A day’s drive through Germany, summer 1993

Storyline: Virtual Itinerary

Episodes from: Adventures of Topsi, Bobsi, Buku & Navigator

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This story is a small part of a much bigger one. At this time however, we will not shed light on all the incredible and unbelievable adventures of the protagonists. We’ll just follow them for a day in Germany, since the goal of the storyline is to describe a trip from each country of our virtual itinerary. It was so far in the past that many of you probably don’t remember a thing of those times, and others were not even born. But some of you remember the Trabant, the famous East German automobile. Well there was another, much better Czech car – the Škoda.

At the time, Topsi was working at the Free University of Brussels, the Navigator was researching the ozone hole over the Antarctic and Bobsi and Buku were at the best schools Brussels had to offer, or so they were told. A professor at Bratislava University and colleague of Topsi had arranged a summer vacation in Slovakian Tatras for them – a Swiss-chalet type cottage on the lake of Štrbské Pleso.

They had an old Škoda-105 that Topsi had just bought from a mechanic in Brussels, after their old Škoda-120 had infamously died, but this adventure is for another time. The model number indicated the maximum recommended speed for this car. Thus, the recommended max speed for Škoda-105 was only 105km/h.

These were times, my dear reader, when Google and Google maps didn’t exist, when the World Wide Web was in its birth throes, unknown and unavailable to most. A navigator had a very important job. Without one, the driver might not arrive at the destination, or might lose valuable time driving around lost in unfamiliar cities. A navigator would open big paper map, trying to find the correct road while also following the road signs and trying not to miss an exit or a turn.

The road from Brussels to Bratislava goes roughly through Liege, Frankfurt, Nurnberg before crossing the Czech border towards Prague and then to Bratislava. It was Topsi’s conviction that they could drive there in a day. And Topsi was always right. There was no point trying to persuade him without getting into big arguments, and even then, he would not be persuaded.

So, the previous night the navigator had prepared and packed sandwiches for a day for all of them – which had triggered Topsi’s outrage. He was an angry man. Anything could derail him. Why did she think she needed all those sandwiches? Didn’t she know it would be cheaper at a restaurant en route in Germany? He may have been driving la poubelle (referring to the old car), but he is not “la poubelle”. Just mash the loud pedal and at 120-140km/h they’d be in Bratislava in no time.  The navigator however knew that they couldn’t reach Bratislava in a day, let alone if wasting time eating at restaurants.

The Flemish mechanic/salesman had cleared the long drive with “Goed” (good), but at no more than 90km/h. Did this Flemish pig know what 90km/h meant on the German autobahn? Topsi used colourful adjectives and nouns to belittle everyone. He was convinced that this was not offensive, but a true and honest description of the person at which it was directed.

And so, in the early morning he jumped on the accelerator. To check his driving skills the sky opened and not just poured, but an ocean of water descended. They reached the German border with no problem though.  Perhaps in the bad weather traffic would be better. Hah! Good luck with that. Two or three lanes were jammed with cars. But even the slowest right lane was moving at 120km and was full of large trucks. Dare to move between them! Water was everywhere anyway. It was hard to tell if this was not a new submarine highway. One could barely see the lights of the car just half a meter ahead. Topsi moved with the traffic at 140km/h, swearing regularly that the Flemish pig had advised him not to go over 90km/h. Cars were passing at 200km or more, if there was a gap. After all, the minimum speed on this autobahn was 120km at night. Of course, with 2 kids they had to stop here and there. One wanted to eat; another wanted to pee. They approached Nurnberg in the late afternoon. Darn car: it flew downhill but uphill was another story.

Germany ends somewhere around Nurnberg. From there, narrow tracks connected the two worlds – the West and East. It was only 1993, remember. There were no roads from the West to East before the iron curtain fell. There was a guarded zone, a no-man’s land of about 30 km each side of the border, but it was more rigorously guarded on the East side.

Well, since they had crossed all of Germany, they’d be in Prague around 7 or 8pm, Topsi convinced himself. It shouldn’t be much further. Not so fast! Narrow roads, small villages and hamlets, stop lights. Start, stop, start, stop… All good but after every stop the poor Škoda didn’t want to restart. And there was no shoulder on which to move out of the traffic. “Stupid donkey, why are you so stubborn!”, this time it was addressed to the car, not the mechanic. “You ran at 140km, now you don’t want to run at 20!”. Topsi stopped somewhere at a dead end, just in front of a Trabant on a pedestal, and attempted to adjust the carburetor. It was almost dark. And outside the ocean of water was still draining the sky. The prospects of overnighting in expensive Germany were not appealing. And from previous adventures they knew what could happen if the car died on the highway. Best to just abandon it, walk to the nearest hamlet, and somehow return to Brussels by public transport.

Little by little… the car coughed and chugged up the last hill. The road towards the border was downhill: the car continued to descend by inertia and stopped just at the border checkpoint. The German officer looked through their Bulgarian passports with Belgian visas, then threw a look at “la poubelle” and waved them on. Little by little, and not without problems, the car ascended to the Czech checkpoint; there they were passed through, then faced a steep, narrow downhill road full of trucks and cars. No one remembers how long the road downhill was, but the sharp turns were abundant. The engine died. The navigator gritted her teeth and had her hand on the handbrake.  She knew that the car had lost its brakes. They flew on two wheels around the corners, with a driver clueless that he couldn’t stop. Then followed an uphill. And of course, based on the laws of physics the car rolled to a stop. Right on time. There was a pub and a motel on the left. The car couldn’t be moved even to the sidewalk. A full stop. But it brought them to Czech Republic, the mother of the Škoda.

They hadn’t fully realized the likeness of this famous car to a donkey’s character. Because as the donkey would always return to its home, the car safely took them to its home. It was about 9pm. Outside it was still pouring. Time for a well-deserved rest. Good that the navigator had taken enough food. It would be welcome in the morning. She also had a warm blanket handy as one of the kids was getting a bad cold. The entire household went into to the pub. This is another adventure we’ll leave for later. Topsi left them in the warmth and went accommodation hunting. Nothing available in the motel. After a while the right person appeared – the owner of some run-down mouldy cottages (as they’d learn later, he had just bought the campground they belonged to). Grass and water up to the knees. It was obvious it hadn’t been used for some time. Perhaps a long time. With 7 DM per bed paid, he gave them the keys to two cottages, explaining how to get to there. Of course, it had to be on foot. They were all soaked. The campground was terrifying, but what was the alternative? There were no sheets. Something like a cover – 1m by 1m, dirty and full of bugs. Good that the navigator had brought sleeping bags. Buku was shivering. In the morning (5am) they were up and the campground owner led them to a mechanic nearby. The mechanic told them that the car had not been maintained since it had left the factory (Apparently Topsi was right about the Flemish pig). He cleaned it, fixed the carburetor and did all the other required maintenance for only 30 DM. After all, it was the Škoda’s home country.

And so, my dear reader, although we crossed the border for completeness of the story, this is our Germany post in the virtual itinerary.

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If you are new to the “Virtual Itinerary” storyline: All the stories here are real, although from the past, some from a quite distant past. It covers travels to countries and places we had in our real Spring 2020 itinerary. If not for Covid-19 we’d be traveling right now.

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