{"id":5736,"date":"2012-10-11T15:51:32","date_gmt":"2012-10-11T14:51:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ourtour.co.uk\/home\/?p=5736"},"modified":"2018-12-18T12:15:53","modified_gmt":"2018-12-18T12:15:53","slug":"agony-hockenheim-neckar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ourtour.co.uk\/home\/agony-hockenheim-neckar\/","title":{"rendered":"Agony, Hockenheim, Free Food, Nuclear Power and A Neckar Trundle"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dave the motorhome is in a lay bye alongside the A81 near HeilBronn (N51.722349, E8.747864). We pulled in here on our way to our friends in Stuttgart, to grab a bite to eat. As we pulled in we found a Polish lorry driver had, for some reason, decided to park in the slip road. Cars and lorries pulled in behind as we honked Dave’s timid horn a couple of times before the chap came running back to his lorry and parked it up. Weird.<\/p>\n

Ju woke at about 5am this morning in agony. Not funny agony. She half fell from the bed onto the floor, double-up in pain, hardly able to speak and tell me what was happening. She’d a sudden, intense, biting abdominal pain. It was so strong she was clearly close to passing out, mumbling about her face being numb. Fighting panic, I got the van heating on, covered her in a blanket and managed to get her symptoms into the NHS Direct website which said ‘go to A&E’. I translated ‘A&E’ into German and found the nearest hospital, all the time Ju was bent double on the floor. I considered dialling 112, calling German-speaking friends or just driving straight to hospital. In the end the pain slowly eased as Ju’s ever-the-lady body burped out a gut-full of pain inducing trapped gas – thank goodness it didn’t come out the other end! Funny, it wasn’t, we were both too shaken to sleep much after that. What caused it, we have no idea as we ate the same things, but it could have been a sudden increase in the amount of vegetables we’re eating, in an ironic effort to be more healthy.<\/p>\n

Finally getting on the road about 10am, 2 hours after we should have started paying for parking again (we’re getting a bit naughty in our 40s), we pointed Dave in the direction of the Neckar river. Our map showed a dotted line which means it’s a themed tourist route, one of the many which run across Germany. This one turned out to be\u00a0the start of the Burgenstrasse, the Castle Route, which flows across from here in south-west Germany all the way to Prague.<\/p>\n

Before finding our way to the Castle Route, a tempting sign popped up along the route: Hockenheim Race Track, a Formula 1 circuit. Neither of us are massive F1 fans, although Ju loved sleeping to the noise of the races when we used to have a telly. All the same, the track was only a few km away, we had to go have a look-see. Through chance we found our way to the road which leads to the pits, but were halted by a cowboy-hatted guard before we got in. Looking more the fan than the professional guard, he pointed us\u00a0back\u00a0along the road in the\u00a0direction\u00a0of the track museum. This turned out to be quite a small affair, packed with rows of gleaming old race bikes, but at \u20ac6 a pop (in my world that’s 12 pints of Lidl beer), we decided against it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Spot the massive bird of prey distracting me (fortunately not Ju) from the height barrier.<\/p><\/div>\n

An open gate leading up to the track gave us a good opportunity to leg it up for a look around, and a mini race circuit outside gave a good opportunity for a bit of fun; we expected to get shouted at for both but no-one bothered.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Hockenheim race circuit. All quiet today, except for a bus tootling round being photographed by a bloke squashed into the boot of a leading car.<\/p><\/div>\n