On Sunday morning, December 19th, I awoke to a watery sun trying to break through the light mist. After a nice hot shower and breakfast, I started the car and cleared off 5cms of overnight snow. As I carried on westwards along the Hungarian M1, I could see patches of blue sky ahead and indeed by the time I reached Austria there was clear sky and bright sunshine. Traffic was very light (I think trucks are banned on Austrian autobahns on Sundays) and most of the time I could cruise at the speed limit of 130kph. Stopping at a Raststation, I fancied a coffee and went into the restaurant. I had plenty of food in the car and intended to eat something after my hot drink but once in the restaurant I couldn't resist one of their large, freshly made waffles with maple syrup, strawberries and cream - yummy!
With the sun still shining, I continued into Germany and made good progress towards Wurzburg. Around 4pm though it was clouding over and by 4:30pm light snow was falling. Soon afterwards I passed an overhead information sign which was warning of snow ahead and advising HGVs to park up. Soon every Raststations I passed had a queue of trucks stretching back to the start of the slip entry road and many of the Rastplatz areas were also beginning to fill up with trucks. By 5:30 the snow was quite heavy and with speed down to 60kph, I began to look for overnight accommodation. By now the snow was settling quickly on the road and when I saw a bed symbol on the next Raststation sign I pulled off and parked up. Enquiring from the staff there, I was told that the hotel section was the other side of the autobahn but I could drive there across a bridge. They told me however that the hotel was expensive and advised me that if I got back on the autobahn there was a small town just a few kilometres away with a good hotel at a better price. Once again the food in the restaurant tempted me to have something to eat and after a big homemade hamburger with mushroom sauce and sauteed potatoes I felt ready to battle on for the short drive to the next exit.
When I set off again everything was covered by a few centimetres of snow and, because of the lack of wheel tracks, I thought I was driving on a long slip road but when another car overtook me, I realised I was in fact back on the autobahn! Five kilometres down the road I turned off at the exit for Weibersbrunn and easily found the Hotel Brunnerhof where I spent a very comfortable night and even caught up on my emails and Facebook posts via the hotel's free Wi-fi service.
Next morning I enjoyed a long, hot soak in a huge bath, then a large breakfast to keep me going and finally asked one of the hotel staff to fill my flask with boiling water to make tea on the journey. The hotel was only 50kms south-east of Frankfurt-am-Main which had been put into my satnav as the target for Monday afternoon so this meant I was actually doing extremely well in spite of the snow. I thought I might like to visit Bruges as there was time to spare so I reset the satnav accordingly and pressed on.
Arriving near the centre of Bruges around 5pm, I parked the car and crossed the road to ask at a filling station whether they knew of any nearby accommodation. There was, they thought, a small B&B in a nearby side street so I set off on foot to check it out. After walking 200 metres or so down a rather dreary looking street with mostly boarded-up houses - slipping over once on the icy pavement - I decided to drive further into the city. Back at the car I set the satnav to find nearby hotels and an Ibis came up about 1km down the road. After parking in an underground car park, I located the hotel but discovered it was somewhat over my budget. As it was only about two hours to "Tunnel sous la Manche" I decided to carry on. Bruges can wait until a daytime visit on my way back to Romania!
Stopping only to fill up with Belgian diesel at £1.10 per litre before crossing into France, I arrived at the Channel Tunnel terminal in heavy snow. I was booked to travel on the 6:20pm train the next day so I drove up to a manned kiosk and enquired whether I could get on an earlier train. No problem said the lady in the kiosk and I was booked onto the train leaving in just over an hour at 9:20pm. Brilliant! There was time to get something to eat at the terminal building so after texting my son to let him know I would be arriving on his doorstep around 10:30-11pm GMT, 21 hours earlier than expected, I tucked in to a Beef Extra meal at the "Quick" fast food outlet - a French version of McDonalds but with better food! At 9pm I was loaded onto "Le Shuttle" and ready to head for English soil.
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