We'd decided to leave straight from Horsham after Christmas and so stayed in a hotel in Folkestone on the night of the 25th.
On boxing day morning, we were up at 7, had breakfast, and after picking up the poor abandoned toucan-on-a-stick on the ground in the car park, were on the road by 7.40. It took all of ten minutes to get to the Eurotunnel terminal (yes, we'll definitely be doing that again), and because it was fairly empty, we checked in quickly, and stopped to charge, get some shopping, and Christian had second breakfast.
We had a short wait to get on the train, and followed a Model 3 into our high carriage. We watched some Netflix on the journey (because we could), and then we were in France. But heading north for a change.
After a very brief stop at services for a coffee and comfort stop, we had our first charge at Lokeren (Belgium). We had lunch in 'Frituur 't Frietje' - I had a fish burger, and Christian had mozzarella sticks and the biggest mountain of fries either of us had ever seen. The smily Flemish-speaking staff may or may not have misunderstood how many fries he wanted. Never mind. They were very good, but we couldn't finish them. After that we went to the Lidl across the road for a few things (but failed to find marmite, which was on our shopping list for Andy).
Back on the road, we attempted to take a detour through the centre of Antwerp, but Christian took a wrong turn, so we decided to abort before we got into the city proper. I still got a flavour of it, and would like to go back.
Our next charge was at the 'Toucan' Van der Valk hotel in Moers (Germany) around 4pm. Why were the toucans following us?! It was a very posh-looking hotel, containing a lot of people over 65 (we think it was a party). Outside the toilets was the devastation following what looked like a wedding - lots of white tablecloths, fairy lights and evidence of a chocolate fountain.
After another two hours driving, we reached our final charging point at Lohne. It was the only time we saw the superchargers ICEd on the whole trip. It was an odd sort of services with a Burger King and an Asian buffet. We went for the Asian buffet for dinner. It was OK - the staff were very sweet. We had a slight wobble about being able to drive in the Bremen congestion zone, but Jen sorted it out for us - all we'd need was a written hotel confirmation.
And then it was only another hour to Bremen, which we reached at 8.30pm. The hotel had its own Tesla destination charger, which was brilliant. Christian checked in and got the letter for the car, and we went in. The room was very colourful and modern, and mostly functional. We finalised the shopping list for the next day, and went to bed.
On boxing day morning, we were up at 7, had breakfast, and after picking up the poor abandoned toucan-on-a-stick on the ground in the car park, were on the road by 7.40. It took all of ten minutes to get to the Eurotunnel terminal (yes, we'll definitely be doing that again), and because it was fairly empty, we checked in quickly, and stopped to charge, get some shopping, and Christian had second breakfast.
After a very brief stop at services for a coffee and comfort stop, we had our first charge at Lokeren (Belgium). We had lunch in 'Frituur 't Frietje' - I had a fish burger, and Christian had mozzarella sticks and the biggest mountain of fries either of us had ever seen. The smily Flemish-speaking staff may or may not have misunderstood how many fries he wanted. Never mind. They were very good, but we couldn't finish them. After that we went to the Lidl across the road for a few things (but failed to find marmite, which was on our shopping list for Andy).
Back on the road, we attempted to take a detour through the centre of Antwerp, but Christian took a wrong turn, so we decided to abort before we got into the city proper. I still got a flavour of it, and would like to go back.Our next charge was at the 'Toucan' Van der Valk hotel in Moers (Germany) around 4pm. Why were the toucans following us?! It was a very posh-looking hotel, containing a lot of people over 65 (we think it was a party). Outside the toilets was the devastation following what looked like a wedding - lots of white tablecloths, fairy lights and evidence of a chocolate fountain.
After another two hours driving, we reached our final charging point at Lohne. It was the only time we saw the superchargers ICEd on the whole trip. It was an odd sort of services with a Burger King and an Asian buffet. We went for the Asian buffet for dinner. It was OK - the staff were very sweet. We had a slight wobble about being able to drive in the Bremen congestion zone, but Jen sorted it out for us - all we'd need was a written hotel confirmation.
And then it was only another hour to Bremen, which we reached at 8.30pm. The hotel had its own Tesla destination charger, which was brilliant. Christian checked in and got the letter for the car, and we went in. The room was very colourful and modern, and mostly functional. We finalised the shopping list for the next day, and went to bed.
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