LOH's mini (2013 JCW-GP) adventure
Discussion
so, leaving verbier to monaco.
essentially verbier is up a road that leads away from the main road that leads form switzerland to italy so in order to get back we just needed to head back down the road we'd traveled up before joining the main route.
the main road winds its way up the valley towards the grand st bernard tunnel or pass, obviously we were going to take the pass! it's not such a long one but strangely the road on the swiss side is pretty pot holed & generally a bit ropey & as we were ascending on this side we didn't really get to drive the best way-no tail out power slides on the hairpin side in a mini! strange as the swiss normally have everything perfect, i wonder if the swiss look after the tunnel & the italians the pass?
anyway, up at the top there is the monastery & the italian border, along with the breading kennels for the st bernards dogs.
the italian side of the road in a marked difference to the other side is much more open & smoother with plenty of fast bends & not too many hairpins, we got behind an italian registered old punto that was burning plenty of oil but obviously not wanting to put too much wear on his brake pads as he was really giving it some on the way down!
we also passed a rather jazzy mini convertible at the top & he obviously wanted in on the fun as he made great effort to catch us up & tag along!
getting to the bottom you approach the town of aosta where you join the motorway proper. we probably should have stopped for lunch here but as we'd pigged out for breakfast for the lodge & as they'd very kindly packed a full picnic for the journey for us we carried on to the A5.
it's a strange old experience as you drop that much altitude on a motorway for such a long distance, there were long periods of pretty much free wheeling at 80+mph & the speed of the trucks had to be seen to be believed! very picturesque though & we pulled over about half way down to a rest area nestled in the green valleys for our picnic lunch
once you get down to turin the roads become more general european autoroute & we were just happy to chug along. just past turin the rain came 7 with the khumo track tyres looking very bare we were happy plodding along at 60-70mph in case we came across any standing water, though to be fair they were fine & didn't cause any problems.
there were a few diffeernt options on which way to drop into the med but we eventually just settled on following the ss28 that had us climbing through some wonderful italian countryside with sleepy little villages & towns, you couldn't help but think there must have been some great pizzas & pastas on offer round these parts!
coming down (eventually) into imperia it was a strange feeling to see the mediterranean. we'd left verbier in weather warm enough to sunbathe & it was above 80 when we stopped for lunch but on seeing the sea we wound the windows down to take in the "holiday" air.
this stretch of the coast is beautiful & pretty much exactly as you'd imagine with palm tree lined roads & mediterranean styled mansions with stuccoed walls & red tiled roofs. rather than take the toll road motorway we decided to take the SS1 that followed the coast & wound its way through all the lovely seaside towns to take it all in. we'd made good time from that morning so an extra hour or so wouldn't make much difference-a decision that we questioned while stuck in traffic in san remo!
(Bad parking thread?!)
e
veryone always says you never realise just quite how small monaco is until you get there & it must be said it's pretty small! after a full day of driving through countryside, hills & valleys it was quite a culture shock rolling into such a busy, populated place.
to put things into perspective up our way when someone has a 911 it's a major talking point & if an old ferrari 360 is seen driving through town everyone knows about it, dropping into monaco & literally seeing supercar after supercar is a bit of a sensory overload though the pointing out tends to stop pretty quickly after you've seen your tenth ferrari in a few minutes!
we pulled up outside the front of the novotel, unloaded the bags & left the valet to park the car in the huge underground car park that the hotel sits on top of. having used novotels so much over the last few years we immediately felt at home-helped by the bottle of champage they'd put in our room
unpacked & showered we went for a wander to see what all the fuss was about.......
essentially verbier is up a road that leads away from the main road that leads form switzerland to italy so in order to get back we just needed to head back down the road we'd traveled up before joining the main route.
the main road winds its way up the valley towards the grand st bernard tunnel or pass, obviously we were going to take the pass! it's not such a long one but strangely the road on the swiss side is pretty pot holed & generally a bit ropey & as we were ascending on this side we didn't really get to drive the best way-no tail out power slides on the hairpin side in a mini! strange as the swiss normally have everything perfect, i wonder if the swiss look after the tunnel & the italians the pass?
anyway, up at the top there is the monastery & the italian border, along with the breading kennels for the st bernards dogs.
the italian side of the road in a marked difference to the other side is much more open & smoother with plenty of fast bends & not too many hairpins, we got behind an italian registered old punto that was burning plenty of oil but obviously not wanting to put too much wear on his brake pads as he was really giving it some on the way down!
we also passed a rather jazzy mini convertible at the top & he obviously wanted in on the fun as he made great effort to catch us up & tag along!
getting to the bottom you approach the town of aosta where you join the motorway proper. we probably should have stopped for lunch here but as we'd pigged out for breakfast for the lodge & as they'd very kindly packed a full picnic for the journey for us we carried on to the A5.
