Back safe and sound after a fantastic trip. I'll post some links to the pics when I've sorted them out properly.
1822 miles in total and the good ole gal never missed a beat. What an awesome car for a euro trip. It took everything in it's stride. Twisty bits, some very quick Autobahn bits (sitting quite happily at 130mph for best part of an hour).
From the tunnel, we headed down to Reims for an overnight and the obligatory pics at the old circuit. As it was just an overnight stop over, we stayed at the Kyriad Enzo Design hotel just off the A16. Cheap and cheerful, but they have Adrian Sutil's old F1 car in the restaurant and a fair few other motorsport inspired pieces. After that, we made for Nancy for another overnight before heading to Shiltach. What a lovely little German town. We stayed right in the market square in a building dating from 1600 and something. En route, however, we had a quick look at the Bugatti factory at Molsheim. Not what I was expecting at all.. Lots of old buildings from the outside and little to suggest that they make one of the most technical cars in production.
I won't bore you with all the detail, but we did the whole touristy thing looking at clocks etc once we got to the black forest proper. We did have an excursion down to the Cite De L'Automobile at Mulhouse. Brilliant place for any car enthusiast and the largest collection of Bugatti cars in the world. They also have a decent selection of Alfa and Maserati, both pre and post war. Highly recommended if you're over that way at all. We stumbled across another little gem of a motor museum at Schramberg. Small by comparison, but again, well worth a visit. It's a good job my wife is a petrol head!
We also had a day trip down to Lake Constance for a bit of sight seeing. Plenty of old cars about as there was a classic car meet somewhere nearby. There is a Zeppelin museum at Friedrichafen and although we couldn't participate, Zeppelin rides are available.
After some more touristy stuff, we started heading back via the B500 to Baden Baden. Any bikers who've been to that region of Germany will know this road. It has everything from tight hairpins to fast sweepers with a near perfect road surface and some fantastic scenery.
On the way back towards the tunnel we saw a couple in a pre war Bentley/Jag SS100 style car. We went past too quickly to catch exactly what it was, but we gave a toot and a thumbs up out of the window. I think there may have been a Jag event somewhere over there. On the M20 towards the tunnel we saw a couple of older jags travelling together sporting rally plates and a pair of E types at Mulhouse with the same rally plates. Didn't get the chance to speak to the owners though. Quite a few Lambos and Fezzers at the tunnel also, including a 64 reg California. Nice looking car and sounded almost as good as a Maserati. Just kidding, it sounded lovely really.
Perhaps not the most exotic trip to ever take place, but a significant one for us as it's our first holiday since my wife came out of hospital in August last year having been diagnosed as stage 4 Burkitts Lymphoma earlier in January. In June last year, she couldn't even pick up a glass of water following a C Diff infection causing treatment to be stopped 3/4 of the way through. In August she walked out of hospital (they said mid September if she was lucky) and has now been in remission for a little over 18 months. She went back to work in December. All of that through some great medical care and sheer determination on her part. She's an incredible woman and took the whole lot with a smile on her face despite the fact we nearly lost her twice last year.