Europa Park(s): Planes, Coaster-Trains & Autobahns (Aug 19) - Day 3

[HEMANCLOFTY]

Europa Park(s): Planes, Coaster-Trains & Autobahns (Aug 19)

Day 3 – Friday 23rd August (Europa Park & Driving to Bonn)

The Index is Here
Day 2 is Here

This was our last day in Ringsheim, so I got up first to have my shower, then sorted the packing whilst Rich and Tom were having theirs

We were down for breakfast by 8:30am. I’d really enjoyed the pretzel rolls with Philadelphia and black cherry jam that I’d had yesterday, so had that again followed by a bowl of mixed fruit salad, with a cup of tea and a Cappuccino to take away…

Rich and Tom had the same as other mornings – pretzel rolls with cooked meats and a cuppa for Rich and cereal and pastries with apple juice for Tom. I actually managed to get a pic of Tom’s croissants today…

Back to the room to do the last couple of bits of packing - I also did a full sweep of the room, just in case my missing wedding ring was here (even though I was certain it had fallen off at the park on Wednesday) .

By 8:50am we were checking out and settling the bill – I also mentioned my missing ring, on the off-chance that Housekeeping found it after we'd left.

We arrived for our final day at Europa Park at 9:15am, parking in row 31...

The plan today was do a couple of re-rides on our favourite coasters (Blue Fire and Silver Star), get the last coaster-credit (Alpen Express) and generally just mop up the last few things we fancied, before leaving by 2:30pm at the latest, as we had a long drive up to Bonn.

Volo Da Vinci, which is a cycle monorail ride in Italy was a walk-on so we did that first, and enjoyed the views…

As we’d enjoyed the relaxed start to the day so much, we headed for the Elf boat ride in Germany next, followed by the Jim Knopf train ride and the Puppet Boat ride – all of these were walk-ons and we loved seeing some of the original / quirky features of the park…

We had a final wander through Grimm’s Enchanted Forrest (via England)…

By 10:30am we were in Austria – we’d been heading for the mine train (Alpen Express), but Tovioli Log Flume was on a 1-minute wait so we did that first – it was a great Log Flume, which interacted with the Mine Train in an indoor diamond mine section...

We got quite damp too..

Alpen Express was now showing a 30-minute wait, but it was actually more like 20. Just before it was our turn I was trying to get this shot of the log flume…

…but got photo-bombed by the ride operator…

It was a really good powered-mine train, on a two-lap special. During the indoor section, I noticed a walk-through path, so we headed for that next…

This was called Magic World of Diamonds and was really good with lots of scenes – as usual my dark shots aren’t great…

The walk-through comes out into a quirky little display / gift shop…

11:15am and time for Blue Fire, so we walked over to Iceland. Tom was peckish, and Rich wanted a Coke, so we tried a few places but none had bottles or anything that Tom fancied. We ended up at the café in the Gazprom building – getting a Nutella Muffin for Tom, 2 post-mix cokes and a bottle of water for me (€12ish)

We decided on single-rider for Blue Fire, and waited about 20-minutes – we took loads of photos and worked out that it was running 4-trains this morning…

This was the point when I realised that the SD card in my camera was full – so I had to revert to using my phone.

Tom ended up being pulled out for a front-row ride, Rich was on the next train and me on the one straight after.

We pondered doing Wodan Timburcoaster, but all decided we’d rather do Silver Star so headed back to France. It was a 20-minute wait and another really great ride .

We had a mooch around the Mercedes Benz Hall…

…then a quick look in the Rulantica preview area (sorry, no pics of this).

We decided that Jungle Rafts would be our final ride of the day – waiting about 5-minutes. We’ve never ridden Jungle Cruise at Disney, but imagine there are some similarities…

It was about 1:15pm by now, so we mooched our way back towards the exit, stopping at the Lindt shop in Russia to get the Pralines we’d seen yesterday for Mom (€4.99)…

A quick loo stop all round, then we popped into the main gift shop on “Main Street” as I needed a Europa park magnet for my collection – I went for this one (€2.95)…

Tom also got himself a souvenir bank note from one of the machines (€2)…

We left the park bang-on 2pm…

We were leaving the carpark by 2:15pm. Before getting on the A5, we popped back to the petrol station next to our hotel for another top-up of air in the dodgy tyre, so it was 2:30pm when we set off for the main journey. Google Maps was estimating a 7:10pm arrival, but we knew it would be a bit longer as we'd be taking it steady and stopping at least once...

The drive itself was ok – I generally stuck to 100 kmph in the slow-lane, unless I was behind a particularly slow lorry, which added some time to the ETA. The route itself should have been the A5 for pretty much all the way, but Google was showing an accident / 90-minute delay and re-routed us via the A61.

We stopped in a picnic lay-by at about 4:45pm for a stretch and a Belvita energy boost, then again at 6pm-ish at a services to use the loos and get some drinks – I had a Maccy’s Cuppuccino (€2.89)…

We arrived at our hotel – the Venusberg on the outskirts of Bonn, just after 8pm – it was small but nice, like a cross between a guest-house and Premier Inn. It only had about 5 parking spaces, but there were spaces on the road…

We were all hungry, so we had a really quick freshen up and change and drove about 20-minutes into Bonn city centre. Rich had found a burger place called Hans Im Glueck, so we were headed there for an international stop on the #huxwoldsburgertour2019.

We parked in an underground carpark which brought us out right by a genuine German Market…

It was about a 5-minute walk to Hans Im Glueck, which was really funky with bamboo and greenery.

We all chose Kase & Speck (Cheese & Bacon) burgers on white buns, with 2 x 1 Pound of Fries to share (€47ish). The fries came with a choice of sauces – we went for 1 garlic and 1 Parmesan – plus there were a selection of bottled sauces to use on the tables…

The burgers were good, but the fries and sauces were the highlight of the meal. I loved the Parmesan, and the Orange ketchup was amazing too…

There was a Rewe supermarket on the square near Hans Im Glueck, so we popped in to get some Pepsi Max, Waters and snacks (€17.99) before mooching back to the car, paying €2.40 for the carpark.

We got back to the hotel at about 10:45pm and had a few sweets whilst writing up the ride list for the day. I also spent some time deleting around 500 duplicate and duff pics off my camera to free up some memory for the rest of the trip.

Today’s Stats:
10 Attractions, inc. 1 new Coaster Credit and 2 re-rides
Walking: 15,126 steps (= 6.59 miles / 10.61 km)
Driving: c430 km

Day 4, Phantasialand & Driving to The Netherlands is Here