So we drove all the way to the Czech Republic just to go to a museum? You bet we did! :D
Wednesday, 12th of September
01:00 Nick and I started our journey, which saw us meet up at the Dover terminal around midnight. A slight delay with the previous ferry meant that we couldn’t join the queue until later, but at least ours would be going on time.
09:00 Here we go! The journey has finally begun, and we were looking forward to a day of driving… Once off the ferry, it was a fairly straightforward journey to the Dutch/German border where we met up with Glenn and Mark. We still don’t understand how some got lost on the route :D
16:00 Another couple of hours later, and with Nick and I sharing the driving (or should that say, tearing down) on the German Autobahns our progress was good… so good in fact, we thought we would be the first to arrive at the German/Czech border. You can imagine our surprise when we arrived to find Will and his little yellow Fabia parked up already!
18:00 We finally made it to the hotel, and after dumping the bags into the hotel we went to find our “secure parking”. It seems that secure has a different meaning in the Czech dictionary, so we ended up having to park the cars in front of the hotel…
Thursday, 13th of September
11:00 An early start (Nick snores as much as I do :D) today as we head into Prague to do some sightseeing. There is no avoiding the tourist attractions, so we act like them. We visit Charles Bridge, the Astronomical Clock and many, many touristy shops.
14:30 Later that afternoon we visited the Staropramen Brewery, which, tasting experience aside, was rather underwhelming. Oh well, at least we got some free beer ;)
Friday, 14th of September
10:30 A short drive to Mladá Boleslav today as we are visiting the homeland… the Škoda Auto Museum. A great selection of previous models and their history, but I think most of us will remember it for one thing… our tour-guide ;)
After the Museum, we briefly (read: rushed) through the factory next door, and whilst we were waiting on our Czech SkodaHome friends (to guide us to Mimon airfield), we were greeted by a big-shot of Skoda who was wondering why there were 20 UK Skoda’s parked up :)
15:00 Finally, the much discussed, legendary, Mimon airfield… and boy was it good! A stretch of tarmac as wide as three expanded M1’s stitched together and about 2 miles long meant we were able to push the cars almost to their V-max. I managed to do a couple of runs hitting 150mph before a white Felicia bearing the words Policie told us to go away :( Nick had just pulled out to do his run, so he was properly gutted. We’ll have another go after Doksy though :)
21:30 The whole group went out for dinner at a restaurant. Although it seemed a great idea at the time, it turned out to be a bit of a disaster. They totally couldn’t cope with 40+ rowdy customers and although the alcohol was served pretty quick, the food lagged behind :(
Saturday, 15th of September
10:00 Welcome to Doksy, home of the tuned Skoda. It was reassuring to see that they’ve got barry boys too ;) Although I do quite like the rally oriented older models, restored to their previous glory.
14:00 We’ve joined a convoy of about 100 Skoda’s to drive a small (!) route and scare the locals… Loz has quite a pretty voice ;)
15:30 More Mimon action! This time without any interference of the local constabulary, and with plenty of runs for everyone.
Sunday, 16th of September
11:00 Time does fly when you’re having fun… it’s the last day already! Steve, Hayley, Nick and I decided to team up and visit Prague again, although it wasn’t for long until Nick and I got bored of waiting for Hayley and her crystal addiction ;) so we split up and whilst they continued shopping, we went to look for the Jewish quarter.
In the evening we swapped the Italian for the Chinese and had a food-feast for peanuts. I could easily live here ;)
Monday, 17th of September
07:30 Back home again :( The journey went smooth, although traffic around Frankfurt and Brussels was appalling, so we didn’t make an earlier ferry (for which we initially would have arrived in time for).
20:01 On the ferry we heared that Chris had been stopped for speeding in Germany, receiving a €400 fine. Ouch! Those who took a small detour around the Nürburgring had to settle for the midnight ferry and by the time they arrived home, I was almost ready for work again :( Bring on next year!
Enjoy all the pictures in the gallery
