file of the routes and waypoints I used. Apparently this is not an allowed extension? Can this be fixed?

 

[Posh Pete]

OK. As the aged Bishop said to the young actress: "Let me try again!" but this time with a zip!