it's a strange old experience as you drop that much altitude on a motorway for such a long distance, there were long periods of pretty much free wheeling at 80+mph & the speed of the trucks had to be seen to be believed! very picturesque though & we pulled over about half way down to a rest area nestled in the green valleys for our picnic lunch
once you get down to turin the roads become more general european autoroute & we were just happy to chug along. just past turin the rain came 7 with the khumo track tyres looking very bare we were happy plodding along at 60-70mph in case we came across any standing water, though to be fair they were fine & didn't cause any problems.
there were a few diffeernt options on which way to drop into the med but we eventually just settled on following the ss28 that had us climbing through some wonderful italian countryside with sleepy little villages & towns, you couldn't help but think there must have been some great pizzas & pastas on offer round these parts!
coming down (eventually) into imperia it was a strange feeling to see the mediterranean. we'd left verbier in weather warm enough to sunbathe & it was above 80 when we stopped for lunch but on seeing the sea we wound the windows down to take in the "holiday" air.
this stretch of the coast is beautiful & pretty much exactly as you'd imagine with palm tree lined roads & mediterranean styled mansions with stuccoed walls & red tiled roofs. rather than take the toll road motorway we decided to take the SS1 that followed the coast & wound its way through all the lovely seaside towns to take it all in. we'd made good time from that morning so an extra hour or so wouldn't make much difference-a decision that we questioned while stuck in traffic in san remo!
(Bad parking thread?!)
e
veryone always says you never realise just quite how small monaco is until you get there & it must be said it's pretty small! after a full day of driving through countryside, hills & valleys it was quite a culture shock rolling into such a busy, populated place.
to put things into perspective up our way when someone has a 911 it's a major talking point & if an old ferrari 360 is seen driving through town everyone knows about it, dropping into monaco & literally seeing supercar after supercar is a bit of a sensory overload though the pointing out tends to stop pretty quickly after you've seen your tenth ferrari in a few minutes!
we pulled up outside the front of the novotel, unloaded the bags & left the valet to park the car in the huge underground car park that the hotel sits on top of. having used novotels so much over the last few years we immediately felt at home-helped by the bottle of champage they'd put in our room
unpacked & showered we went for a wander to see what all the fuss was about.......
ManaghGB said:
David87 said:
Well, this thread has just helped sell another JCW GP. Mine arrives next week. 
I've never been a fan of MINI's but I REALLY want a GP2 just because of reading this thread!
Sorry for the slowness of updates on the rest of the trip, I'd love to use the excuse of being newlyweds but unfortunately it's down to being snowed under at work. If I get time I'll get the next leg written up this Sunday during the F1.
Brilliant read!
I still can't make my mind up on the car though. Does the GP version share many of the faults of the 'normal' R56? I commonly hear horror stories about their reliability. I was very close to purchasing an R53 S earlier this year, and the GP version of that variant is definitely on my 'possible next car' list
I recently did an abridged version of your road trip wedding thingy. We road tripped through Brugge & Strasbourg on our way to Southern Germany to get wed. As you mention, Brugge is quite spectacular. Strasbourg at night was also pretty awesome. We went in a convoy of 182's:
I'm looking forward to further updates,
Andy
I still can't make my mind up on the car though. Does the GP version share many of the faults of the 'normal' R56? I commonly hear horror stories about their reliability. I was very close to purchasing an R53 S earlier this year, and the GP version of that variant is definitely on my 'possible next car' list
I recently did an abridged version of your road trip wedding thingy. We road tripped through Brugge & Strasbourg on our way to Southern Germany to get wed. As you mention, Brugge is quite spectacular. Strasbourg at night was also pretty awesome. We went in a convoy of 182's:
I'm looking forward to further updates,
Andy
^^^good trip, congratulations!
2011 minis onwards don't have the timing chain issues I believe so I should be ok & the GP apparently has a newer version of the engine that is now being fitted to all John cooper works.
I may have mentioned it previously but a couple of GPforum owners have had theirs on rolling roads & they're putting out much higher bhp figures than mini claim (if you trust the dyno) so whether the GP has a few tricks installed on the software side I don't know but it is an update from the 2012 model year engine.
2011 minis onwards don't have the timing chain issues I believe so I should be ok & the GP apparently has a newer version of the engine that is now being fitted to all John cooper works.
I may have mentioned it previously but a couple of GPforum owners have had theirs on rolling roads & they're putting out much higher bhp figures than mini claim (if you trust the dyno) so whether the GP has a few tricks installed on the software side I don't know but it is an update from the 2012 model year engine.
Yes, the GP uses the N18 engine as opposed to the earlier N14 variant in older Cooper S and JCW models. The easiest way to tell if your MINI has the N14 or N18 is to see if start / stop is fitted.
LOH, out of interest, what sort of power figures have folk been getting on the dyno? I remember back when the R56 Cooper S was launched, these too were producing way above what they were supposed to - indeed, my Wife's N18-engined R56 Cooper S feels rather stronger than the claimed 181bhp.
