Stuttgart 18 May

Wednesday 18 May

Wake up, shower, pack, eat breakfast, and again we are on our way. 7 hours travel to Stuttgart. Through Italy, then Austria and in to Germany. What a lovely trip. Lots of vineyards, castles on high peaks, valleys, mountains. The sticky bit is Austria because the roads are not freeways.

In Austria we got stuck behind a tractor on a narrow windy road through the mountains so that took some time. The scenery was beautiful so we enjoyed that, till we got to a tunnel and when we got out we were in Germany and on the freeway. So from there to Stuttgart we raced along at incredible speeds. There is apparently no speed limit on the motor ways in Germany so people establish their own speed limit and honestly we were time and again astonished at the speed at which other cars overtook us. Dad managed to get his speed up to about 150 km per hour but cars still went whizzing past and disappeared into the distance before you hardly saw them. Over 200 km per hour!!?? Must have been!

Well we got to Stuttgart in good time and found Flair Das Apartment House in no time since it was just off the motorway. We had a lovely room, a bedroom for dad and mum and a living room with sofa bed for Will. The lady of the house was very friendly and accommodating and could not speak much English. Fortunately dad can speak some German and had no problem communicating with her. We had a lovely room with cooking facilities so we went to the shop just down the street and bought some food for dinner, and some beers!! 30 cents for a can of beer in the supermarket, and then we walked back to our room cooked dinner. We sampled the German beer and ate dinner. We then went for a walk. Once again it was light till quite late.