It was of course dark by the time we disembarked and immediately I was thrown into driving on the wrong side of the road. The plan being, to get as far as I could before parking up for the night.
That was going to be an unknown quantity but had read that many others park at Motorway Services for the night and as long as you keep your doors locked, should be a safe experience. Unlike the tight wads in the UK, you can park overnight at Services without being charged.
We did hear the occasional vehicles coming and going during the night but both slept well, ready to complete the journey to Wallau, where my daughter and family live.
As luck would have it the weather had gone from being 30C, two days before we got there to around 15C, grey, miserable and often damp. Matters weren't improved by me either breaking, or dislocating a toe, whilst bringing our stuff into the house and then I had some sort of gut infection, which gave me a raging temperature a lot of the time, struggling to eat and getting awful griping pains at times.
This aside, we managed to have a good time, with lots of high points. The low point being, due to feeling ill and overtired, I allowed Mike to irritate me, when I should have just ignored him, which ended up in a massive row.
The next morning, we weren't speaking and he went out to do some gardening at the front of the house and I went down the road to post a postcard to Mum. On my return, I spotted the rear passenger tyre (well I can’t say nearside, as in Germany, presumably it would be offside?) was totally flat. So, we had to start talking again. I won’t bore you with the details but it was the next day before we got it sorted.
Having taken the wheel down to the local tyre place, we were informed that the tyre was 11 years old and therefore illegal in Germany. We checked and the other front tyre was the same and there were many little cracks showing around the rim.
120Euros for the one tyre. I was a bit miffed by this, as we had just bought the vehicle and wasn't expecting to have to replace two tyres on our first trip away. So I rang Elite, the dealer we bought The Goddess from and said I was less than happy that they would sell a vehicle, after it’s warranty check, with tyres that were so old and clearly likely to be a danger before too many miles were put on them. Pause…….
I never do this sort of thing but remained silent and the lady on the phone offered to pay for the other new tyre. Not only that, she put £120 straight into our bank, so a very good deal for us.
During our nearly two weeks at Catherine’s we had a train trip to Frankfurt, on a special weekend deal. This was quite exciting as my first trip on a double decker train, very modern but also very crowded, as unfortunately Frankfurt Football Team were playing at home that day.
Luckily it remained fairly dry until just before we returned to the station, when the heavens opened. Had a look around the Cathedral, which my father had photographed in its bomb damaged state in April 1945. There is the weirdest ever crucifixion artwork imaginable in there. It is a Tryptic but I’ll just post one section of it here, to show the bizarre details.
Mike and I decided on a Sausage Sharing Plate for lunch. Won’t be doing that again!!!
Look at my grandaughter's face!!
Frankfurt Cathedral, my father was here days before the end of the War and took photos showing the bomb damage.
Strange Artwork inside the Cathedral.
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