We managed to get away at 4.40am. Gerard thankfully had checked the route to Neuhof on the internet the night before we left. We tried putting it into our navigation system as we left home but this is when the trouble started.
Our navigation system decided that it was time to give up the ghost!!!! I was so busy trying to get the thing to work and Gerard was trying to help me, that he overshot the turn off to Neuhof. Now we found ourselves driving “forever” (it felt that way), before we could find a place to turnoff and drive back. Hubby was having serious case of sense of humour failure. At this point, we had warned the kids that any smart comments could result in severe injuries. They realized that something serious was up and were silent in the back of the car.
We got to the parking place in Neuhof with just minutes to spare!!! Nothing like an adrenalin rush and high blood pressure to start our holiday. We loaded our suitcases into the trailer and our little overnight case and toiletries into the bus luggage compartment.
We then set off for Fulda where the rest of our group got on.
Our bus was great, being a double decker Bistro bus. This meant that we all got to sit upstairs and could go downstairs for coffee and snacks. There was also a loo which we had been asked to use only in emergency, which is understandable. The law in Germany for heavy duty driver’s, is that the driver has to stop every two hours for a half an hour break. This enabled us to stretch our legs, use ablutions at the rest stops and buy any other odds and ends we wanted.
The weather on our first day started off with a lot of mist which melted away and we had sunshine and blue skies until we reached our destination – Verona in Italy.
Travelling through the Tirol was absolutely beautiful and I managed to take quite a few pics through the bus window. There were 104 people on our tour and therefore two buses had to be used. We were lucky to have been allocated to the Bistro bus, as the other half of our group, were in a normal tour bus. I think they were quite envious of us.
We overnighted in the Airport Hotel on the outskirts of Verona on our first night due to our group being too big for the planned hotel accommodation at the Garda See. This was a great disappointment to us, as this was one of the reasons why we chose to travel by bus, considering this would take 12 hours sitting and trying to keep kids occupied.
The accommodation at Verona was however, very good. This was a 5 star hotel.
Our group all gathered together for our evening meal which was inclusive except for the drinks. We had our first taste of Italian cuisine. The lasagna was in keeping, but obviously the cook had been tipped off about a German tour group arriving for dinner. We were served Pork as the main meal – how Italian is that??
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