In which Sid and Doris take the RtG route from Ypres to Prague, crossing their previous route at Eisenach.
The Rally the Globe team have created a very well thought out route that mixes making progress south and east with regularities on small roads, visits to old motorsport venues and consumption of much of Europe’s cake supplies. Of course the adventure does not go epic until we leave the comfort of the RtG organisation, but here are some pictures to remind ourselves once our memories fade, say by Tuesday. 
Here is the map for the first six days of fun: Ypres, Ypres for a cloverleaf in Belgium, Aywaille in the Ardennes, Koblenz, Weimar and Prague.
Let’s start with the obligatory picture of a long bonneted car on the Chunnel train (taken with the estate-agent wide-angle setting on the camera for maximum hilarity). Note that Sid is not wearing his dark lenses, as they were buffeted by the wind and vanished somewhere out of the back of the car round the M25. A valuable lesson for open-top rallying – everything needs to be nailed down.
The Flexi Plus ticket appears expensive when you buy it, but it allows you to turn up whenever you want, get a free picnic and board the train whenever you feel ready. Smugly refreshed, we leave our fellow train travellers in the traditional vintage car cloud of stinky exhaust, and with plenty of time in hand we can divert onto some minor roads rather than bashing the main roads into Ypres. The fun has started already.
The Ypres town authorities are always keen to encourage groups to use their square, and so between the national Beach Volleyball competition and a Help The Heroes cycle fundraising ride to Paris, space is fenced off for our collection of fine automobilia (alias Oily Old Farts… And Their Cars). A crowd gathers and Sid helpfully explains what on earth we are up to.
On the first day we find that the Monit (time and distance recorder, vital for fine navigation) is only working on GPS. This will drop out under trees and behaving mountains, both features of European rallying. Happily Jack has some spare Monit parts with him. And some ali for a bracket and soon enough with minimal effort from S&D we are off for another go round the measured mile with the sensor reading off the diff bolts with high accuracy. Thank you, Jack and Russ.
On Wednesday we visit the old Chimay road circuit for a test. It was live from 1929 until 1972 with breaks for regional politics. In the 19080s it was used for bike races. Our test uses one of the straights. The Alvis takes the full width to turn 180 degrees. Sid is taken to one side by experienced vintage driver and told to use more power to allow the back to steer. Ahead of us the Luxembourg Bentley knocks down a cone, and they get out to put it up. How decent, though unexpected, and their Peterson Bentley is making smoke. Lots.
Thursday takes us into West Germany. (Sid is rereading “Germania” by Simon Winder.) One of our regularities is hosted by a group who were Fred Gallagher’s service crew. A lot of these events work because Fred knows all the rally people from his own WRC career. In turn they get out stage maps from local rallies and talk to their mates at the circuits.
We stop in Koblenz where the Mosel meets the Rhine. S and D have no car servicing to do so walk along to the confluence. This is disputed territory up to and over the Rhine: Trier was Treves and Koblenz, Coblence with much of the ‘Burgundian’ territory not ceded to Germany until a referendum in 1955. It has been observed it is cheaper for the EU to meet in both Brussels and Strasbourg than to keep moving Strasbourg from Germany to France.
Sid and Doris dearly love to watch the big river traffic and marvel to see a vairy long barge come down the Mosel (le) to turn up the Rhine. We can only guess these vessels have AIS because this is a blind corner and the barge must swing through the current. Skilled work, with gradually changing proportions of the barge being pushed at the front by the Rhine’s current and the back by the Mosel(le).The Deutches Eck corner is also host to a monstrous equestrian statue of Emperor Willhelm 1st, in celebration of his part in the Unification of Germany. It was destroyed in the 1940s and rebuilt in 1993 after the more recent reunification.
On Friday we are into old East Germany. We go through Hesse, Thuringia and Saxony on our way to Czechia. Even after 33 years of unification 50 years of Soviet occupation still shows through.
We stop again at Eisenach and while we once again take pictures of old BMWs, EMWs and Wartbugs there is a new star of black and white. 
The star in the artistically composed photos above (thank you – D.) might be the Alvis but there is much competition from the Wartburg Camping Limousine with East Germans in sporty poses.
This is the Czech equivalent of the Ford Country Squire except that it had a 900cc three cylinder two stroke, rather than a 5,800cc V8. For which there was no waiting list.
This is the Czech equivalent of the Ford Country Squire except that it had a 900cc three cylinder two stroke, rather than a 5,800cc V8. For which there was no waiting list.
In Weimar there is time to wander the town and drink large Spritz Aperols before going in for dinner. This is bad for Sid’s head.
On the way to Prague we inadvertently turn off onto a Marklin model railway which delights S, whose duty is to call railway crossings and petrol stations which he understands are an important part of the navigation.In Prague we are at the big Hilton where Bart and the Mini brought us for the 2020 Winter Trial. It is a Saudi style internal-atrium beast. However it is handy for town and we delight in the Alfons Mucha museum in the old town hall. There is something to be said for leaving the town alone for fifty years. All the rebuilding is to non Soviet quality.
The Czechs are back to being a modern economy, if a bit export dependent. After just 30 years of catch up the GDP per head is about 10% behind the UK, though 20% behind their sometime Austrian masters. Still, where are the Hungarians? Soon we will go and find out.The Alvis is going well. Sid is getting better at steering it, though his arms hurt. Doris is resupplied with small clipboards and more tools of the trade. The rallying will get trickier from here. All around us nav’s are busy with their speed tables. In car six we are in fourth place among the pre-war cars from eight.
There are videos, photos and daily dispatch notes on the RtG site here:
And Gerard Brown’s fantastic photos are here:
https://www.gerardbrown.co.uk/gallery-collection/Ypres-to-Istanbul-Challenge-2022/C00005jvkgqLSmq8