Lake Garda 2012 Saturday 28 July 2012

Saturday 28 July 2012




Here we go again! Up at 03:00 in the yard by 04:00 and driving before 05:00!
I am not on my own this week as Hollie (my daughter) is coming along as my courier, her first official weeks work since recently leaving school.
We only have pick-ups in Petersfield, Liphook and Guildford and by 06:30 are well on our way.
A short stop on the motorway is followed by our arrival in Folkestone at 08:10 for our 09:20 shuttle. Time for half an hour in the terminal before the train.
The shuttle is bang on time and 35 minutes later I’m driving down the autoroute on our way to Lake Garda.
I have a choice of ways to go and decide to drive via Brussels and Luxembourg to our overnight hotel in Saarbrucken. The alternative is through France via Reims and Metz but will come home that way.
It should take a couple of hours to the service area immediately north of Brussels but we are delayed for half an hour due to an accident on the motorway.
As we near the holdup we can see lots of flashing lights and a mobile crane with its arm high in the air. The closer we get we can see why a crane was needed as the vehicle involved is a modern coach, a Setra, and it has obviously fallen on its right hand side. As well as the expected dents all of the right hand side windows are out and it is a bit of a mess. This is the first time I have seen anything like this and I only hope he was empty when it happened. It was a Belgian coach so there is every chance there were no passengers involved.
I am a good boy at lunch and stick to a salad which is lovely but probably sounds a little farfetched as I normally am a salad dodger!
We have another stop for 20 minutes in Luxembourg before the final hour of our journey to the Mercure Saarbrucken Sud.
I haven’t stayed here before but it turns out to be an ideal overnight hotel with its proximity to the motorway, good rooms, coach parking on site and a small buffet dinner.
It is also very interesting history wise as the hotel is built on the site of a former women’s concentration camp with the men’s close by.
This will be Hollies first night away on her own without sharing a room with anyone else.
Probably sounds silly to you but I find it exciting for her and am pleased she is here as she has done a grand job today.