It’s scary to think that it’s now 11 years ago since Brad and I undertook our first German road trip. It was a trip that would see us drive over 800 miles in our rented Seat Vario, taking in Lübeck, Berlin, Leipzig (and Colditz Castle), Wolfsburg and finally Hamburg.
This was in the days before either of us had swanky digital cameras, and neither of us owned VWs at the time – although I think my old 74 Beetle might have been languishing in bits in the folks’ garage.
I’d first visited Wolfsburg some 10 years previously on a German language exhange whilst I was at school – but that’s another story altogether (especially the bit about not being very well in the back of Thorsten Bork’s old man’s brand new VW!).
I had vague recollections about touring the factory back in 1992, but in the intervening period VW had constructed Autostadt, an enormous visitor centre right next door to the factory itself, so that was top of our list of things to see in Wolfsburg, along with the VW Museum itself. We weren’t exactly blessed with a great selection of places to stay, and ended up staying a couple of nights in a hotel that was on the edge of what can only be described as an industrial estate!
Autostadt was immense, and it took us most of the time we were there just to get around the ZeitHaus museum (all 5 floors of it!), before checking out the various different pavillions for each of the VW brands. Naturally we spent some time merching up in the gift shop – the postcards of which you can see in the Postcards From Wolfsburg post. The following day, we tootled across to the VW Museum to view their wares (and buy a couple more postcards!).
Now I just need to persuade Brad that we should visit again – this time in our old VWs. If only to get some better quality photos than those I took 11 years ago! Under the circumstances, that could be easier said than done…….
