Driving to Euskirchen

I thought I would not drive at 130 kph, which is the speed limit on the Autoroutes.  But I do.  It just happens.  The Peugeot likes it.  Blame the Peugeot.  The signs along the road indicate that if there is precipitation,  the limit is 110kph, in the absence of same, 130kph.  But trucks must keep in the right hand (slow) lane. (Absolumment!)  And they do.  Unless one truck wants to pass another, and takes forever to do so, and holds up miles of cars in the process.  But that happens rarely. Peugeot and fly generally tootle along in the slow lane with the trucks, at 120kph.  A speck in the rear view mirror is something flashing by on the left and then a speck way up ahead. And if one is silly enough to be in the fast lane driving at anything under 130, they practically push you out of the way! 

Driving today from Eichhoffen to Euskirchen, up near Koln, the Fly and the Peugeot had to trust themselves to the Voice.  Maps were checked, routes were identified.  But when an address is keyed into the Sat Nav, the Voice takes over. Consequently, I have very little idea of how I got here, but I could cite the Autoroute numbers, if anyone really wanted to know.  A couple of times we got lost.  Sometimes the Voice does not know that a road has been closed temporarily.  Once the Voice was silently disgusted when the Fly stopped at a MacDonalds.  (I was hungry, and that was all that was offering. There are actually very few of them here).  

Somewhere, I think outside of Trier, which is an exceptionally old city, and which I must find time to visit, (beautiful countryside too), I found myself in windmill land.  I have read that Germany makes more use of solar and wind power than we do in Australia, although we have so much more sunshine and with goodness knows how many miles of coastline, so much capacity for generating power from onshore winds.  But in the valleys here, there are crops of windmills.  I suppose crops is an appropriate collective noun, they look as though they have been planted there.  About 20-30 in each group I saw, catching whatever winds came up the valley, all twirling away.  They are huge, but not ugly.  Always white, they are much less threatening and invasive looming than the steel towers carrying the communications lines across the country. 

And then, a crop of solar panels!  Acres and acres and acres of them, looking like they had been planted as little panelettes in the spring, and now in the autumn were at the peak of their power, glinting at the afternoon autumn sunshine.  Again, at UQ there is a solar panel installation which is supposedly the largest in the southern hemisphere.  But it would not make the Leader Board here I suspect. 

Euskirchen was achieved, but navigating to the hotel was completely confounded - the whole of the Zentrum was closed off for a festival (it all looks like Side Show Alley at the Ekka, German style.  I asked someone what it was about, and he said, just fun) .  The Voice could NOT understand that I could not go through that road. I told it, repeatedly.  It took 40 minutes, during which I eventually found my way right around to the other side of the town, and the Voice “recalculated” and got me in to Kirchenstrasse and the Hotel.  

I have checked in, been out and checked out the festival, had a bratwurst and brotchen, and am now thinking that is enough for a day.  But on the TV is a skating show, so will have to watch that.