Early on the Tuesday morning of our holiday we packed the car and set off for Germany. We were off to visit the mighty Nurburgring and Nordschliefe motor racing tracks. On the way we passed through Luxembourg and made two interesting discoveries:
a- diesel there has to probably by the cheapest in Northern Europe and
b- European petrol stations don't sell maps.
We have a sat nav but it didn't show the race track so we had to pretty much guess our route based on nearby towns. Thankfully as we got nearer the tracks were clearly signposted. My usual chorus of "don't worry DH, you cant get lost far in...." seemed to not be well received i.e. "don't worry you cant possibly get far lost in mainland Europe" being judged as somewhat unreasonably optimistic!
When we arrived at the Nurburgring we were very impressed by the exterior, evidently this has been recently re-developed...
The car park was full of Ferraris, Maseratis, Lambourghinis, Lotuses. our people carrier felt right at home :)
The entrance area was huge...
and contained lots of interesting things, such as one of Michael Schumacher's winning cars...
A teddy's racing car...
And a car for even smaller drivers...
There was a huge exhibition of Nissan cars, including Nismo's - this caused a little hilarity as although I do indeed drive a Nissan, it isn't quite like this one...
Have to admit I was drooling quite a bit over this beauty...
So far, all of this was completely free, but for the princely sum of two euros (less than a cup of coffee) one was afforded the opportunity to go into the Pit Straight grandstand to view the mighty Nurburgring F1 track- oh my....
What a treat for us motorsport fanatics...
We even got to see cars on the track as it was a racing school training day...
Had to take this as son #2 is mad on the German group Kraftwerk....and yes we had been singing "bah bah bah on the Autobahn" as we sped down the highly efficient German motorway on our way to the track!
The AMG Mercedes logo, the sound of the engines of these road cars is legendary....sigh...
Considering 2 euros to have been very sensibly spent, we bid our farewell to the Nurburgring F1 track and went in search of it's highly revered, and has to be said feared, elder ancestor, the Nordschliefe...
This was the old track, around 12 miles long, nicknamed "the Green Hell" by Jackie Stewart. It was also the place where Niki Lauda had his awful crash in 1976, depicted in the film "Rush". Many drivers lost their lives on this twisting, hilly, high speed track, and so it was decided that only the shorter track could be used for high speed races. But the Nordschliefe is still used for testing and for general uses to have a go!
Here you can see the track running alongside the highway...
We spent a good couple of hours parked beside the track, watched the testing then the general public "having a go" - even a brave little Smart car went round!
Such an amazing day - for all F1 and motorsport fans, Spa-Franchorchamps and Nurburbring are legendary places - how lucky was I to visit both within the space of a week!!
Really enjoyed our brief visit to Germany, a beautiful and friendly place. Here is the Nurburg castle on the hillside as we set course back to Belgium...
Back soon hopefully with further adventures in Europe!
Helenxx
