Friday 25 January 2002. Well, we've never done this before! We are setting off to have a holiday in Austria - in winter! Yes: January, cold, snow, rain, sleet, blizzards, ice, breath steaming in the freezing air - and that's just the early morning wait for the coach...
Friday is spent driving south down the motorways, occasionally nipping off sideways and picking up other freezing passengers, then rejoining the road south until we come to Dover, where we exchange the feeder coach for our main tour coach and get onto the ferry for the crossing to Calais.
Suitably garbed in hat - er... Miss Franny, has yours blown away in the wind? It's proper chilly on deck and as can be guessed from Miss Franny's hair - er... me, has yours blown away in the wind? - there's a howling gale blowing. Sod this for a lark, we're going below!
England slips away behind us, the rest of us just slip as the ferry rolls about. Only one thing to do at a time like this - eat! Never let a tilting floor put you off!
It's slightly foggy off the coast of England anyway and, as it's only January, it's inclined to go dark early still, so there's not a lot of scenery - not even as much as there usually is - in the middle of the English Channel!
By the time we come into Calais, it is getting dark. It's raining and very windy, especially when looking forward towards the port down the side of the ship. As soon as I stuck my head around from the shelter of the ship's structure the wind whipped tears into my eyes.
Then we were off and away towards Liege for the night. Our two drivers introduced themselves as George - a Geordie whose mobile phone played The Blaydon Races and Jock, a Scot whose phone alternated between Auld Lang Syne and Scotland the Brave! The last time we went to Austria we had two excellent drivers both with a great sense of humour, but these two were equally as good and had the whole coach in stitches throughout the holiday. The main journey down through Luxemburg and Germany to Austria would be tomorrow. Meanwhile the Belgian autobhans had a few surprises for us.
Fran and I were on the second row of seats - probably the best to have in a coach as there is not a lot of leg room on the front seats. Suddenly there was an intake of breath from Jock who was driving and a wheel - on its own - rolled across the roadway in front of us from right to left, coming from a looming exit slip road. Traffic slowed down apart from a BMW in the fast lane who simply drove smack into it at around 100 miles per hour. The tyre disappeared and the whole of his bonnet was stoved in. He slowed but I don't think he'd even realised what had happened. It took around 15 seconds for the tyre to come down - he must have knocked it straight up. Luckily it hit empty road and bounced away safely to the verge. The BMW pulled eventually onto the hard shoulder and we saw the damage to the front as we drove past. The photo was taken from our hotel room in Liege.
Saturday, 26 January 2002. After a night at the Post Hotel, Liege, we enjoyed a cooked breakfast. We sat opposite a couple of ladies who were both travelling alone. Sheila was from Whitby and Diane from Cardiff. We made friends and stayed together for meals and at times out on excursions throughout the week. We saw what seemed like a horrendous number of crashes on the way down to Austria, though thankfully only the afternaths and not the events like last night. Most were where cars or lorries had gone off to hit either the central barrier or went off the side of the road. We must have seen 10 such incidents during the day.
Eventually we arrive at the Mariasteinerhof hotel in the Austrian Tirol village of Mariastein. We sat with Sheila and Diane for a welcome meal but when waitresses started carrying it in at the far end of the room Fran said, "It looks like a pile of mash with a fried egg on top!" And indeed it was. Several guests started to complain, greatly upsetting the hotel manageress. Apparently it is considered a favourite dish in Austria and she had thought we would be appreciative of this. To be honest after two days travelling it did us very well! Sheila insisted on paying for a glass of wine for us all but could not make the waitress understand. I cut in with "für alle bitte," at which she (the waitress) said, "Ah!" and took the correct money. "That was impressive!" said Sheila, looking at me.
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