Service no limits!

As I previously announced I recently made a long trip through several European countries with Brian the Barnes and I wanna tell yas how things went, I know that you are all on the edge of your seats waiting for news right???

So here we go. As requested….

1. On Sunday the 29th of October I drove very gently up to Bergamo in the north of Italy, near Milan. Bergamo is a lovely city and great fun to visit, loads of sights to see in the Upper Town (inside the walls) and then many great bars and pubs and eating houses in the lower newer town. I had booked a room in the lovely Best Western Cappello Doro Hotel and the Barnes arrived 2 hours late (thank you Ryanair) just in time for beer and sleep. We stayed here 2 years ago GREAT place.
2. Monday morning we enjoyed a fine breakfast in the hotel and then headed east towards Trieste, destination Rijeka (Croatia). A good mate of mine Raniero is currently living in Rijeka so we were invited to visit, this is a fairly long journey from Roma (about 750km) so I think that he was happy for a visit. We went out after lunch to have a quick tour of the area and we saw Kostrena which is known as the Croatian Monte Carlo and indeed we saw some VERY expensive hotels as well as several Casinos so surely a playground for the rich. Not for us….. We had wonderful food in a super restaurant with a view over the coast.
3. The following morning we said our farewells and left Rijeka in the pouring rain, heading back into Slovenia and then north into Austria. We were not aware that to use the Austrian motorways you must purchase a sticker for the van so unfortunately the very sweet coppers charged us 120 Euro cos we did not have one. Anyway, we then managed to find our way to YART and so quickly forgot about the stupid fine!!!!
4. The YART visit was simply fantastic and really worth the long journey for sure. The boss Manfred Kainz was a great host and we had a wonderful few hours viewing the fantastic premises and hearing and seeing what they do. Truly a revelation!!! These guys have some skills that I have never seen before and their collection of race bikes is amazing. Thanks Guys and wow.
5. We left YART and headed toward the port of Calais in France but of course we could not get there in a day so we found a hotel in Austria and enjoyed an evening in the bar with some wonderful Austrian beer and a snack, great hotel!!
6. The next morning we headed towards Calais but the massive storm had started and the wind and rain were super heavy which made driving difficult. We therefore drove into Germany and in the afternoon we decided to head to Nurburg to stay a night next to the famous Nurburgring and we saw the cars coming off the circuit and heading home, some stunning Porsche and BMWs mainly. We found a room at the Ringhaus Hotel which is also known as the Home of the Silver Arrows because back in 1928 Mercedes prepared their first racing car IN THE GARAGE OF THAT HOTEL!!! In fact the owner Johann showed us the garage which is an amazing piece of history.
7. In the morning we left in the rain (as usual) heading west and the wind was becoming ever stronger. Indeed we arrived in Calais in the afternoon to stay at our favourite Hotel de la Plage and the wind was stronger than I have ever experienced. In the bar of the hotel we chatted with some other customers who told us that on the motorway they had queued for 2 hours and then passed the accident, TWO huge trucks (from the same company) had been blown over and one of the drivers lost his life and the other driver was taken to hospital, terrible. Indeed DFDS had cancelled all cross channel ferries for 2 days.
8. We were booked on the Friday ferry at 0930 and we went an hour early fearing the worst whereas our ferry was on time and the crossing was calm so how lucky was that??? Amazing. DFDS made us feel very welcome indeed and there were very few passengers on the ship, totally unexpected!!
9. From Dover we headed to Cambridge and then Nuneaton (to deliver Barnes home) and then to the best Yamaha shop in the world Alf England in Bedworth, thanks Martin!!!

A few photos follow just to give you some flavour…..