LOH, out of interest, what sort of power figures have folk been getting on the dyno? I remember back when the R56 Cooper S was launched, these too were producing way above what they were supposed to - indeed, my Wife's N18-engined R56 Cooper S feels rather stronger than the claimed 181bhp.
230 odd to 240 odd bhp against a quoted output of 217ps I think?
To be fair I'm never really that confident of rolling road figures but a 20% difference is a fair old hike so perhaps there is something to it. The thing to remember is it was pretty clear that it was a bit faster than the r26.r when we lapped together despite the renaults huge torque advantage.
To be fair I'm never really that confident of rolling road figures but a 20% difference is a fair old hike so perhaps there is something to it. The thing to remember is it was pretty clear that it was a bit faster than the r26.r when we lapped together despite the renaults huge torque advantage.
Apologies for the glacial progress on the thread again, just been very busy but if anyone's still interested here we go.....
So Monte Carlo, some place!
We arrived early evening & even after the fantastic weather we'd had in the alps it was something of a shock to walk out into the Mediterranean heat, a nice shock mind you!
We stayed in the Novotel, I've probably mentioned we stayed in a few of these as they always seem to have on site parking & you know what you're getting with them. The hotel offered valet parking so after unloading the car we gave the keys over to the guy & got settles in (more on this later).
It's such a small place that it's fairly easy to get your bearings & the Novotel is situated quite a way up the hill above the casino, for those of you who haven't been if you picture the f1 track it starts down above the harbour, one level uniform where the boats dock on the same level as the swimming pool. It then follows the harbour along & to the right (the first corner/pit exit) then up the hill to casino square where all the really (think of it as relative!) expensive hotels & shops are before dropping back down to the lowes hairpin, the tunnel & then dropping back to harbour level.
So below our hotel is the casino, then below that is the harbour-got it? Dead simple, plus it means you instinctively get a feel for the place & can find your way around really easily.
Due to trying to follow the sat nav & find the hotel we didn't pay too much attention to our surroundings but as soon as you're out & about you start to really appreciate you're surroundings. First nice car I saw, a Ferrari GTO growling about the place set the tone. Amazingly, being a car nut you actually start to become immune to them as they are simply everywhere.
We had a look around & then went down to the harbour & enjoyed a few drinks, surprisingly enjoying them as they were really cheap! We didn't know what to expect but for a large beer & a wine you're looking at around €6 for the pair. The bars down thee are really nice with most having a few singers performing, nice food & some simply awesome vistas for people/car/boat watching.
We settled on one open air restaurant where the staff were great & the pizzas even better, price including drinks & tips was under €60 so it really isn't all that expensive, then we headed off to the Brasserie De Monaco next door where they brew their own beers & sampled a few of those too!
We had a couple of days down in the principality & although not the cheapest (& by a massive margin not the most expensive!) our hotel was great as it was central, reasonably priced with parking & most importantly a pool to lounge around! There's only so much chilling you can do mind you with the noises going on around you all the time.
Honestly, Monaco is a millionaire boy racers paradise! These blokes are something else & the reason why valet parking is so important out here. The general itinerary is to pick your car up, rev it full blast from traffic light to traffic jam while trying to impress some birds who don't really need to be impressed if you know what I mean!
(We unfortunately just missed the girl to the left falling up the stairs on camera!)
Our second night we took this all in by spending some time around the casino square, enjoying a drink at the historic tip top bar (next to a couple of hookers it turned out), before eating at the cafe de paris-nice place as it goes.
It is all very glamorous but to be honest not really for us what with the hookers & curb crawlers who are out to pick them up, we much preferred the harbour end.
There are some bloody lovely shops mind you & we managed to look like we belonged in one as the other half got a nice reception in mui mui when she was wearing her matching shoes & bag-everywhere else we felt like plebs! I spotted a lovely watch in the window of a jewellers so we went in for a look, the Dorris inside was most helpful fetching it over & making a big song & dance about it all. Now, I'm not a huge watch guy but we both have what we consider to be nice ones so I was a little shocked when she proceeded to tell me this one was €23k!
I tried to act cool trigger but I think I failed!
(This was for sale for only €3800 & we [she!] really wanted to take it home! it was minter than mint but might have proved a slow journey all the way back via Bruges!)
Anyway, we had a great few days & on our last night we collected the car & did a few laps of the track, well you would wouldn't you?! Nice to see the grime covered little mini getting quite a few photos taken as well
(Parked in the next bay to ours under the Novotel
)
The next step of the journey was basically a lost day & was the only bit of the journey we hadn't pre booked & sorted out. Essentially, doing Monaco was a bit of a step too far but we would have regretted not doing it on our honeymoon so we did it & resigned ourselves to having one day where we needed to do the long slog. On the last night we felt pretty comfortable about the whole thing so looking on the iPad we picked a decent looking hotel, somewhere around Reims safe in the knowledge that it was easily doable & fairly comfortable on the autoroutes. The tyres were shot but we'd leave out the twists & turns of the route napolean & we didn't need to arrive in Bruges until the next day after.
