Austria - Germany. “Zen and the art of European navigation.”

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After five weeks on the road we are now experienced European travellers, we can set up camp in 30 mins and the team are like a well oiled machine. Very few words need to be spoken as we arrive on site and the Vaughanmobile is grounded and stabilised. All her vital connections are made, water tanks filled, waste outlets operational, mains power fed in and, of course, onboard bathroom facilities made ready. You’ll also not be surprised to know that we have finally mastered the art of navigation around our beloved partners in the social experiment that we call the European Union.

We use a combination of maps, sat nav, road signs and gut instinct. So, for instance, when we approach an unexpected road sign that tells us our destination is first left off the roundabout, the sat nav says straight on and Dee (head of maps!) says there shouldn’t be a roundabout here at all, we use gut instinct! Then we try to find a place to turn a 12 metre long car and caravan around without taking out any local street furniture or pedestrians!



With these new skills we were confident of our journey from a site near Ulm (Munich sort of area) to the apparently pretty Rhineland town of Rudesheim. We drove through the rain in southern Germany hopeful that the weather would improve by journeys end. It did, but not before we had sleet and then full on snow storms as we crossed the high pass on the E35.



Now road numbers are a real challenge for the unfortunate ‘head of maps’. It’s made worse by all European main routes losing their old national road numbers to be replaced by an “E” prefix that makes the whole of Europe easier to understand! Well it would if the old numbers had been replaced but in most cases each road now has two numbers, sometimes three….. you get the picture?

So if you can imagine a sat nav that doesn’t know you have a caravan so tries to take you down very narrow roads if you don’t watch out. Add to that roads with up to three numbers for one road, with one map that shows one number, sat nav showing another and two people in their sixties who forget the names of their children sometimes - ask them to work out how to get to Rudesheim and you know there’s going to be trouble!



Anyway to cut to the chase, we arrived in the lovely place and yes there was the Rhine just as expected and there were vineyards, as expected, so all was fine. The campsite is on the banks of the Rhine so shouldn’t be too hard. The sat nav then played her masterstroke! She’d been looking for revenge ever since we ignored her in Austria! She was saying “turn around when possible” for about twenty miles until we switched the sound off and could still hear her muffled protests from within the little box!! Now, though, she had got her last laugh. ‘Turn left’ she said, ‘but that’s the river!’ we said. In the ensuing confusion, with a lorry inches behind me (sorry cms), we were forced to turn into a no through road. It led to a hotel car park where we practiced our three point turns with a caravan and a coach load of Japanese tourists clicking cameras all around!



You may have worked out by now that Sat Nav was telling the truth telling us to turn into the river and we were actually on the wrong side of the Rhine! From the hotel car park we could see the lovely little town of Rudesheim and the surrounding vineyards but with 800 metres of fast flowing ice melt eager to get to the North Sea between us. There was a ferry, which is where she was trying to take us but not for caravans, there was a bridge but it was destroyed in 1945 by a retreating German army, some of it remains but not enough to help us in 2012. (I’ve only mentioned the war once and I think I got away with it!). All’s well that ends well though. We found a site on our side of the Rhine, it was half the price of the posh side and they do a mean Schnitzell and fries with nice campsite neighbours so everything’s good.



We then found that Germans like to party and are just a bit bonkers!

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Photos

Should have listened to Sat Nav!
Is that the place where we're supposed to be, over there Mum?

Peace at last.
Sunset over the Rhine and a glass of something chilled! The fridge still works thank goodness.