Deleted account rno
Guest
Exactly a year ago, during our last visit to Germany, me and Mrs Ronno decided that we would make this year's summer trip coincide with the bi-annual Hinterstädtelfest in Jockgrim, Rheinland Pfalz, where my family come from.
We then thought about inviting a few tossers to join us and a plan was hatched over a bier in our "local" in Jockgrim.
Jockgrim is a small town and not on the tourist route so accomodation would be the major problem. We managed to blag a few rooms from friends of ours who run a small hotel called Zum Elefanten and on our return home, a few PM exchanges quickly filled the bookings.
Over the following months, ferry bookings were made and the excitement began to rise. A couple of call-offs and quick replacements had a final line up of:
Me and Christine (Mrs Ronno), Johnny Oonyack, Robmack, G.C., Whatton, Floyd, Alte Wolf, Aidan and Mandy. The majority of the group travelled over together. HRH Oonyack and Alte Wolfe arrived a day earlier in Jockgrim (probably to make sure that they got a room
).
Thursday 4th September, the big day arrived and the bike was loaded like a Pack-mule
We headed over to Kinross and met up with G.C., Floyd and Robmack for the ride south. These guys had already been on the road for a wee while, in Rob's case: 5 hours.
We stopped for lunch at St Boswell's on the A68 and were joined briefly by Stumpy who had been on the original raiding party list but had had to call off. I thought that he might have bought us all lunch to make amends for fecking up the cartoon line up on our T Shirts, but his hand remained firmly in his pocket
Then it was south to Newcastle and meet up with Whatton and Aidan and Mandy for the ferry across to mainland Europe. The ferry over was a good laugh and the drink flowed. An indication of things to come perhaps?
Whatton took time off his alcohol duties to do a bit of judging in a Rev Chuck Look-a-Like contest that the ship were running. It was won by...er...Rev Chuck I think
It was all good spirited on the ferry until someone spotted this and we were all then convinced that the ferry would either sink, blow up or get stolen.
Friday's run down through Holland into Germany was fairly uneventful (boring would be a better description) and in hindsight, the others may have been better taking their time and getting off the autobahns and maybe running down the side of the Rhein or heading over to Jockgrim through the Pfälzerwald. Me? I just wanted "home". It's a 6 hour blast to Jockgrim from Ijmuiden.
When we arrived at Zum Elefanten,
HRH and Alte Wolf had already started on the biers and had clearly made themselves at home with Günter Fuhr, the owner and the locals. Günter and his wife Angelika are really friendly hosts and they both told me later how much they'd enjoyed the Tossers visit.
My Mum and Dad joined us for a meal later on the Friday. It was a really enjoyable night and quite bizarre for me to look along the table and see all those "faces" in the Zum Elefanten bar.
Whatton told my old Mum a story that shocked her. I think it was the one about G.C. in the cabin the night before...
The guys discovered "schnaps" (in some cases not for the first time) and we managed to clean Günter out of his Jägermeister and Williams schnaps: no mean feat. I can barely remember walking home to my sister's house in the wee sma' hours.
The following day wasn't too bright weather-wise and few hardy souls took off for a ride along part of the Deutscher Weinstrasse which starts about 500 metres from the French border some 20 kms from Jockgrim.
Here's Gordon (G.C.) and Rab (Robmack) proving that they do come in pairs.
We rode from the Wein Tor to St Martin where some of the group did a wee bit of wine tasting (and buying).
We also had a bit of lunch. Only Mandy and Alte Wolf didn't do a "Burton".
It's a cracking wee village and I rode back there a few days later to take some photos in sunshine, just to give you a taste of the place.
On the way out of St Martin, we stopped for a sample of the locally grown grapes.
Back to Jockgrim and the Hinterstädtelfest.
We decided to head down about 4 p.m. and by the time we walked the short distance from the group's hotel to the old part of Jockgrim where the festival is sited, it was a bit dreich to say the least. Now, my Mum always says that there's nothing like a group of well built men striding along in their kilts...and this lot look nothing like fitting the bill. Sorry, Maw...
The festival was relatively quiet when we arrived but not for long. I've got to say that the locals really made all the guys welcome and they especially liked the kilts
Kev did his best impersonation of a busty blonde Bar Mädchen
We met a group of young guys from Baden Baden who were on a Stag Do. Here's me and Floyd with the hapless groom, who assisted us in closing the Jägermeister stall.
