SPRING TOUR 2020 – DAY 1
| 8 MAY 2020 | Distance 275 km | Driving time 5:30 h |
|---|---|---|
| 09:00 h | Arrival of participants | Kapellerput, Heeze |
| 10:00 h | Start Spring Tour 2020 | Kapellerput, Heeze |
| 12:00 h | Lunch | Abdij Rolduc |
| 16:00 h | Tea stop | Landgasthaus Pfahl |
| 18:00 h | Hotel | IBIS Hotel Koblenz City |
| GPX – route | GPX – track | TomTom |
The Bends and Curves Spring Tour takes off on Friday 8th May 2020. All participants assemble at the Kapellerput in the small town Heeze, in the south of The Netherlands. This peaceful estate is an inspirational spot. The creative interiors in the atmospheric hotel are exciting and contemporary. Every area in Kapellerput is furnished with an eye for detail. Different. Daring. With nature, people and communication as recurring themes. Designer furnishings. Unique carpets, beautiful lighting and inspiring, colourful works of art.
For a long time, robber baron Zwarte Narob (Black Narob) spared a certain chapel from pillaging. But once he discovered that his wife and daughter visited the chapel in secret, he changed his mind. No sooner had he entered the chapel, or the ground opened up. The chapel with Black Narob inside disappeared into the depths and the hole filled up with water. There is still a fen in this location today.
When coffee and cake is finished, the tour commences. During the morning we will warm up the engines gently; although we won’t be driving any motorways, the first two hours will be a mix of A- and B-roads, while switching borders between The Netherlands, Belgium and Germany.
Next stop: Rolduc abbey. This abbey in Kerkrade is one of the most important religious monuments in the Netherlands. Rolduc is the largest abbey complex in the Benelux and one of the Dutch UNESCO Top 100 monuments. The abbey’s rich history dates back more than 900 year.
We will enjoy a nice lunch at the abbey restaurant and of course some strawling-the-abbey-grounds time is planned. Our sports cars will be displayed so we all can shoot our cars in a brilliant backdrop.
After lunch, we soon pass the German border which means the driving gets better and better. Once we’ve passed Aachen the scenery becomes forresty, hills and curvy roads are ahead of us while we enter the Eifel region. The southern part of this region originates from volcanic eruptions, ten thousand years ago. The craters created by explosions of volcanic gases have filled themselves with groundwater and are called Maare.
We’ll have a cuppa in typical Eifel town Wershofen where Landgasthaus Pfahl is located.
On this first Spring Tour day we will finish in the ancient Roman city Koblenz, established over 2.000 years ago, where the river Mosel ends up in the river Rhine. Koblenz is overlooked by Fortress Ehrenbreitstein as we will see when we park our cars at the ‘Deutsche Eck’ (German Corner), a symbol of the unification of Germany that features an equestrian statue of Emperor William I.
When it’s time to go to sleep, the wonderful staff and beds of the Ibis Koblenz City Hotel will make sure we will be fit the next morning, when Baden-Baden is our destination.
