Breakfast this morning was to be had in the car after we raided the most delicious bakery in Peronne. The pastries were just beautiful, but we had to eat them out the window of the car or we ended up wearing pastry flakes.
We purchased a small, pretty and hardy plant at the local florist and headed to Roissel Cemetery once more to plant a flower at the grave. We completed this and said farewell and headed off to find the motorway and head to Cologne.
What struck us most about the French countryside is the lack of fences. They don't have livestock, so they don't need them, what they do have is acres and acres of sugar beet and potatoes. In Europe all their sugar is made from sugar beet and they don't grow sugar cane like we do. It's probably something to do with the climate. They also grow lots of corn as feed for the cattle, particularly in Switzerland.
We found the motorway and away we went heading to the Belgium border, through Belgium and then on to Germany and Cologne. The motorway - what can I say - scary, scary, there is no speed limit and trucks have the left lane and the rest of the lanes are categorised by how fast you go. Fast = lane next to truck lane, very fast = middle lane, superfast = right lane. We were mainly in the fast or very fast lane and in the super fast lane they just roar past you. To put you in the picture we were doing about 130 - 140 kms but the cars in the right lane just flew past at 200 - 220kms, they don't have many carshes, but when they do they are big.
The boarder crossing into Belgium was a non-event, they didn't even stop the car, and no stamp in the passport either, how can a girl verify all her travels if they won't stamp your passport? Once in Belgium, Gerard decided he would like to see the race track at Spa, so we changed the Sat Nav and away we went.
Once again it was a rainy, cold day, we were so glad we had a car for this leg of our trip. We arrived in Spa to find the race track closed as they were doing some testing in preparation for some formula renault 2 litre car races on the weekend. Of course closed means nothing to Gerard when it comes to race tracks so depite the French Man, who was also trying to have a look, telling us that there was no hope, we headed off in the general direction of the track. Of course Gerard found an open gate and we ventured inside to have a grand stand view of the testing. We couldn't get any closer, but who cares we took some photos and saw what we wanted to see. By the way the French Man followed us and had a good look, too. I don't know what he thought of us, but I bet he was damn glad he followed. Probably thinks we are still convicts.
We left the track and found the Racing Club Cafe/Bar and had lunch surrounded by car memorabilia. We headed on to Cologne and arrived late afternoon with the Sat Nav sending us around in circles because of all the one way streets and us taking wrong turns. But we eventually got to our hotel right in the middle of town.
Andrew headed off to pick up Mel from the Hostel where she was staying and then came back so we could go and explore a bit of Cologne. We found the Dom, which is a beautiful old cathedral, which survived the bombings in the war, because the allies used it as a marker to navigate by. All around the Dom was absolutley destroyed.
Once again the Hotel desk clerk gave us great directions to a restaurant for dinner, Bruehaus Frue, and we will recommend it to you if you are ever in Cologne, for beautiful German food. The sausage, pork and sauerkraut were delicious as were the desserts and beer. The diet starts when we get home.
Off to bed with an email sent to us by Volker outlining our schedule for the next day at Ennepetal. I think he was a bit excited as he had it all timed and worked out to a "T."
