The tipping point

By the afternoon, we had reached the lovely village of Rees, on the banks of the Rhine. Through the night I could hear the steamers chugging up and down the river and one now understood how the Germans gained their enormous economic power through the use of this river.

But my delight in things German was not to last for more than a day. The next morning, as we set onward, my wife and I, the official navigators, deliberated at length on whether to go through the Ruhr Basin or take a detour to avoid the barren landscape and head for the more scenic Black Forest. We realised that we had hugely irritated our friend only when she jammed hard on the brakes in the middle of the autobahn. This rash act could have been fatal had the BMW roaring behind us not swerved and narrowly missed us. Incidentally, that was the only loud honk I heard during the entire trip! Perhaps our friend was fatigued owing to the long drive, but that day my partner and I could not understand her reaction and we were livid.

In cold silence, we reached a beautiful small village called Lei on the bank of the River Musel which joins the Rhine at Koblenz, a town which was razed to the ground by the Allies in the Second World War except for a church which still stands there. Our friend dumped us by the roadside and the next thing I saw was her car disappearing down the road.

We then decided that we had no alternative but to check into a hotel and continue our journey down the Rhine. We rented a car the next morning. No nondescript motorways for us, we decided. Only narrow country roads through villages and small towns. We resolved at that moment never to go for a holiday with a friend 8212; especially in someone else8217;s car.