Day 8 - Frankfurt to Home

Day 8 began at 05:30. After checking out of the Intercontinental hotel we joined the autobahn heading for Koln, Brussels and Calais.

The route can be seen here.

The weather in Germany was misty at 6am in the morning, which then turned to rain as we got nearer the Belgium border.

We caught up with another Modball team in a services and ran with them up until the docks in Calais. Upon arrival at the docks, we saw all the other Modballer's who had driven to Calais from Prague. We unfortunately werent loaded on to the same ferry as them so caught the ferry after them.

We arrived back in England about 3pm and after a quick stop for something to eat we drove back home, arriving there at 7pm. Another long drive but I was so glad to be home. I was done being in the car.

Day 7 - Prague to Frankfurt

Team Funkycoconut checked out of the Hotel Duo in Prague about 11am. Modball had finished in Prague and we were heading home to England. To drive direct to England straight from Prague was a 10 hour (1,117km) drive and just too long. So plans were made to stop in Frankfurt for the evening and catch a few hours sleep there before carrying on to Calais to catch the midday ferry back to Dover.

See the route we took, click here.

Today was again mostly a motorway/autobahn drive to Frankfurt. Czech motorways require drivers to have a motorway sticker. These are available in petrol stations, the border controls and some post offices. Upon entering the Czech Republic, there was no officials to point us in the right direction to obtain one and in the petrol stations I stopped at yesterday and today, they did not sell them. So entering the last services in the czech Republic before we entered Germany, we stopped but again they did not sell the motorway stickers. The services was full of Czech people on their way to Euro 2008 in Switzerland. Upon leaving the services, we were stopped by Czech police for not having the motorway sticker. In very poor Czech/English, I explained that the petrol station did not sell them and she accepted this excuse. I came away from this with a 500CZK (£16) fine. 5 minutes after leaving the services were arrived at the border and rued stopping at the services for at toilet stop.

Once in Germany, the Autobahn's whisked speedily by as we drove to Frankfurt. We were taking our time and caught up with some other Modballers ,Team UK Garage Sensation in the Skoda Fabia and Seat Leon. We hung with them for a time before driving off chasing a Porsche 911 (haha we wish).

We arrived in Frankfurt aroudn 5pm and the sat nav guided us to our hotel for the evening, The 5 star Intercontinental Hotel. Upon arrival, it was not clear to me where the parking garage was so upon asking the valet parking attendant where the garage was , he offered to park the car for me. Feeling a little underdressed for such a establishment, I declined his offer and took his directions whilst he helped the black S class Mercedes that had arrived behind Camo.

Day 6 - Budapest to Prague

We awoke in Budapest about 8am and breakfasted and programmed the navigation device for Prague. We were the first team to leave Budapest as far as im aware. The evening in Budapest and the rumours going around the teams were to get out of Budapest and Hungary as quickly as possible.

Stopping just to refuel we left Hungary and drove back into Austria. Most teams took the motorway to Bratislava, Brno and Prague. Team Funkycoconut likes to see the hidden parts of the countries it visits, so after heading back into and through Vienna, we left Austria and entered the Czech Republic close to the town of Znojmo. On the Czech side of the border is Excaliber City. A kind of out of town duty free shopping place with a resturant located inside a passenger airliner, a huge globe and a castle. Went past it last year on Modball and suprisingly went past it again this year, just in the opposite direction.

Passing through the towns of Znojmo and Jihlava, we picked up the motorway and headed towards Prague. Not much happens on the motorway and to be honest it is quite boring, unless you are travelling in a pack of cars with friends, but then you are travelling in convoy and the police dont like that. We arrived in Prague in the early evening about 6pm. The Hotel Duo was one of the hotels on the route of Modball Europe 2007 and was to be the finish line to Modball Europe 2008. When we arrived other Modballers we already in the car park talking between themselves of the adventures they had had.

Day 5 - Innsbruck to Budapest

I awoke not knowing what day it was in Innsbruck. The sound of a jet engine was the cause of bringing me out of my slumber. The Sportpenz Hotel in Innsbruck is across the road from Innsbruck airport. I must recommend this hotel. I had one of the best steak dinners in the hotel ive ever had. Defo going again. Anyway, we checked out of the hotel about 9am ready for the 780km drive to the Hotel Stadion in Budapest. Follow the link to see the route we took.

We knew today was going to be mostly motorway driving and pretty boring. With the mountains behind us we had to find things to entertain us. Some pre-event planning found that the Austrian village of Fucking was nearby our route to Vienna and being British and with our sense of humour, I felt with would be a crime not to visit and take a picture.

After leaving the village we programmed the navigation device for Budapest and headed directly for it. With the odd stop for food and petrol we left Austria and entered Hungary. Now we had had some rainfall during the journey to this point but like a wall of mist across the Hurgarian fields, the most heaviest rainfall I have ever experienced desended upon Camo and Team Funkycoconut immediately droppping our speed from 80mph down to 20mph. This rainfall must have last a good 20 minutes before we reached the other side and emerged into a cool summers evening as we arrived in Budapest. The Hotel Stadion is located on the east of Budapest so we crossed the Elisabeth Bridge that crosses the River Danube that flows through Budapest and arrived as one of the last Modballers to get to the hotel.

Day 4 - Milan to Innsbruck

Day 4 begin at 08:00 and looking out of the 3rd floor window down to the street to find Camo had been sabotaged during the night by another Modball team and had been cling filmed in her parking bay. After removing the cling film and paying the Italian parking attendant 3 Euros for parking in the bay past 8am, Team Funkycoconut left Milan heading north for Lake Como, Bormio and the Stelvio Pass.

