THE ENGLISH CHANNEL AND THE HOME OF RUGBY

As we crossed the English channel, the sea was remarkably calm despite the storms we had driven through in northern France. The next afternoon we arrived at the home of rugby, Twickenham Stadium. It's a beautiful English summers day, rain and more rain, but who's complaining after the excessive heat of the last six weeks. This weekend sees the start of the English premiership football season and a nerve wracking wait for the results of Middlesbrough Football Club.

SAND & SEA

At midnight on the evening of the cancelled Valladolid concert the decision was made to send the trucks to El Ejido near Almeria southern Spain. After a 12 hour drive we arrived in el Ejido to remarkable cool weather for that part of Spain and found out the concert there was cancelled too. As the day wore on the wind started to blow and by evening it had turned into a stinging full blown sand storm. It was almost impossible to work outside in those conditions. The following morning I set of for Twickenham and England. A drive of 2555 kilometres awaited me! As I headed up through France the air conditioning in the truck was turned off and the hot weather we have had during the past six weeks faded into the distant past. Thunderstorms were now the order of the day as I approached Calais and the car ferry.

VALLADOLID Spain

Today's concert in Valladolid is cancelled and we are all waiting now for further instuctions as to where we are going next. I feel sorry for the people from Valladolid that were looking forward to The Rolling Stones coming to their city. Everything was ready this morning for the concert and a lot of hard work was put in by the crews to get it set up inside this stadium. The ramp to the stage, built by the steel crew was magnificent!

Estadio do Dragao, Porto

Here are a couple of pics of Gennyworld in place at the stadium which is home to Porto FC.

Nice and Porto

The cool weather in Nice lasted a couple of day’s which was good but that old thermometer is on the rise again. As I sit here in Porto Portugal its 36o and rising! The drive from Nice took a couple of days to get across Spain, then into the hilly terrain of Portugal. During my route between Palencia and Benavente I drove the national route N610 and came across some interesting roadworks where they stopped the oncoming traffic by placing a young lad in the middle of the road with a small stop sign, I hope he managed to get some life insurance! The roads in Portugal have some very steep hills to climb and descend and with 40 tons of Genny it’s no fun, thank god for the descent Volvo engine break! I must admit I do like Portugal (even if they beat us dubiously in the world cup) and Porto is an incredible old city.

The Swiss Arrows

Well, the “Open Air” concert at the Dubendorf Flugplatz certainly had it all; there was talk of up to 80000 people in attendance and a lot going on. The early morning rain held off and we were treated to an air display by the Swiss version of the Red Arrows just before The Stones took to the stage. One of the jet pilots put his jet through a complete Swiss roll, which was very tasty! I even witnessed a high ranking Swiss Government minister patting a dog belonging to a young security girl. She was impressed!
After the show with my Sunday driving permits in hand I headed through Switzerland to Geneva and the French border and beyond to Nice on the Cote D’azur and back to the heat! My route is via Grenoble, then the decision whether or not to keep to the autoroute or take the more scenic route through Provence and the Alps Cote D’azur. Given I had plenty of time the scenic route won! On arriving at the Nikaia Arena in Nice, I was amazed to find the weather very cool and an electric storm that had previously past through was now lighting up the skies in the nearby Alps Maritime.

THE GENNY HAS LANDED

Gennyworld has landed today at the Dubendorf Flugplatz located on the outskirts of Zurich in Switzerland. We all drove through the night from Stuttgart and crossed the border near Schaffhausen, it was an easy drive and the Swiss border guards were more than helpful with the necessary paperwork needed to enter Switzerland (it’s not part of the EC}. The airfield is ex-military and the stage actually looks a bit lost in this huge expanse of a field! I t makes for an easy load in and load out though.

STUTTGART

The Gottlieb Daimler Stadium is the home of VfB Stuttgart. If you stretch your imagination a bit, you could also say Stuttgart is Germany’s Motown, being the home of Mercedes and Porsche. The drive down from Amsterdam took me just under 15 hours which included a couple of stops for a nap. The lengthy roadwork’s on parts of the Autobahn created some huge jams but that’s all part of summer driving in Germany, sometimes it seems like the whole of Holland is heading for the sun through Germany on a caravanning holiday!

TWOLIPS IN AMSTERDAM

Well what can I say, that has not been said about Amsterdam,"coffee shops everywhere and not a decent cup of coffee in sight" maybe? Gennyworld rolled into The Amsterdam Arena and we parked in the usual place. On the morning of the concert next to Gennyworld the Ajax football team were training, crowds soon gathered to hunt down their heroes for autographs. After the show it was a return to the fatherland and yes! sausages for breakfast!

STADE DE FRANCE

We pulled the Genny's into the Stade de France on Wednesday afternoon and the heatwave seems to be relentless. That evening though, a welcoming breeze got up and then strong gusts of winds followed and they brought a spectacular electric storm that seemed to go on allnight. The temperature dropped dramatically and the need for air-conditioning ceased, aleast for that evening!

