We started off today with another lovely breakfast in the dining room of the B&B Bombenger.  They have a very relaxed approach and lay out the seating between two tables, so today we were sharing a large table with two other couples, which made for some interesting conversations and gestures given the 3 different languages spoken.  After breakfast, we packed up our stuff and then re-packed the MR2, with the fact that we had to fit over a dozen bottles of wine into it (on top of the existing stockpile) ever present in our minds.  We worked together and filled every nook and cranny with our clothes and purchases, before setting off down the road into Eguisheim to collect our wine order from yesterday.

We parked outside of the wine makers and, after some joking and explaining where we’d put the wine once it had been brought up to the car, we were on our way with our loot.  We hadn’t realised that today was going to be a decent amount of mileage at over 250 miles, but we phoned ahead to the cottage that we were staying at to let them know a tentative time of arrival.

Once out onto the open roads and into Germany (it proved to be the quickest route, rather than going up through Luxembourg), we made good progress on the well surfaced roads.  There were quite a few sections of road works early on though.   After a while I noticed that we were on an Autobahn, and, after confirming with the lack of roads signs indicating a speed, the SAT Nav showing nothing as a maximum speed and the fact that the odd car was whipping past us at 100+ mph, we decided to stick with the speed of the traffic.  We maintained normal motorway speeds for most of the journey, but did nip up to 135mph on a short, quiet and straight section of the Autobahn.  It still felt strange even though it was 100% legal!

The smooth, fast, well surfaced roads carried on all the way north until we entered Belguim and then normal speed limits resumed.  We only had 15-20 miles to cover in Belgium and due to the Autobahns, plus a safe estimate time of arrival, we got to the cottage over an hour early.  However, Mrs Grollman was standing in the driveway just about to head out to do some shopping, so it was lucky timing!

We unloaded our things into the cottage and set off to get some shopping for the coming week from a local supermarket in Malmedy.  We did have a brief scare after they didn’t accept VISA cards, but we just about had enough cash to keep the locals waiting in the queue behind us happy.

We got back to the cottage and filled up the fridge and kitchen with our purchases before joining the Grollman’s for an aperitif that they’d so kindly invited us up for.  This turned out to be a nice platter of nibbles, including saucisson, tuna pate on toast, paprika crisps and some other nibbles, along with some sangria.  The conversation flowed and we soon found out that both Mr and Mrs Grollman were interesting people indeed.  They both spoke good English and were characterful people too.  Mr Grollman went inside to top up the sangria, but forgot the lemonade addition.  However, we muddled through the next jug with slightly fruity red wine instead! 🙂  After giving us a quick tour of their magnificent barn conversion house and explaining the local area and some other key features of their property, we headed back to our cottage, all but 10 yards away, to prepare tea.

I hadn’t found the right chance to treat myself to some escargot in France, so when I saw them in the supermarket today, I couldn’t resist.  We soon had the microwave oven working and just under a quarter of an hour later, my little snail friends were ready.  I enjoyed them outside with a glass of wine and then Lois brought out the mail meal, which was pasta in a tomato sauce that I’d prepared just before sorting out my snails! 🙂  It was nice to do some cooking after nearly 2 weeks of hotel room picnics and eating out, and a relief for Lois to eat something other than cheese!

We finished off dinner with some amaretto and left-over mille-feuille from the previous night.

After we’d finished eating, we started uploading the blogs from the previous 2 days and sorted through the photos from today.

So, here we are at our final destination…but, there is so much more to come.  We have the Nurburgring tomorrow and then, after a rest day plus a pit walk on Thursday, we have 3 full days of F1 racing!

We look forward to updating you tomorrow!

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