Following the link to see the route we took on day 4.

Most of the morning was motorway driving along the east side of Lake Como, and we reached the town of Bormio about midday. After failing to understand an Italian self service petrol station, we began climbing the Passo de Stelvio (the Stelvio Pass) on just 60miles of fuel according to Camo's onboard tripcomputer.

As we climbed the southern ramp as pictured left, we stopped several times to admire the view and take pictures. We reached the summit of the Stevlio pass and stopped for lunch in the bar.

Going down the northern ramp, we filmed the desent (to be uploaded later), the northern ramp is the one featured in BBC's Top Gear.

Upon finding the next petrol station, we stopped to refuel and then made our way to Meran in the very northern tip of Italy. In sum forward planning we then took the road to the foot of the Passo di Monte Giovo. Again the asent of the mountain pass was demanding on the car. Strangely the mountain pass is a bus route and twice we encountered an oncoming bus and had to brake suddenly to avoid an accident. Upon reaching the summit of the Passo di Monte Giovo, we stopped and again took pictures.

We decended the northern side of the Giovo and again video'd the desent.

At about 5pm we reached the autostrada del Brennero and joined it on the way to Innsbruck in Austria. We arrived in the Austrian city of Innsbruck and our hotel, the Sportpenz Hotel about 7pm.

Day 3 - Geneva to Milan

Day 3 began in Geneva city centre with Team Funkycoconut leaving the at about 11am. Todays plan was to drive in the French Alps around the Olympic town of Albertville and Val D'isere and taking a mountain road into Italy and then the autostrada to Milan.

See the route we took via this link.

We configured our navigation device to head for Chamonix but the weather turned for the worse and we abandoned Chamonix and headed straight for Albertville. We wanted to avoid expensive french toll roads so we passed through villages of La Clusas and Flumet. As im writing this ive discovered I drove the Col des Aravis :-)

Just outside of the ski resort of Val D'isere we stopped by Lac du Chevril. We took some pictures and then continued on to Val D'isere. When we arrived in the resort, we found the place deserted apart from a few locals. Obviously June is out of season but it was very quiet. We didnt stop and continued to to the foot of the Col de l'Iseran. Unfortunately it wasn't until we rached he foot of the mountain road that we found the local authorities had closed the road over the Col de l'Iseran due to roadworks and from what I could see, lingering snow at the top. We had to turn back and find
another route to Milan.

We got back to the village of Seez and the navigation device rerouted us via the Col du Petit St. Bernard. We followed the road to the top and the village of La Rossiere. Again once again the road had been closed by the authorities. We did however notice sum locals ignoring the barriers and driving through. We took a chance and followed. We reached the French/Italian border to find that the French authorities had snowplowed the road but the Italians had not bothered, and Italy was blocked by an 8ft snow wall. Again we turned around and decended to Seez again to find another route to Italy.

As the time was now approaching 6pm and Milan still several hundred kilometers away, we decided to just get to Milan and to the hotel we had booked. We chanced upon a sign pointing to the village of Pussy. We didn't visit, just took a photo. Arriving in the town of Modane we then took the 13km (8 mile) Fréjus road tunnel to Bardonecchia in Italy.

Once in Italy we made all haste in getting to Milan and the Hotel Soperga. We arrived in Milan at the hotel about 11pm.

Day 2 - Calais to Geneva

Day 2 began at 00:30 when the Pride of Burgandy ferry pulled into Calais and we drove off the ferry. We followed the other Modballer's out of the harbour area on to the autoroute heading for Reims. Most Baller's then stopped at the first services to refuel and Team Funkycoconut also stopped here.

We continued on in the night heading south, passing the cities of Reims, Troyes and Dijon. We left the autoroute and headed towards Switzerland via the towns of Poligny and Champagnole. By this time it was about 9am. With tiredness to blame, I passed through the unmanned Switzerland border control gate on the left side, the wrong side and didn't relaise this fact until I found a MPV on the same side of the road as me.

See the route we took on this link

Team Funkycoconut arrived at the Swiss Tuning Show held at the Palexpo in Geneva about 10:30am.

The official Modball plan was to leave the show at 5pm and then to travel on to Milan. After the drive from Calais to Geneva as expected, I was too tired to travel a further 300km so Team Funkycoconut had booked a hotel in the Nashville Hotel.

Day 1 - London to Dover

Day 1 began with Team Funkycoconut arriving at the Ace Cafe in the Camo 206. We were late arriving due to traffic around the Ace Cafe. Turned out we were not the only teams to be running late to the start. Once parked up and had registered with the organisers we set about stickering up Camo with the Modball Europe logos and event sponsor logos.

Come 7pm, we set off for Dover. We were one of the last dozen to leave the Ace Cafe, behind the camo skyline driven by Team Camo Skyline. Now With the start location north of the River Thames, I had planned to not go with our satnav suggested route of M4, M25 and M20 to Dover, but instead via Central London, Piccadilly, Big Ben and then Dover via M20. You can view the route we took by following this link


To say it was a fool hardy decision to go this route would be right but we would have missed playing with the orange Lamborghini Murcilargo around Grovesnor Place. Granted we did get stuck in traffic on Piccadilly and around Trafalger Square but it all added to the drive I think.


We arrived at Dover at 22:30 but we not the last Modball team to arrive at the docks. We boarded the ferry and travelled across the channel to Calais and France.

Im home

Well im home from Modball Europe 2008. I wasnt able to do daily updates on the blog due to arriving in the destinations too tired. So i'll now start debriefing the entire event here on this blog.