What could possibly go wrong
So Monte Carlo, some place!
We arrived early evening & even after the fantastic weather we'd had in the alps it was something of a shock to walk out into the Mediterranean heat, a nice shock mind you!
We stayed in the Novotel, I've probably mentioned we stayed in a few of these as they always seem to have on site parking & you know what you're getting with them. The hotel offered valet parking so after unloading the car we gave the keys over to the guy & got settles in (more on this later).
It's such a small place that it's fairly easy to get your bearings & the Novotel is situated quite a way up the hill above the casino, for those of you who haven't been if you picture the f1 track it starts down above the harbour, one level uniform where the boats dock on the same level as the swimming pool. It then follows the harbour along & to the right (the first corner/pit exit) then up the hill to casino square where all the really (think of it as relative!) expensive hotels & shops are before dropping back down to the lowes hairpin, the tunnel & then dropping back to harbour level.
So below our hotel is the casino, then below that is the harbour-got it? Dead simple, plus it means you instinctively get a feel for the place & can find your way around really easily.
Due to trying to follow the sat nav & find the hotel we didn't pay too much attention to our surroundings but as soon as you're out & about you start to really appreciate you're surroundings. First nice car I saw, a Ferrari GTO growling about the place set the tone. Amazingly, being a car nut you actually start to become immune to them as they are simply everywhere.
We had a look around & then went down to the harbour & enjoyed a few drinks, surprisingly enjoying them as they were really cheap! We didn't know what to expect but for a large beer & a wine you're looking at around €6 for the pair. The bars down thee are really nice with most having a few singers performing, nice food & some simply awesome vistas for people/car/boat watching.
We settled on one open air restaurant where the staff were great & the pizzas even better, price including drinks & tips was under €60 so it really isn't all that expensive, then we headed off to the Brasserie De Monaco next door where they brew their own beers & sampled a few of those too!
We had a couple of days down in the principality & although not the cheapest (& by a massive margin not the most expensive!) our hotel was great as it was central, reasonably priced with parking & most importantly a pool to lounge around! There's only so much chilling you can do mind you with the noises going on around you all the time.
Honestly, Monaco is a millionaire boy racers paradise! These blokes are something else & the reason why valet parking is so important out here. The general itinerary is to pick your car up, rev it full blast from traffic light to traffic jam while trying to impress some birds who don't really need to be impressed if you know what I mean!
(We unfortunately just missed the girl to the left falling up the stairs on camera!)
Our second night we took this all in by spending some time around the casino square, enjoying a drink at the historic tip top bar (next to a couple of hookers it turned out), before eating at the cafe de paris-nice place as it goes.
It is all very glamorous but to be honest not really for us what with the hookers & curb crawlers who are out to pick them up, we much preferred the harbour end.
There are some bloody lovely shops mind you & we managed to look like we belonged in one as the other half got a nice reception in mui mui when she was wearing her matching shoes & bag-everywhere else we felt like plebs! I spotted a lovely watch in the window of a jewellers so we went in for a look, the Dorris inside was most helpful fetching it over & making a big song & dance about it all. Now, I'm not a huge watch guy but we both have what we consider to be nice ones so I was a little shocked when she proceeded to tell me this one was €23k!
I tried to act cool trigger but I think I failed!
(This was for sale for only €3800 & we [she!] really wanted to take it home! it was minter than mint but might have proved a slow journey all the way back via Bruges!)
Anyway, we had a great few days & on our last night we collected the car & did a few laps of the track, well you would wouldn't you?! Nice to see the grime covered little mini getting quite a few photos taken as well
(Parked in the next bay to ours under the Novotel
)The next step of the journey was basically a lost day & was the only bit of the journey we hadn't pre booked & sorted out. Essentially, doing Monaco was a bit of a step too far but we would have regretted not doing it on our honeymoon so we did it & resigned ourselves to having one day where we needed to do the long slog. On the last night we felt pretty comfortable about the whole thing so looking on the iPad we picked a decent looking hotel, somewhere around Reims safe in the knowledge that it was easily doable & fairly comfortable on the autoroutes. The tyres were shot but we'd leave out the twists & turns of the route napolean & we didn't need to arrive in Bruges until the next day after.
What could possibly go wrong
Fantastic write up LOH!
I've spent a lot of time in Verbier. Even though it has been slightly ruined with all the money that has flowed in there over the last 5+ years it is still my favourite mountain resort bar none.
I actually stayed at The Lodge before Branson bought it - looks even more amazing now !
