Chapter 5 - Power nap required

We stopped at the next gas station in the heart of Germany, fortunately beside the station there was a pull-in area for picnicers to eat their saurkraut sarnies. I found a bench, groaned and lay down. Merciful half sleep/half wakefulness took me to it's bosom for a whole half hour of powernap bliss. Phil said my eyes resembled those of a tortured pig (image from a tortured mind Phil), they were red, aching and quite possibly porcine.

It was 1.00pm when I grabbed that welcome kip, I had been awake for thirty hours and we were about halfway.

We were all done in, so, armed with my map of Germany we decided to call it a day when we reached the southern town of Ulm (about three hours further down the line). We'd grab a Novotel or similar and get in there within daylight hours, book a room and get a good night's kip before booming onward into Austria and out the other side on our way to Italy and Mugello. That meant passing through Saarbrucken, Karlsruhe and Stuttgart.

We made it to Ulm around four o clock, sussed out a hotel and room with three beds, peeled our kit off to change into civvies and then went to the bar for some large beers.

We ended up having more beers, somehow sleep had been delayed by the speedy effects you can get from large quantities of lager.
As darkness fell we wondered around the picturesque town with it's bizarre baroque cathedral (the architect must have been at the forefront of flying buttress and christmas cake design). It was black with pollution, tall and made a magnificent silhouette . We ate heartily in an Italian restaurant and then retired to our hotel room it was about 11.30. We had all been up for about 40 hours with about half an hours sleep each and were three and a half countries away from home. Not a bad days work!!

It was fitful slumber for me, my brain wouldn't shut down, but Eddie was well away snoring like a badger with a heavy cold. Phil had also flaked and didn't appear peturbed by the snuffling close by.

We didn't emerge until 8am, had a leisurely breakfast and wandered around ULm for an hour or so. It was a nice little town with distinctive German architecture. Still, we weren't there to pansy around looking at the scenery, it was time to hit the road, we had Austria and half of Italy to conquer before the day was out.

We quit Ulm quite late, about 10.00am, gassed up and headed back to the autobahn and onward to the town of Landau. Even at warp speeds the countryside got steadily more pleasing to the eye. There was a patch of country dotted with pine wooded drumlin type hills with a smattering of mini Schloss's or keeps atop some of them, little rounded turrets poking through the tops of the trees. The roads themselves were fantastic, fast flowing, shaded, wide and smooth it wasn't long before we were sonic booming into Austria.The sound of 3,000cc worth of V-twin exiting through race pipes, booming down the highway must have been quite frightening for the ordinary populace and other drivers, we were carving everything up in close formation at well over the ton.