Day 52...Porsche and Hokkenheim noodles - 17th August

Had another nice continental breakfast in our hotel in Stuttgart. We packed up and got set to head out. Nate was packing the car and I went to finalise the bill. I still had my big backpack on and dropped some money. I bent down to pick it up and felt myself overbalancing. There was not much I could do, but let out a small squeak and flopped backwards like a beached turtle with my arms and legs flailing in the air! The hotel lady's overweight son watched me go down, and waddled over and gave me a hand up. He chuckled a little, and tried to be concerned as he didn't speak English, but I heard him crack up laughing the moment the door closed behind me! I couldn't stop laughing myself.

We headed off to Porsche which was a bitch to find. Unlike Mercedes which had TIC pamphlets and signs etc, Porsche had no info and took some good research to find. We struggled to find Porschestrasse (Porsche street) which wa sin an industrial area, without any of the major "loook at me, I'm Porsche" signs that we got with Mercedes. There wer a few porsche signs for the offices and we found the museum behind the parking lot.

Nathan: "It must be said though, it was an impressive parking lot. There were no less than 50 various Porsches of assorted year and model sitting there - are there employee benefits that I'm not aware of? haha. I could have been satisfied right here without ever seeing the museum.

That being said, I did spend most of yesterday at Mercedes all-out billlion dollar marketing landmark quietly looking forward to a visit to Porsches comparatively meagre museum. Just spending those last couple of days in Stuttgart who's name appears on every Porsche badge that rolls of the production line had me feeling really good about things. The Stuttgart town symbol is also the horse symbol that appears on the Porsche badge.

We wandered from the carpark down Porschestrasse and were lucky enough to spota new Cayman and 997 911 fresh off the production line and wrapped in protective plastic, ready to be shipped. I love the fact that a large proportion of Porsches and especially 911 series are still made right here in Zufferhausen, Stuttgart after so many years and such extensive growth....

Despite the shabby facade, lack of interaction and all the other stuff, I didn't leave disappointed. I cna't say I've ver seen a Merc dealership that can even compare to a Porsche. And a smart company knows where to invest its money - in a good car, not a musuem." - end nate

(Nate, still hasn't finished writing on Porsche or Hokkenheim, so I will jump a bit until the slack boy has done it. I shall now continue)

Nikki: There was a cool present for Thomas in there, but I didn't have 5000 buckeroos! It was a 1950's Porsche spider in toy size. The type of car James Dean used to drive (and I think died in). Not that is what is the point tho! It had lights and went to 8km an hour and was shiny silver. Pretty cool stuff. I wanted to buy dad a present there too, and Nathan for Geoff but there was nothing good there at all! So we left and headed for the Rhine River, with a stop at Hokkenheim on the way.

"Empty Nate spot - stay tuned for more details"

After Hokkenheim we started at Bingen, which is the southern spot of what is called the "Romantic Rhine". It is supposed to be an attractive road on either side of the Rhine dotted with castles and cute villages. We caught a cute little car ferry at Bngen over the Rhine. There were views of brown and white houses and a big ruined castle perched on top of tall hills covered in vineyards. From there, we drove north on the small road hugging the Rhine, which flowed past us on our left side. From Bingen to Klobenz the Rhine carves deeply through the Rhenish mountains, meandering through realms of castles and fields of vineyards in a meditation of wonder and legend. Tiny idyllic villages appear in small occasional clusters on the river bends, while ruined and restored castles lord over them. The villages were few, but there was a massive castle on every single hill! It was amazing. Back in the day, it would have been fantastic to try and imagine the balls and the feasts taken place there. Each castle seemd to try and outdo his neighbour. One castle was massive with turrets on a hill, whilst his neighbour on the next hill was "well I'll be on a massive rocky outcrop - cop that!". Then the neighbour next to him would be "well I'll build in the middle of the River itself - so there!". Fantastic.

It drizzled a little and the clouds made it hard to capture the castles in definition on camera, comparitive to the rocky and hilly background. But with the naked eye, it was spectacular. We wondered why there were so many castles, so close together on that particular patch of river. There were train tracks on either side of the river too, carving in and out of the hills, The council has made an effort for the area, so each train tunnel is built like a little castle on each edge. Too cute! So it looked like there were castles everywhere.

We kept driving north ad the road was running out. The villages were too cute, so we decided to stop for the day. We were making good time (that's a first!). We stopped at a tiny blip on the map, I can't even remember the name as its not even ON the map. It was basically a row of houses, B&B's and thats about it, on the eastern side of the river. We picked a cute one. The old mate there didn't speak English, but I told him we wanted a room (dopplezimmer - double room) in German and he said his wife would come back. She did, and gave us a choice of 2 rooms. She spoke only a little English, and us a little German but it worked. The first option had a view of teh rivver but was kind of old and tired. It was in a building further down so we would have to walk down for breakfast. The other one was in the main building, at the back but bigger and nicer. It felt like an attic and had big skylights that you could open. We also got to pass a crazy old granny on the stairs each time too, so we picked the latter. (They were the same price for the rooms). We plopped our bags in the room and sat out on the porch overlooking the Rhine for hours. From about 3pm till about 8pm I think, we drank some beer and wine and just relaxed. It was very pleasant.

We then wandered inside for dinner. The wife was friendly enough but didn't pay us - and some others, as much attention as compared to some. I thought it was the english thing (though that didn't account for some of the other German guests - Nate and I were the only english couple there) but foundo ut the andwer the next day. The next day I 'sat in the wrong seat' and got demoted to the back, while she explained that it was for weekly stayers and regulars, as opposed to one night stayers. It pissed us off a bit. Why should we be less, simply coz we are staying less? Are we not paying for her services tonight? It was her loss anyway, as we wanted to have many drinks and give her our money, but because she didn't pay us any attention - she missed out. So did we, but I guess we have more money in our purse and a lesser hangover the next day.

It still was a nice restaurant downstairs, and from the menu I saw the chefs regional suggestions. "Right on, I"ll have a local dish!" I thought. My little German phrasebook couldn't decode much at all, but in one dish I picked out the word "wild". So taking knowledge of our lunch in Switzerland, I thought it would be another "wild beasts from the forests" so I ordered it. When the wife took our order, I tried to ask her what wild beast it was, and mimed antlers and things, flapping my hands around my head. She looked at me like I was a complete twit and edged away from me slowly. I realised her consternation when the dish appeared, and it turned out it was wild mushrooms!

The regional dish of wild mushrooms was fabulous! It came with a home baked bread roll, coated etly with a layer of dumpling. It was surrounded by lots of little long mushrooms in a rich sauce. WHen I took my first bite, my head exploded with brown buildings and cuckoo clocks I tell you! The dish tasted so smoky and so damn German it was amazing. I've never had a dish feel so regional. Talk about oompah music in your head. Fantastic. Nathan enjoyed the taste of it too, and had a pretty darn good cordon bleu for his meal.

After that we retired back to the porch for another drink or two. It only ended up being one drink as favouritism lady didn't pay us attention and lost out on our business. Then we headed up via crazy granny to bed.

PS: German TV is sooo good! Compared to the UK which has snookers and darts on TV and bad british soaps (and bad australian ones come to that) German TV has all the top movies and shows. You really want to watch them but they are all dubbed in German!!! So you can't watch it. There's 80 million Germans in Germany you know. thats alot of German.