I've spent a lot of time in Verbier. Even though it has been slightly ruined with all the money that has flowed in there over the last 5+ years it is still my favourite mountain resort bar none.
I actually stayed at The Lodge before Branson bought it - looks even more amazing now !
guysso, what could possibly go wrong
two words, the french
ok, i'm not totally against them & when you're travelling through europe you generally have to encounter them at some point so you should just accept they are the way they are & roll with it, & to be fair we alsways do-many a time have we had fun at le mans or paris or whatever......
so, we booked a room for the saturday night in a place called channon et champagne-sounds nice eh? just this side of reims & a fair ol' chunk of the journey done which would get us to brugges for the sunday.
looking at the tyres i'd already conceded that we were pushing our luck but they were holding out, just! diplomatically i figured we'd stick to the autoroute & leave the route napolean for another time so we didn't completely destroy what little tread we had left, they day dawned a beautiful mediterrean blue sky & away we went on the route de soliel.
big mistake! i'm not sure when the french holidays begin or end but i have my suspicions that it's some time around the 3rd weekend in august! every bloody toll booth had a huge tailback before it & in some cases after as cars tried to filter in. the stunning scenery & 90 odd degree heat did little to lift the spirits.
fair play to the little mini though it took it all in its stride, never gave any issues (though with the lack of info dials the first we would know of high temperatures would be a wisp of steam or a puddle of oil!) & was totally comfortable, gaining some admiring glances from the other cars in the traffic.
our sat nav predicted reaching our destination by around 5 pm but this just kept slipping back until we eventually reached our destination at around 8:30pm. to be honest i can drive all day without it stressing me out but the other half had had enough by the point!
now, PH don't allow naming & shaming so all i'll say is if you ever stay in this town (i wouldn't advise it) then check out the trip adviser reviews-you might see ours! the hotel was down a crummy street in a pretty crummy looking town & when we found it i thought it was boarded up!
we'd booked via booking.com & emailed ahead to say we would be arriving late & could we have a table at the restaurant, needless to say the restaurant was shut. first sign of trouble was the insistence of the reception to pay the bill in full before seeing the room, & oh what a room!
now, i'm a fairly down to earth kind of chap, but what a dump! cracked ceilings, flaking wallpaper, a proper avocado 70's period bathroom & a stench that brought flooding back student dorms of youth, lovely!
to be fair to the other half, she said we were only sleeping there & we might as well just get into town & have some food & leave first thing in the morning.
there was a small italian at the end of the street but we decided to take a look around the town to see what was on offer, which turned out to be the sum total of f
k all apart from two locals pubs that didn't look the most inviting.we wandered back to the small italian to see if they had a table & i'm sure you can guess where this is heading, yes, they were fully booked.
seeing the funny side i just figured that was it, there was no way i was stopping in this dump. we went back to the hotel where they refused to give us our money back so off we went, i programmed in brugges & we got an eta of 1:30am.
now, i didn't expect to go all the way there but at least we'd be heading in the right direction & we could stop at anywhere we saw on the way.
by around 11pm the other half was starting to get a little bit worried! we'd been flashed by a speed camera but we managed to pass two further police cars in slowish traffic but there was a distinct lack of motels, for some reason the offer to kip in the car wasn't met with the care free attitude i'd come to expect
i rang our hotel in brugge only to be told they had no spare rooms for us, they were very apologetic but there was a festival on that weekend & the whole town was booked out-no point going all the way then.
just as i was starting to wonder we flew past a town just south of lille that literally had half a dozen hotels all grouped together on an industrial estate, bingo! we pulled off at the next junction & tracked a local road back to find a load of neon lit motels clustered around a car wash & roundabout-who says i can't do classy on my honeymoon?!
we picked the least dodgy looking one (there was a fully loaded family car to park next to-who'd break into ours with that bounty on show?!) & were met by the very helpful night attendant & security guard who showed us all the options for the night-35 euros for a couple or 37.50 for a twin. put your card in the machine which then gives you an invoice with a code that's used for your keypad front door.
let's just say i think it was the type of place most people used by the hour
anyway, it was clean, had a shower & a tv & we got our heads down-i won't say it was the best nights sleep i'd ever had as the mini was under our bedroom window & any voices i heard (mostly drunken btw) i assumed were sizing up which car to rob, & which to merely break into.
honestly, the next day i don't know why i was bothered. you wouldn't want to spend a week there but everything was fine & the staff more than pleasant. we showered & were on our way with just over an hours journey to brugges & our final stop of the trip
even typing this out i can't get pissed off about the crappy hotel, it was funny more than anything & in the end it helped us to get the bulk of the huge journey from monaco to brugges done in one hit.
man maths helps as always (well this is PH) & i figured that although we lost £75 on the dump hotel plus spent £35 on the motel we were only down £110-ish. now, if the crappy hotel had been less crappy & the restaurants in that town half decent we would have spent way more on food & wine so i reckoned that made us quids in!
as we arrived in brugges the grey overcast sky cleared & the sun broke out, the streets were full of tourists for that evenings finale of the festival of the canals & i decreed a slap up lunch was the order of the day seeing as we'd saved so much by being ripped off the night before
(ps, no pics from these days as we couldn't be arsed!)