We totally cleaned them out of schnaps. I heard that this has never happened before and I can believe that. I've never seen or been party to so many shots of Jägermeister/Obst/Apfelkorn schnaps being skulled. Here's the empty stall.
The only down side (for me anyway) to the whole trip was me slipping on my arse and nearly breaking my wrist and back about 8 p.m when I went to the mobile loo. My sole grip just disappeared when I stepped on the wet, wire steps and I went down like a sniper victim. It wan't the drink, mister. Honest. The Red Cross tent took good care of me. They strapped me up and sent me back to join the kilted hordes. Christine and Deano were really concerned aboot me.
Time to get intae the swing o' things.
We even met Sir Ben Kingsley who it turned out was a Harley rider. He was a really decent guy and he came to visit us the following day at the hotel.
We also met my mate, Heimo. HRH looks glad to have someone to hang ontae. Rab looks as if he's annoyed at something. Maybe Heimo had a firm handshake.
The hours just flew in and before we knew it, it was 04.00. Before leaving, I decided to tell Jamie that I thought he suited the dark brown Just For Men better than his new light brown look. What's wrong with a grey goatee anyway?
If I remember correctly me, HRH, Robmack and Whatton managed to see ourselves back home. I had about half a mile further to walk form their hotel and I recall having a wee Nana Nap in a bush outside my cousin Uschi's house. It's amazing what humours you when you're blitzkrieged. I vaguely remember pissin' myself laughing at me being "in a bush ootside Uschi's hoose". Thankfully, my laughter brought me to my senses and I got up and made it home. It wasn't exactly tropical at that time in the morning.
I was unable to join anyone on a ride out on the Sunday. My wrist was up like a balloon and gi'en me jip. Most of the others managed to head out. Aidan and Mandy left the party on the Sunday to visit and stay with a friend of their's in the Heidelberg area. The rest of us (or most of us) had a meal and then returned to the festival on Sunday night for more schnaps!
The troops decided to leave Jockgrim a day early and split their journey so me and Christine waved them off from Zum Elefanten on Monday.
A whole year of anticipation had finally come and gone. One of the guy's said that the weekend was the stuff that legends are made of and I totally agree with that sentiment.
Rob left his kilt and Kev left his T shirt for Günter at the hotel and he was proud to wear them and dmonstrate his dancing skills behind the bar. He's a good spud is Günter and a good laugh too.
The T shirts got nearly as much attention as the kilts and I donated one to the main organiser of the event.
Alte Wolf then left the following day.
To be honest, once the troops left, the first wee while was a bit flat for me and Christine but we couldnae let that carry on for long so we did what we normally do on holiday: we continued eating and drinking.
The weather was very changeable during this trip. On the odd day, we had temperatures of nearly 30 degrees but other days were around 16. One of the "good" days was spent heading through wine villages along the Rhein. This is Bacharach, one of my favourites villages anywhere.
I found this interesting wee combination just at the entrance archway to Baccarach
BTW, the road out of the village isn't too bad either.
My In-laws flew over to join us for a long weekend between the Thursday and Tuesday after the Tossers had gone home. I had hired a car online before the trip and expected a "Golf or similar". When I went to pick the car up in Landau, the rental office was in a Mercedes dealership. I was offered an upgrade to a Mercedes C180 Kompressor for an extra €90 but I politely declined. I was told that they had no Golfs but would give me a Ford Focus which was being washed for me. I was again offered the deal on the Merc and again, I declined. I was then told that I could have the Mercedes at the original price! I suspect that there was no Ford Focus but what a result! And what a machine. It was beautiful to drive and Christine now wants one
We took my In-laws into Schwarzwald and the only good thing about not being on my bike (I doubt if my wrist could have taken a whole day in the saddle anyway) was driving the Mercedes on the A5 autobahn at speeds that would probably get you 6 months in prison over here.
We stumbled upon a farmers market in a village called Gutach. There was no tourist raz-ma-taz here. This was the real deal.
An old tractor
was started up and it nearly knocked me out with the fumes.
There was also what seemed like a Beauty Pageant for livestock. Cute that they were too.
The locals were wearing their Sunday best too.
You can judge the weather we enjoyed in Schwarzwald from these photos.
We also stopped off at the world's biggest cuckoo clock near Triberg. It actually works.
