IHWC 2014 Italy Here We Come - Day 1 report

Ok, I will make a start about the trip I made with the 400 to Italy. I will write a retrospective blog for each day. This year we kicked of a little later than usual. Reason being is that we wanted to drive over the famous Stelvio Pass. On Tuesday 10th of June I drove away around 6 o'clock in the morning. The mileage on my odometer when leaving was 1048 km. And of course it was heavily raining. I was glad I had my new window wipers sorted. Just before 7 I arrived at the gas station nearby the German border. By then it stopped raining.

 

We all arrived around the same time, so we could do the ritual of adding the stickers on the car and got the routebook hand outs. Including a small coffee break. And leaving around 7:30

 

My co-driver Peter drove along with the others and at this point he moved over to my car. Good to have a huge boot to put all the Luggage in.

 

Not much later we stranded in a huge traffic Jam. Not sure what happened but the entire Ruhrgebiet was locked up. I think we did spend at least 2 hours in traffic jams and driving alternative routes via TomTom (without little or no luck). During the night there had been a huge storm, I suspect this must have been the cause. Near the roads there were lots of broken trees and such.

 

The German Autobahn was very crowded with lots of "Baustelle" (Road works) but we had good music on the radio:

 

 

During the ride I also spotted this AGIP truck. You can also witness on this video snapshot how busy it was.

 

 

 

Nearby the Austria border the roads got less crowded and we could do some proper cruising on the German Autobahn:

 

 

 

 

Due to the severe traffic jams and road works our driving route got messed up (and hugely delayed). We were suppose to meet up with Jos at Bregenz in Austria. Somehow we messed up or missed the right exit and took a different entry into Austria. As such we went via the Fernpass instead. Although it's a very nice route it was an unfortunate mishap. Especially since Jos made an effort to drive 3 hours with his 8.32 all the way from the Elsas - only to do a quick meet & greet (sick! - but appreciated). Again my apologies for missing you out! ...

 

 

 

In Austria we could fill up with cheap gas (1,44 Euro) compared with (1,73 Euro) in the Netherlands). Not much later we were already driving in Italy via the SS45 to our Hotel for the first overnight stay.

 

 

Arrival at the hotel around 7 o'clock in the evening.