The next morning we left Metz aiming again to reach Germany. We decided we needed to try & get Minty looked at as soon as possible. The shaking was becoming increasingly worse & soon we were unable to drive any faster than 40mph. 

One of the challenges of this trip is to complete it without going on any motorways. As we would be going via the local roads we thought we might be lucky & pass a VW garage on route. At worst, we should reach Germany by the end of the day. The French however are loyal to their local industry & every garage we passed for the following 100km were all Citroen, Peugeot & Renault. It didn’t look like we were going to be successful. 

Late in the afternoon, driving through a picturesque town called Saverne it looked like we were going to lucky. We happened to pass a VW garage so we stopped to see if they could help. In between our non existent French & hand signals, John managed to explain what was happening & they instantly asked John to drive Minty through & onto one of the car ramps.  Upon closer inspection it was found the lower wishbone for the suspension was broken & needed replacing. One of their mechanic’s arrived who could speak perfect English. In a bizarre way we were happy. Minty was to be fixed the following day & we should be on the road again the following evening.

Next objective, find a hotel without an Internet connection in a town full of lovely old 5* hotels. Pleeaaseee can we stay in one of those. No…. okay, it will be the hotel which has become stuck in the 70’s at the bottom on the hill on the edge of town then.