The end is nigh!
So after the nightmare of the day before we were pretty glad to be getting into Bruges. As mentioned by the hotel concierge the night before there was a festival going on in town & although the hotel had let us know about it there seemed to be very little we could find out apart from that it was some celebration of Bruges history. We tried getting some tickets but seeing as the website was in Flemish we didn't have a scooby but the hotel sorted us some out so it was all good.
The idea was that certain streets would be closed off to traffic during the days of the festival so that individual streets could have their own part of the celebration which of course meant that navigating the medieval town was even more interesting than normal! To be fair, they're pretty car friendly for such an historic place & I only had to get out & move two barriers to the bemusement of onlookers & drive down one pedestrianised street to get to the underground car park
As declared, a slap up lunch was ordered to get over the disappointment of the previous nights excursions washed down with one of the many individual breweries ales to get the mood set.
I know I've mentioned Bruges before on this write up but it's such a fantastic place, if you want some serious browny points get the misses over there-she'll absolutely love it. Not only that, as with the last trip it makes a handy stop off for anywhere else in Europe you might have been, such as the nurburgring perhaps! So if your other half doesn't fancy going over to Germany you can bribe her with stay in the most romantic town this side of Venice, with the added benefit of you getting to sample some of the finest Belgian beers (or chocolate) known to man
That evening, we found yet another hidden gem of a restaurant run by a couple of young lads who couldn't have been more accommodating. When they heard we were back in town to get some more of Bruges famous De Garre beer they insisted we try some of their own speciality of which they were equally proud, they even sent us off with a carry out to enjoy the festival with
Speaking of which, we had an absolutely fantastic night at! Essentially, there were various parts of the city cordoned off that your ticket got you access to, & at these locations were little shows that they put on.
The first, a celebration of Hollywood films that had featured Bruges as a location was really well done. Essentially they showed you on a large cinema screen people walking through that particular square in a film (in this case some Audrey Hepburn film about a nun
) & then had live actors replicating it in front of you, with people playing the director & film crew etc.
It all culminated in a big song & dance that the local schools obviously got involved in, all good craic.
The biggest set piece involved the huge tower in the central square that featured in the film "In Bruges", basically it used to be much taller but lightning hit it years ago & the top bit burned down. So with actors playing out the roles of people from a bygone era they struck it with lightning & set fire to the top of the tower, all using laser lighting, sound effects & lots of smoke-who doesn't like lasers?!
There were other things going on as well, shows that immersed you into worlds set hundreds of years ago & due to a combination of the ancient surroundings & the booze that we'd been given you really got into it & felt like you'd truly stepped back in time-I'd ally recommend it should you ever be over there in time for it.
(Dancing with flags must be their thing as they loved this)
Obviously as all this was going on they'd gone to town everywhere else with street vendors, musicians & the like all over the place putting an even better atmosphere than you normally get in a place so angled towards tourism.
We spent the last couple of days just taking everything in & enjoying the last of our honeymoon, with some superb food (plenty of muscles), loads of beer & the last of the summer sun-glorious stuff!
Getting the overnight ferry back to 'ull meant we were free on our last day to get all the shopping in that we could & doing the rounds of the supermarkets, stocking up on as much beer as the little mini could carry.
The car had been perfect for luggage space for the whole trip as with the lack of rear seats you (she) can take pretty much everything you'll ever need. We share a huge wheeled hold all that took up the space nearest the boot, then in front of that we have a largish soft bag that stores most of ancillaries-hair dryer (yes I know every hotel has one!), shoes, make up bags etc & that sits nicely to the rear side of the luggage bar so if we have to brake hard it all doesn't fly forward. In front of the luggage bar we each have a mini soft bag that they threw in with the car to carry our own little extra bits, plus maybe some wine & glasses or whatever. When we go for a quick overnight stay we'll just put whatever we need in these & leave everything else in the car.
Due to the tinted rear windows it needs to be pretty good light to see in but we also packed a travel rug (yes given by my parents) for picnics that we could drape over everything to keep it out of sight, but it's rare that we ever left the car full of all our stuff anywhere where we were either far from it or in a place that we didn't trust (like the motel we stopped at). In those cases the huge wheeled hold all is easy enough to move around, the squashy weekend bag sits on top of it & we then only have one other bag to carry each so we're very mobile.
This little lot pretty much (with the inclusion of a dirt bag for laundry) filled up the boot floor allowing a couple of jackets to be hung off the rear grab handles on top of the bags allowing, very neatly, the rest of the space to be packed full of Belgian beer!