PARIS CAT

The first couple of days in Paris saw us take the generators to the CAT service centre in Montlhery, a small village south of Paris. The people at CAT were very friendly and helpful and we had a great couple of days while the genny’s were professionally serviced. A very pleasant night was spent in the local village restaurant, “Chez Michel” the wine, food and company was splendid and yes, frog legs do taste like chicken! Come on, you only live once. Once the genny’s had been serviced we headed for the fantastic Stade de France

RHEIN ENERGIE STADION

I had a “gute fahrt” from Berlin to Köln “Cologne” It took about 9 hours and the autobahn was fairly quite. It’s another German city and another re-vamped stadium with a new name. The old Mungersdorfer Stadium has been re christened The Rhein Energie Stadion. The World Cup has certainly had a beneficial effect on Germany! After the show we headed for Paris, it was only 70 kilometres to the Belgium border at Aachen, I transited Belgium and hopped into France. The Belgium road surfaces have a lot to be desired and their relaxed attitude to coning off the roadworks is hilarious. In England miles of cones and contra flows with speed cameras and over the top warning signs are the norm. In Belgium hey’ a couple of cones will do the trick! In fact I think Belgium is turning into Poland or is that the other way round.
Anyway, we are now in France, the home of great cuisine as long as you don’t get hungry on the autoroute! Horseburgers are definitely an acquired taste!

ENGLAND LIFT THE CUP!

After a nerve racking penalty shoot out this afternoon in the Olympic Stadium Berlin, England finally lifted the World Plastic Cup! The rejoiceing that followed was slightly marred by a head butting incident during the game as captured in the photograph.

GUTEN MORGEN BERLIN

“I am a donut” President Kennedy proclaimed to the people of Berlin, so this morning I skipped the sausages and ate donuts in his honour! Berliners indeed! The stadium that hosted the recent World Cup Final looked splendid at dawn when I arrived. As the dawn light rapidly lit up the stadium, memories of failed penalty shoot outs, eager given red cards and Portuguese formation diving flooded my mind. Gennyworld is parked close to the Olympic flame pedestal at the open end of the Stadium and today is going to be another hot one. The heat wave is following us around Europe!
It was only a three hour drive from Hannover to Berlin, they charge trucks to use the autobahns these days and last nights journey cost 30 euros and with diesel costing 5 euros a gallon trucking in Europe is a costly business. Anyway to more important matters, us Englanders or as the Germans say Island Monkeys have decide to hold our very own penalty shoot out later this afternoon, more to follow, fingers crossed!

HANNOVER

The heat wave in northern Europe continues! It hit 40 degrees in Gennyworld yesterday but at least it cools down during the night. This morning Hannover is basking in early morning sunshine and clear blue skies. The Machsee, a lake that skirts one side of the stadium, is looking good and for a city the size of Hannover it is surprisingly quiet, anyway I can hear the sausages sizzling, it must be fruhstuck (breakfast).

Munchen to Hannover

After another breakfast of rost bratwurst mit senf und brotchen (sausage sarny) I drove the remaining 30 kilometres to Hannover and the AWD Stadium, I am sure it used to be called the Knicker-Knacker Stadiom or something like that before its World Cup spruce up. I had arrived in Hannover around mid-day after leaving Munich at 1:00 AM. It had been a pleasant drive through the cool of the night, the temperature dramatically dropped to a welcoming 11 degrees as I drove along the autobahn that runs alongside the Czech border near Wackersdorf and the Oberpfalzer Wald.
Well it’s Monday and another German Stadium car park and yes the temperature has soared to 30 degrees, air-condition trucks are a blessing!
Today I am posting some great shots of the Munich Olympic stadium taken by a fellow driver called Rommel aka Ronnie with his new camera. He must have parachuted out of a plane to get these! (Actually he rode his bike up to the top of a big hill!)

DINGLY DELL

After the show in Wien “Vienna” it was an overnight drive straight to Munchen “Munich” and the Bundersliga redundant Olympiche Stadiom. The forty plus production trucks snaked their way out of Austria and into Deutschland for a busy four shows in eight day schedule. The tree lined roads around the stadium soon became a temporary truck park for the emptied trucks as the production crew got to work clambering over the oil-rig looking skeleton of the stage. The Genny’s are perched in the usual position at the top of one end of the stadium next to the scoreboard that triumphantly displayed, in the not too distanced past, “England 5 Germany 1” With the retreat of Munich’s finest football team to the new Alliance “dunlopillo” Stadium the crew can now use the home and away teams dressing room for showers, I decided to use the one Michael Owen used for old time sake! After my victorious shower I decided to park my unit “truck, the bit that attaches to the trailer” at the entrance to one of the lanes we christened Dingly Dell quite a few years ago on a previous tour and this morning it is a gloriously cool blue skied summer morning in the capital of Bavaria. I expect its sausages for breakfast!