At three o'clock, the wee cuckoo appeared
In a traditional costume shop, I asked one of the staff if I could take her photo and she kindly agreed.
I then spotted the price ticket on the dress. She was in there trying it on and her man was with her
Christine wasnae too keen on my suggestion to follow her into a Lingerie shop.
The following day, we drove into Alsace and visited the Natzweiler Struthof KZ camp. My In-Laws wanted to visit the camp having heard about our visit there last year. It's an incredibly sobering and humbling experience. It was very wet and misty day which somehow added to the sense of gloom.
Me and my Dad manged to get through several bottles of whisky during our trip. This is him with his first dram of a limited edition Bushmills which he'd received as a gift from our celtic cousins on the trip. He "allowed" me to have one too. Surprisingly good it was as well.
Here are a few random photos from the trip. These were in Koblenz where the Rhein and Mosel rivers meet at Deutche Eck (German Corner). The third pic was taken from the top of the monument looking at "German Corner" where the two rivers meet.
Boppard am Rhein.
They even have a statue here to a pop singer that had something to do with children. It's not Gary Glitter.
And so our trip came to a close.
We decided to follow the Scottish guy's (and Kev's) idea and split our journey back to the ferry with an overnighter half way. Koningswinter was recommended to us all but to be honest, I was disappointed with the place. We rode through far nicer villages to get there. It was Günter Fuhr who suggested this for a stop off so I'm gonnie boot him up the kilt the next time I see him. That said, the run up there was really good. Instead of blatting up the autobahn for 6 hours to make the ferry, we had a bimble up the Rheinallee going through gorgeous villages and having the odd ferry ride to split the journey.
Our hotel in Konigswinter was really decent.
The run next day to the ferry was done in some of the highest temperatures we'd had all holiday. Thankfully, we only had 3 hours or so in the saddle. We boarded the ferry to Newcastle and I spotted this rather nice sailing ship.
Then it was home.
We really had a fantastic trip this year. The good people from this forum who came with us made it a particularly special visit to Jockgrim for me and Christine. I just wish I could remember a bit more of it
A big thanks to you all for making the effort and for some magic company.
Prost
Ronno
Oh, and a big thanks to the Tosser who gave my 81 year old mother a wee present.
She told me to say that she already knew that.
We then thought about inviting a few tossers to join us and a plan was hatched over a bier in our "local" in Jockgrim.
Jockgrim is a small town and not on the tourist route so accomodation would be the major problem. We managed to blag a few rooms from friends of ours who run a small hotel called Zum Elefanten and on our return home, a few PM exchanges quickly filled the bookings.
Over the following months, ferry bookings were made and the excitement began to rise. A couple of call-offs and quick replacements had a final line up of:
Me and Christine (Mrs Ronno), Johnny Oonyack, Robmack, G.C., Whatton, Floyd, Alte Wolf, Aidan and Mandy. The majority of the group travelled over together. HRH Oonyack and Alte Wolfe arrived a day earlier in Jockgrim (probably to make sure that they got a room
).Thursday 4th September, the big day arrived and the bike was loaded like a Pack-mule
We headed over to Kinross and met up with G.C., Floyd and Robmack for the ride south. These guys had already been on the road for a wee while, in Rob's case: 5 hours.
We stopped for lunch at St Boswell's on the A68 and were joined briefly by Stumpy who had been on the original raiding party list but had had to call off. I thought that he might have bought us all lunch to make amends for fecking up the cartoon line up on our T Shirts, but his hand remained firmly in his pocket
Then it was south to Newcastle and meet up with Whatton and Aidan and Mandy for the ferry across to mainland Europe. The ferry over was a good laugh and the drink flowed. An indication of things to come perhaps?
Whatton took time off his alcohol duties to do a bit of judging in a Rev Chuck Look-a-Like contest that the ship were running. It was won by...er...Rev Chuck I think
It was all good spirited on the ferry until someone spotted this and we were all then convinced that the ferry would either sink, blow up or get stolen.
Friday's run down through Holland into Germany was fairly uneventful (boring would be a better description) and in hindsight, the others may have been better taking their time and getting off the autobahns and maybe running down the side of the Rhein or heading over to Jockgrim through the Pfälzerwald. Me? I just wanted "home". It's a 6 hour blast to Jockgrim from Ijmuiden.
