Today saw us leave Italy and head for Munich, Germany. I’d purchased postcards and stamps the day before but had not found a post box, if I didn’t spot one on the drive out of Italy the cards would be coming home in the van with me. Just as I’d given up hope Neil saw a red box and managed to pull over, I posted the cards hoping it was a post box and not a bin.

Remembering previous OBE tours and Alps crossings I was very nervous as we approached the huge mountains but as we hit the snow level I was pleasantly relieved it was not too bad. A few twists and turns with things flying round the van but no smelly brakes or clutch, I recommend The Brenner pass. A quick stop to purchase a Vignett so we could drive in Austria, then I yodelled my way through the whole country to the rest of the vans annoyance.

The plan of the day was to get to our stopover before 17:15 to watch the Grand National. As Austria was the last country where we’d get our free 3 internet we frantically placed bets before entering Germany. My bets turned out to be most successful with Saint Are coming 2nd 🏆🏇

Our initial plan was to stay at The Allianz Stadium in Munich where we had stayed before but due to a home football match we could not stay there so we went for plan B. Neil had seen on a forum that campervans are allowed to stay at the Olympic Stadium so we headed there, it was not our lucky day – the carpark was being used for a car boot sale/ Flea market and was full of gypsie types, it did not look safe. We turned round and headed out of the carpark, we wrongly assumed the man at the barrier would let us back out as all we had done was turn round but in the worst arrogant German, unpleasant and unfriendly manner he kept repeating no pay no entry. We tried to argue but after several minutes holding up the whole carpark I ended up relenting and paying to €20, most expensive turn around ever.

Now heading away from Munich at the worst possible moment our tuck nav decided to fail and a fatal error message appeared, not helpful. A quick on and off while Neil stressed to the max randomly drove through the busy city seemed to take a lifetime.  We pulled over and reached for the camperstop Europe book to desperately look for an alternative stopover not too far away as we had promised Gareth he could do an Allianz Stadium tour the next morning.

We found a basic looking stop only 10 minutes drive away but it was listed as only having 10 spaces, with no others any where near we set of hopeful.  As we drove along a quite suburban street on the outskirts of Munich the truckman suddenly announced we had reached our destination, the only thing we could see was a hotel with a narrow entrance, surely it was wrong. A quick spin round and a check of the book and we realised the stopover was the hotel. Neil was delegated to go in to ask if we could stay, he returned smiling and we pulled into the big carpark, the only campervan there.

After listening to The Grand National on the radio as we could not get channel 4 on the TV we went for a look around the small town. The town consisted mostly of hotels and a Chinese/ Mongolian all you could eat buffet, we would try them all. Lucy’s €8 buffet initially seemed a rip off as she only ate prawn crackers for her main meal but I’m pretty sure she got her monies worth when she discovered the jelly and other desserts. She chuckled like mad when the jelly ran out as she stood and sang 🎶 where’s my jelly gone🎶

Turned out to be a nice stopover.