To celebrate our last night with the MG we treated ourselves to a four star hotel in Heidelberg and chose an American chain in which to do it. We’ve known the Marriott chain for decades and have one almost in our front yard in Woodland Hills.
B57 MINUTES AND MEMORIES
With Charly Page’s parting words, “You can come back by train, you know,” ringing in our ears, we aimed the MG’s nose downhill in the direction of Basel and back to Germany. In an e-mail Michael Stadler explained his request for our arrival in Nidda no later than three PM on Sunday. His oldest daughter is to be married the following weekend. In between he had to fit in the bridal dinner and a Monday business trip to Poland. Sunday was it or we’d have to wait a week. What he didn’t know was we had airline tickets from Paris to Los Angeles for Thursday. There’d be a penalty for a change so Sunday had to be it for us as well. Our mission was clearly drawn.
His casual, “Call when you get to Nidda and I’ll direct you in,” wouldn’t ordinarily be a complication if we hadn’t run out of minutes on our phone. We found that minutes for a French phone could only be purchased in France, typically from a Tabac (similar to a small convenience store in the States.) “No problemo,” I told Louise. “When we get to Basel we’ll just swing off the autobahn, dip into France, buy the minutes at a Tabac and hop back into Germany. “ What could be easier I thought. We arrived in Huninique St. Louis shortly after noon and, ably guided by Mlle. Recalculare, pulled up to a Tabac. “Ferme” said the sign on the door. “Closed on Saturday,” I said. “What gives?” Then Louise reminded me, “It’s after twelve and you’re in France. They won’t open for two hours.” Thinking, “They can’t all be closed,” I turned again to the GPS. The next Tabac was not only closed but the accordion gates were locked. “Vacances” said the sign. That was even worse because the French go on vacation for a month. And so it went until we found ourselves on the autoroute heading for Colmar, some sixty miles away and still no minutes.
Categories: MG family photos, Romont, Switzerland
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B56 GRUYÈRES – A BURG OR A CHEESE
NOTE: There is a video clip at the end of this blog.
“Is Gruyères a cheese or a town?” I asked our host Charly Page. “It’s both but it depends on how you spell it,” he said, “and today we’ll show both to you.” That set the agenda for the day but, first, the MG had to be dropped off at Garage Bochud to look into the overheating problem.
Using my best French and Charly’s translation when stuck, I gave Monsieur Bochud my diagnosis. He listened politely as I went through the water pump incident and described the overheating problems. I tried to find some way to insert the few French automotive words I knew but valves and sparkplugs had no direct connection with overheating. We finally agreed that back flushing the radiator might solve the problem. “Call back after five this afternoon,” he said.
Great. That gave us the rest of the day to explore the Gruyère question.
Categories: Gruyere, Romont, Switzerland
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B55 SEEKING REFUGE IN ROMONT, SWITZERLAND
The last miles to Romont, Switzerland are through rolling hillsides and richly green pastureland. This isn’t the Switzerland of high Alpen mountains but of meadows whose grass ultimately ends up in cheeses that are world renown.
Romont’s origins weren’t anywhere near the peaceful, bucolic scene we’re seeing today. It’s a medieval town perched on the highest rock it could find. To make things even more secure, Romont surrounded itself with steep battlements and walkways on top to easily move defenses where they’d be needed. On the very top of the rock are towers that look out over great distances. Perfect for spotting trouble on its way. If it came, they were ready for it. These ramparts would be the MG’s final challenge. It had to get up the hill without boiling over. It made it…just. Read more
Categories: Romont, Switzerland
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B54 PUTTING THE PEDAL TO THE METTLE
Eager to start our trip to Switzerland, we showed up bright and early at Willi Storz’s garage near Emindingen. He personally supervised the replacement of our faulty water pump and even tightened nuts and bolts that had worked loose during our travels.
Willi is very proud of his garage and the work it performs and made no effort to hide his fondness for the Ferrari product and the people who trust him with theirs. He described our MG as “uncomplicated” but said he enjoyed working on it. I guess it showed him how far automobile engineering had come since 1954. Louise asked if his given name was Willi and he answered, “Wilhelm.” “In English that’s William” she said, “so your nickname would be Bill.” “Just like Bill Clinton?” he asked. “And just like Bill Gates,” she added. He liked the idea so much he announced to his office manager that, from now on, she was to call him Bill. We could still hear her laughing as we drove off in the MG.
It had all the makings of a beautiful day; some humidity, warm but not too hot. Basel, Switzerland was just over an hour away but I noticed the heat gauge beginning to climb. Not too fast but climbing just the same. “I thought the new water pump would take care of that problem,” I said to Louise, pointing to the gauge.
Categories: Germany, Old Timers Galerie, Switzerland, Toffen
Tags: Willie Storz
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