From the centre of Bruges to the port of Zebrugge takes no more than 15mins (45 to Calais) so we packed up the car & had afternoon tea at the Hotel Orangé, before going for the boat.
It was nice that the staff remembered us from our outward journey, if you book a club cabin there's a couple of glasses of champagne to welcome you to the bar & after over two weeks of some of European finest foods & wines we both thoroughly enjoyed ordering fish & chips & a bottle of English White to wash it down with hell, you've even got all the British channels to watch on your cabin tv!
Settling in on board, I'm always reminded of why I so much prefer these driving holidays to a fly away. No crowding or crushing, your own cabin to take it easy in & a nice restaurant to sit & enjoy the last few hours before you head back to the hussle & bustle of normal life. We both knew that professionally, we were both heading into some really busy times (look how long it's taken to write this-nearly 2 months!) & it wasn't just the fact that this was our honeymoon that made it so special.
Our longest euro tour yet, with some simply jaw dropping scenery & roads taken in, never mind the amazing places we'd been & people we'd met. The little mini did us so proud, never once missed a beat, kept just enough tread on its tyres to keep us legal & returned unseen mpg for this type of trip-didn't even use a drop of oil.
With time spent away with an iPad & an internet connection you inevitably browse the classifieds but I simply can't think of a car that I would have preferred to have taken this trip in, certainly not any of my previous cars or ones I've considered buying. The closest I've thought might have been the lotus evora, but packing & unpacking the bags would have been a pain though they would have just fitted & on those mountain passes where we were dicing with motorbikes & squeezing past busses at full speed would probably resulted in at least a missing wing mirror if not worse!
There's something about the little GP, would I glance back at the evora after we'd parked it up a little more often? You'd have to say so, I certainly would if it was one of my old air cooled 911s but I can't imagine the other half would have been as comfortable with their antiquated ways-certainly on the route de soliel in 95 degree heat.
But the little mini is a funny little thing, it's just such great fun on the right type of roads
Do I glance back appreciatively every time I park it up, well not every time but I still do think it looks the nuts for a mini & it's nice to think that not everyone else does either in an underground car park as well-not all attention can be complementary in city environments unfortunately.
Your honeymoon should be your most memorable holiday right? Well ours was & for all the right reasons too. When we're old & grey it'll be fantastic to look back & reminisce about it, & to remember the mental little mini that we took along for the journey
So after the nightmare of the day before we were pretty glad to be getting into Bruges. As mentioned by the hotel concierge the night before there was a festival going on in town & although the hotel had let us know about it there seemed to be very little we could find out apart from that it was some celebration of Bruges history. We tried getting some tickets but seeing as the website was in Flemish we didn't have a scooby but the hotel sorted us some out so it was all good.
The idea was that certain streets would be closed off to traffic during the days of the festival so that individual streets could have their own part of the celebration which of course meant that navigating the medieval town was even more interesting than normal! To be fair, they're pretty car friendly for such an historic place & I only had to get out & move two barriers to the bemusement of onlookers & drive down one pedestrianised street to get to the underground car park
As declared, a slap up lunch was ordered to get over the disappointment of the previous nights excursions washed down with one of the many individual breweries ales to get the mood set.
I know I've mentioned Bruges before on this write up but it's such a fantastic place, if you want some serious browny points get the misses over there-she'll absolutely love it. Not only that, as with the last trip it makes a handy stop off for anywhere else in Europe you might have been, such as the nurburgring perhaps! So if your other half doesn't fancy going over to Germany you can bribe her with stay in the most romantic town this side of Venice, with the added benefit of you getting to sample some of the finest Belgian beers (or chocolate) known to man
That evening, we found yet another hidden gem of a restaurant run by a couple of young lads who couldn't have been more accommodating. When they heard we were back in town to get some more of Bruges famous De Garre beer they insisted we try some of their own speciality of which they were equally proud, they even sent us off with a carry out to enjoy the festival with
Speaking of which, we had an absolutely fantastic night at! Essentially, there were various parts of the city cordoned off that your ticket got you access to, & at these locations were little shows that they put on.
The first, a celebration of Hollywood films that had featured Bruges as a location was really well done. Essentially they showed you on a large cinema screen people walking through that particular square in a film (in this case some Audrey Hepburn film about a nun
) & then had live actors replicating it in front of you, with people playing the director & film crew etc. It all culminated in a big song & dance that the local schools obviously got involved in, all good craic.
The biggest set piece involved the huge tower in the central square that featured in the film "In Bruges", basically it used to be much taller but lightning hit it years ago & the top bit burned down. So with actors playing out the roles of people from a bygone era they struck it with lightning & set fire to the top of the tower, all using laser lighting, sound effects & lots of smoke-who doesn't like lasers?!
