Day 8 Prague to Heilbronn, Germany

Friday 12 September 2011

Awoke late with a hangover of immense proportions and the mouth like the inside of a Gorilla's cage. Unsurprisingly breakfast passed me by, and as I ventured out into the bright sunshine Fatrat was already engaged in a close inspection of his sticky dipstick. We managed to walk the mile or so into the centre of Prague to see some of the sights by daylight for a change.

A light lunch stayed down and, suitably fortified we pointed the barge down motorway 5 in the direction of the Fatherland and its place of birth. We reached the German border and some beautiful rolling countryside after about an hour and a half. The old girl was bearing up well, although we did not push her past 85 mph. The only other British car sighted on our route was a 1993 Jag saloon totally covered in stickers which blasted past us at a rate of knots.

We had decided rather randomly to make for the town of Heilbronn, just north of Stuttgart. Luck was with us, for the first hotel we came across (the Ringhotel) had vacancies at a reasonable rate and came with an underground car park for the Beast.

Luck stayed with us as it turned out we were in Heilbronn on the weekend of the town's annual wine festival - Fatrat being an expert on El vino, at least in quantity if not in quality, perked up considerably at the thought of another evening imbibing plonk of dubious provenance. So after an inexpensive Italian washed down with some giant beers, we descended on the town's main square. It was a hoot, totally packed with happy Germans sampling the many wines on offer at a Euro a glass. We strolled around doing a fair bit of sampling ourselves, soaking up the atmosphere and listening to the hilarious 'Big Band'. Their specialism being renditions of 80's and 90's pop and rock anthems (in English), sung along to by the entire crowd!

Total distance travelled so far 2,381 miles, 289 in the day.