When we arrived at Zum Elefanten,
HRH and Alte Wolf had already started on the biers and had clearly made themselves at home with Günter Fuhr, the owner and the locals. Günter and his wife Angelika are really friendly hosts and they both told me later how much they'd enjoyed the Tossers visit.
My Mum and Dad joined us for a meal later on the Friday. It was a really enjoyable night and quite bizarre for me to look along the table and see all those "faces" in the Zum Elefanten bar.
Whatton told my old Mum a story that shocked her. I think it was the one about G.C. in the cabin the night before...
The guys discovered "schnaps" (in some cases not for the first time) and we managed to clean Günter out of his Jägermeister and Williams schnaps: no mean feat. I can barely remember walking home to my sister's house in the wee sma' hours.
The following day wasn't too bright weather-wise and few hardy souls took off for a ride along part of the Deutscher Weinstrasse which starts about 500 metres from the French border some 20 kms from Jockgrim.
Here's Gordon (G.C.) and Rab (Robmack) proving that they do come in pairs.
We rode from the Wein Tor to St Martin where some of the group did a wee bit of wine tasting (and buying).
We also had a bit of lunch. Only Mandy and Alte Wolf didn't do a "Burton".
It's a cracking wee village and I rode back there a few days later to take some photos in sunshine, just to give you a taste of the place.
On the way out of St Martin, we stopped for a sample of the locally grown grapes.
Back to Jockgrim and the Hinterstädtelfest.
We decided to head down about 4 p.m. and by the time we walked the short distance from the group's hotel to the old part of Jockgrim where the festival is sited, it was a bit dreich to say the least. Now, my Mum always says that there's nothing like a group of well built men striding along in their kilts...and this lot look nothing like fitting the bill. Sorry, Maw...
The festival was relatively quiet when we arrived but not for long. I've got to say that the locals really made all the guys welcome and they especially liked the kilts
Kev did his best impersonation of a busty blonde Bar Mädchen
We met a group of young guys from Baden Baden who were on a Stag Do. Here's me and Floyd with the hapless groom, who assisted us in closing the Jägermeister stall.
We totally cleaned them out of schnaps. I heard that this has never happened before and I can believe that. I've never seen or been party to so many shots of Jägermeister/Obst/Apfelkorn schnaps being skulled. Here's the empty stall.
The only down side (for me anyway) to the whole trip was me slipping on my arse and nearly breaking my wrist and back about 8 p.m when I went to the mobile loo. My sole grip just disappeared when I stepped on the wet, wire steps and I went down like a sniper victim. It wan't the drink, mister. Honest. The Red Cross tent took good care of me. They strapped me up and sent me back to join the kilted hordes. Christine and Deano were really concerned aboot me.
Time to get intae the swing o' things.
We even met Sir Ben Kingsley who it turned out was a Harley rider. He was a really decent guy and he came to visit us the following day at the hotel.
We also met my mate, Heimo. HRH looks glad to have someone to hang ontae. Rab looks as if he's annoyed at something. Maybe Heimo had a firm handshake.
The hours just flew in and before we knew it, it was 04.00. Before leaving, I decided to tell Jamie that I thought he suited the dark brown Just For Men better than his new light brown look. What's wrong with a grey goatee anyway?
If I remember correctly me, HRH, Robmack and Whatton managed to see ourselves back home. I had about half a mile further to walk form their hotel and I recall having a wee Nana Nap in a bush outside my cousin Uschi's house. It's amazing what humours you when you're blitzkrieged. I vaguely remember pissin' myself laughing at me being "in a bush ootside Uschi's hoose". Thankfully, my laughter brought me to my senses and I got up and made it home. It wasn't exactly tropical at that time in the morning.
I was unable to join anyone on a ride out on the Sunday. My wrist was up like a balloon and gi'en me jip. Most of the others managed to head out. Aidan and Mandy left the party on the Sunday to visit and stay with a friend of their's in the Heidelberg area. The rest of us (or most of us
) had a meal and then returned to the festival on Sunday night for more schnaps!The troops decided to leave Jockgrim a day early and split their journey so me and Christine waved them off from Zum Elefanten on Monday.
A whole year of anticipation had finally come and gone. One of the guy's said that the weekend was the stuff that legends are made of and I totally agree with that sentiment.