There were other things going on as well, shows that immersed you into worlds set hundreds of years ago & due to a combination of the ancient surroundings & the booze that we'd been given you really got into it & felt like you'd truly stepped back in time-I'd ally recommend it should you ever be over there in time for it.
(Dancing with flags must be their thing as they loved this)
Obviously as all this was going on they'd gone to town everywhere else with street vendors, musicians & the like all over the place putting an even better atmosphere than you normally get in a place so angled towards tourism.
We spent the last couple of days just taking everything in & enjoying the last of our honeymoon, with some superb food (plenty of muscles), loads of beer & the last of the summer sun-glorious stuff!
Getting the overnight ferry back to 'ull meant we were free on our last day to get all the shopping in that we could & doing the rounds of the supermarkets, stocking up on as much beer as the little mini could carry.
The car had been perfect for luggage space for the whole trip as with the lack of rear seats you (she) can take pretty much everything you'll ever need. We share a huge wheeled hold all that took up the space nearest the boot, then in front of that we have a largish soft bag that stores most of ancillaries-hair dryer (yes I know every hotel has one!), shoes, make up bags etc & that sits nicely to the rear side of the luggage bar so if we have to brake hard it all doesn't fly forward. In front of the luggage bar we each have a mini soft bag that they threw in with the car to carry our own little extra bits, plus maybe some wine & glasses or whatever. When we go for a quick overnight stay we'll just put whatever we need in these & leave everything else in the car.
Due to the tinted rear windows it needs to be pretty good light to see in but we also packed a travel rug (yes given by my parents) for picnics that we could drape over everything to keep it out of sight, but it's rare that we ever left the car full of all our stuff anywhere where we were either far from it or in a place that we didn't trust (like the motel we stopped at). In those cases the huge wheeled hold all is easy enough to move around, the squashy weekend bag sits on top of it & we then only have one other bag to carry each so we're very mobile.
This little lot pretty much (with the inclusion of a dirt bag for laundry) filled up the boot floor allowing a couple of jackets to be hung off the rear grab handles on top of the bags allowing, very neatly, the rest of the space to be packed full of Belgian beer!
From the centre of Bruges to the port of Zebrugge takes no more than 15mins (45 to Calais) so we packed up the car & had afternoon tea at the Hotel Orangé, before going for the boat.
It was nice that the staff remembered us from our outward journey, if you book a club cabin there's a couple of glasses of champagne to welcome you to the bar & after over two weeks of some of European finest foods & wines we both thoroughly enjoyed ordering fish & chips & a bottle of English White to wash it down with
hell, you've even got all the British channels to watch on your cabin tv!Settling in on board, I'm always reminded of why I so much prefer these driving holidays to a fly away. No crowding or crushing, your own cabin to take it easy in & a nice restaurant to sit & enjoy the last few hours before you head back to the hussle & bustle of normal life. We both knew that professionally, we were both heading into some really busy times (look how long it's taken to write this-nearly 2 months!) & it wasn't just the fact that this was our honeymoon that made it so special.
Our longest euro tour yet, with some simply jaw dropping scenery & roads taken in, never mind the amazing places we'd been & people we'd met. The little mini did us so proud, never once missed a beat, kept just enough tread on its tyres to keep us legal & returned unseen mpg for this type of trip-didn't even use a drop of oil.
With time spent away with an iPad & an internet connection you inevitably browse the classifieds but I simply can't think of a car that I would have preferred to have taken this trip in, certainly not any of my previous cars or ones I've considered buying. The closest I've thought might have been the lotus evora, but packing & unpacking the bags would have been a pain though they would have just fitted & on those mountain passes where we were dicing with motorbikes & squeezing past busses at full speed would probably resulted in at least a missing wing mirror if not worse!
There's something about the little GP, would I glance back at the evora after we'd parked it up a little more often? You'd have to say so, I certainly would if it was one of my old air cooled 911s but I can't imagine the other half would have been as comfortable with their antiquated ways-certainly on the route de soliel in 95 degree heat.
But the little mini is a funny little thing, it's just such great fun on the right type of roads
Do I glance back appreciatively every time I park it up, well not every time but I still do think it looks the nuts for a mini & it's nice to think that not everyone else does either in an underground car park as well-not all attention can be complementary in city environments unfortunately.Your honeymoon should be your most memorable holiday right? Well ours was & for all the right reasons too. When we're old & grey it'll be fantastic to look back & reminisce about it, & to remember the mental little mini that we took along for the journey
clarkmagpie said:
Great read and some terrific photos!
Sounds a heck of a good road trip.
Would love to do similar but 17mpg rules that out!
Congrats on the wedding too.
Cheers mate, us 17mpg all you'll get out of the TVR?!Sounds a heck of a good road trip.
Would love to do similar but 17mpg rules that out!
Congrats on the wedding too.
I've actually kept all the receipts for this trip so I can list up exactly how much it cost if anyone's interested? I might not want to dwell in that mind you.......
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