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Day 5: Munich - Calais - Chester

Distance travelled 920 miles Start: Munich End: Chester Final day of the trip, but the longest drive still to do, Munich to Chester in a day. Totally possible. Set off at 9:30am after a slightly longer start to the day, Oktoberfest was great last night, something we'd definitely go back to, but not so great for an early start & driving 900+ miles. After making sure I was sober enough to drive, we fired up the Volvo and back onto the streets of Munich, while Dad continued to nurse his hangover. Easy drive out of the city, and we were back to the spectator sport of the autobahn. Basically, the sport is driving at a normal 75-80mph, and watching the German nutters come past at warp speed, making sure you give appropriate oohs and ahhs as they do so. This is enjoyable enough, however when there's several all in an outside lane race, this improves the spectator element. When a truck pulls out in front of said race, going 80mph slower than the chain of €100,000 German saloo
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Day 4: Prague to Munich

Distance travelled: 250 miles approx Start: Prague End: Munich The last day of the tour! Today is a shorter drive, and a straight forward run to Munich via the Czech and German motorways. We set off early, not because we're keen at 8am after several beers the night before, but because our parking runs out. Prague parking is a nightmare, it's colour coded for what you can and can't do, but the signs don't explain what the colours actually mean... Night before we drove around looking for somewhere to leave the Volvo, navigating many 1 way streets that both Google maps and the sat nav were determined to send the wrong way down... So we parked on a street that starting charging at 8am...no better encouragement to get going. Leaving Prague, we weren't impressed with the city. Outside of the centre (and even in the centre at times) it feels very rundown. One street had a space for a pavement but seemed to make a decision to not tarmac it, but leave as dirt and put a
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Day 3: Dresden - Stalag Luft 3 - Prague

Start: Dresden End: Prague Distance: 250 miles approx Today started with a challenge - walk old town Dresden and find a list of items from a list set by the organisers. We given photo clues across the 3 pages, and we both took it a bit too seriously. After an hour in Dresden, we were setting off to Stalag Luft 3 in Poland - site of the great escape. Dresden by the way was beautiful, much nicer than either of us had expected. Highly recommended as a destination, with some great architecture and a nice feel to the city. Then we hit a problem - on starting the car we got a misfire and then the engine warning light on the dash. Not good. Panic stations, but a good few hard revs of the engine and it cleared itself - we're off, although today's driving will be a little more careful. Getting out of Dresden was a breeze, and soon we were back on the motorways headed north east. We seemed to stay in Germany longer than we'd expected, only being 25 miles from the pow camp sit
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Day 2: Koblenz - Colditz - Dresden

Distance travelled: 400 miles Start: Koblenz, Germany End: Dresden, Germany Day 2 started well - it wasn't raining. In fact, the weather had changed a lot since yesterday, being dry all day which was a relief. Leaving our hotel at 8am, we left Koblenz to find the local Globus hypermarket where all the teams would be meeting before heading off. A few wrong turns caused by the ever reliable Tom Tom Sat nav, and we arrived pretty much on time. The turn out was impressive, and many other attendees made the old Volvo look tame by comparison! Notable cars included a disco Citroën Xsara, complete with disco ball on the roof, a funeral limo turned into a nasa space shuttle and a perfect replica of the dumb & dumber dog van 'Mutts Cuts', complete with cocked leg and overflowing petrol peeing effect (for those if you who remember the film). After a short briefing from the organisers and the obligatory coffee from the shop, we received our daily challenge and off we went - f
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Day 1: Chester to Koblenz

Total distance :580 miles Start: Chester, UK End: Koblenz, Germany We started off today with an early start of 5am from Chester, headed for registration for tomorrow's start of the Crumball rally. We were glad of the early start, as we hit traffic on the M42 on the way to Folkestone for the channel tunnel. Other than that, our run through the UK was a clear one, joining up with 2 other crumballers into a convoy around the M25. We arrived at the terminal with time to spare. Passport control involved a brief conversation with a border officer, about how he'd had 5 volvos, all had done many miles and was suitably impressed with our choice of vehicle for the event. Dad and I got a quick cup of tea and joined the queue to board. Arriving in Calais, we took the motorway north and quickly crossed the border into Belgium. At our lunch stop we were approached by a member of an Estonian rock band who was trying to sell CD's outside the petrol station with a sob story of being
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