I got up fairly early and headed down for breakfast. I was tossing up two options. Wait for Chris to surface as he had some experience driving on the wrong side, or just go. Not knowing how late the others stayed out for, and not getting a response to a text message I headed for Haupbahnhof railway station to pick up the car alone. I located the Avis shop front and completed the paperwork. I then discovered that the cars are parked 10 minutes walk away in a back street car park. It amazes me that I show them a licence, give them some money and they chuck me the keys to a Merc and let me go play in the middle of the city, sitting on the wrong side of the car etc.
Now is when it got weird. Sitting in the car, on the wrong side, trying to get the satnav in to English. Otherwise I’d need some quick German practice on left, right and distances etc. The satnav turned out to be the easy bit. I soon had that speaking English to me. I set it to take me back to the hotel. Now for the fun bit. Just driving out of the car park was weird enough, then came the traffic. In a way the traffic was good. At least I had lots of cars to follow while I tried to reverse all the road rules and tried to follow the satnavs directions. After a very tense drive back to the hotel I was relieved to park the car and wait for the rest of them to wake up.
Eventually Doug appeared (after I rang him) and we piled in and headed off towards the Netherlands.
We hopped onto the A1 Autobahn, which immediately dropped its speed limit to 80km due to road works. The limit went up to 100 or 120km/h between groups of works. There was one 5km long bit of unrestricted autobahn before more road works. Eventually we cleared them all and the autobahn opened up, the traffic lightened a bit and the again the magical sign that says, drive as fast as you like. We zipped along and a reasonable rate of knots. One that according to the government back home would mean instant death. It’s all very sane, keep out of the right lane unless passing or going exceptionally fast. At one stage when I went a little fast a voice was heard from the rear saying ‘found the accelerator at last eh? Smart arse.
We crossed in to the Netherlands where there was no a speed limit sign sighted for over 100km. People seemed to be going a bit slower than in Germany, but many were still cruising along at 130km/h.
Arriving in the outskirts of Amsterdam we were looking for the Park and Ride signs. We saw one, which we followed, but alas there was only one sign. Doug powered up the GPS and found us the closest one. 8 euros for each 24 hour period which included return tram tickets for all four of us. Seems like a bargain. We headed into central Amsterdam were hopped off at the central station where we waited 15 minutes for Pete to show up. He’d just flown in. A 10 minute walk had us at our hotel. The rooms could be called compact, but a better description would be a shoebox.
The cyclists, OMG. I guess you could call the place bicycle friendly. But I think it would be scarier on a bike that that first drive in Hamburg. They ride with, umm, passion. As in, they pedal, you move. If you don’t they’ll hit you. They fly through intersections. They use the road, the bike lanes and the foot paths. I’d far prefer to driver a left hand drive car over here than cycle 5km in Amsterdam.
We settled into our shoeboxes before heading out for dinner and a quiet night.