Rob left his kilt and Kev left his T shirt for Günter at the hotel and he was proud to wear them and dmonstrate his dancing skills behind the bar. He's a good spud is Günter and a good laugh too.
The T shirts got nearly as much attention as the kilts and I donated one to the main organiser of the event.
Alte Wolf then left the following day.
To be honest, once the troops left, the first wee while was a bit flat for me and Christine but we couldnae let that carry on for long so we did what we normally do on holiday: we continued eating and drinking.
The weather was very changeable during this trip. On the odd day, we had temperatures of nearly 30 degrees but other days were around 16. One of the "good" days was spent heading through wine villages along the Rhein. This is Bacharach, one of my favourites villages anywhere.
I found this interesting wee combination just at the entrance archway to Baccarach
BTW, the road out of the village isn't too bad either.
My In-laws flew over to join us for a long weekend between the Thursday and Tuesday after the Tossers had gone home. I had hired a car online before the trip and expected a "Golf or similar". When I went to pick the car up in Landau, the rental office was in a Mercedes dealership. I was offered an upgrade to a Mercedes C180 Kompressor for an extra €90 but I politely declined. I was told that they had no Golfs but would give me a Ford Focus which was being washed for me. I was again offered the deal on the Merc and again, I declined. I was then told that I could have the Mercedes at the original price! I suspect that there was no Ford Focus but what a result!
And what a machine. It was beautiful to drive and Christine now wants one
We took my In-laws into Schwarzwald and the only good thing about not being on my bike (I doubt if my wrist could have taken a whole day in the saddle anyway) was driving the Mercedes on the A5 autobahn at speeds that would probably get you 6 months in prison over here.
We stumbled upon a farmers market in a village called Gutach. There was no tourist raz-ma-taz here. This was the real deal.
An old tractor
was started up and it nearly knocked me out with the fumes.
There was also what seemed like a Beauty Pageant for livestock. Cute that they were too.
The locals were wearing their Sunday best too.
You can judge the weather we enjoyed in Schwarzwald from these photos.
We also stopped off at the world's biggest cuckoo clock near Triberg. It actually works.
At three o'clock, the wee cuckoo appeared
In a traditional costume shop, I asked one of the staff if I could take her photo and she kindly agreed.
I then spotted the price ticket on the dress. She was in there trying it on and her man was with her
Christine wasnae too keen on my suggestion to follow her into a Lingerie shop.The following day, we drove into Alsace and visited the Natzweiler Struthof KZ camp. My In-Laws wanted to visit the camp having heard about our visit there last year. It's an incredibly sobering and humbling experience. It was very wet and misty day which somehow added to the sense of gloom.
Me and my Dad manged to get through several bottles of whisky during our trip. This is him with his first dram of a limited edition Bushmills which he'd received as a gift from our celtic cousins on the trip. He "allowed" me to have one too. Surprisingly good it was as well.
Here are a few random photos from the trip. These were in Koblenz where the Rhein and Mosel rivers meet at Deutche Eck (German Corner). The third pic was taken from the top of the monument looking at "German Corner" where the two rivers meet.
Boppard am Rhein.
They even have a statue here to a pop singer that had something to do with children. It's not Gary Glitter.
And so our trip came to a close.
We decided to follow the Scottish guy's (and Kev's) idea and split our journey back to the ferry with an overnighter half way. Koningswinter was recommended to us all but to be honest, I was disappointed with the place. We rode through far nicer villages to get there. It was Günter Fuhr who suggested this for a stop off so I'm gonnie boot him up the kilt the next time I see him. That said, the run up there was really good. Instead of blatting up the autobahn for 6 hours to make the ferry, we had a bimble up the Rheinallee going through gorgeous villages and having the odd ferry ride to split the journey.
Our hotel in Konigswinter was really decent.
The run next day to the ferry was done in some of the highest temperatures we'd had all holiday. Thankfully, we only had 3 hours or so in the saddle. We boarded the ferry to Newcastle and I spotted this rather nice sailing ship.
Then it was home.
We really had a fantastic trip this year. The good people from this forum who came with us made it a particularly special visit to Jockgrim for me and Christine. I just wish I could remember a bit more of it
A big thanks to you all for making the effort and for some magic company.
Prost
Ronno
Oh, and a big thanks to the Tosser who gave my 81 year old mother a wee present.
She told me to say that she already knew that.
