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The factory tour was conducted by a charming young lady named Julie, a college student majoring in engineering design. Julie provided us lots of “behind the scenes” information as well as explaining the assembly line stations. We had a very nice lunch in the Porsche Restaurant. We skipped the Porsche Museum as we had several hours to drive to our rst destination and did not want to be on the road after dark.
Porsche provided us with a TomTom navigation system and I would not recommend driving in Europe without it. The unit was easy to use, directions were clear and fast, and it always got us to the correct destination even though, at times, we refused to believe it. More on this later.
Our rst stop was the Hotel am Triller in Saarbrucken. This was a quirky little hotel built on a hill side and had underground parking although the spaces were pretty narrow. The hotel had a nice restaurant and the food was excellent. WIFI was great, so we were able to get our Internet x.
The next morning we were on the autobahn cruising toward Bastogne, when we ran into a sea of red taillights only to discover the road was closed. We followed most of the traf c while “Tom” kept up a constant chatter of “make the rst legal U-turn”. After about 20 minutes of narrow roads and beautiful scenery, we decided this was not an effective strategy and pulled
over to reset “Tom”. He nally realized where he was and got us back on track to Bastogne. We took in two WWII museums which were very well done. At one museum, the locals were pre- paring a bandstand draped in American ags for a “Glen Miller” concert. The town is still very appreciative of the American sacri ces during the Battle of the Bulge. The American War Memorial there is very impressive and certainly worth a look. We camped in the Hotel Melba for the night. The hotel provided free off street parking, superb rooms and excellent food. Our waitress did not speak English but the “point at the item on the menu method” worked well.
Bastogne War Memorial
We left Bastogne, cut through France, crossed the Rhine, and were back in Germany. Our next stop was in Staufen. Our hotel was located inside a pedestrian only area but hotel guests are permitted to drive to the hotel. Well, “Tom” refused to navigate through the pedestrian area and took us through several narrow, winding streets before we saw the hotel. There was parking behind the hotel, but the driveway was narrow and curvy with brick walls on both sides. We chose a close by public parking area instead. All this driving frustration was erased by a big slice of Black Forest Cake and tea at a local bakery. Our hotel, the Die Krone, was super quiet and we rested well. The next day we were off to see a clock museum in Furtzenwagen. The museum was interesting, but not as interesting
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