Where are the Rapaljes?: Rallye Deutschland 2010

a.k.a. German rednecks do exist!

Day One - In our village - weinberg

Climbing up the vineyard for seats

Our view/Car whipping around the corner

For weeks we noticed advertisements all around the city for Rallye Deutschland. Car racing isn't really my cup of tea so I didn't pay much attention.. Until, that is, my car was on the verge of being towed for the sake of the race. Turns out, the race was going to occur IN Trier (along with other stages taking place in different areas), around Roman ruins, through the city, etc. Who does that?! Doesn't seem extremely safe to me, but A was interested so we got the low down.

On Friday, the race was going on through our town and the neighboring village's wine roads. For those of you who haven't been here, we are in the middle of wine country. There are weinbergs (wine mountains) that have many narrow paths/roads across to make the grape harvesting more accessible. One stage of the race was going to take place through these narrow, windy roads.. and in our town, so of course we had to attend! With the help of our neighbor, we made our way through the winding wein roads (without driving head first into a rally car), walked up through some vineyards, and managed to see part of the race. Picture this: many shirtless Axel look-alikes (thankfully only shirtless, no speedos), multiple beers in hand, screaming in German when the car took the turn to fast. We're not in VA anymore, are we?!

On Sunday, the race was going through the city of Trier - around the Porta Nigra, through some narrow streets lined with shops, etc. The idea is just crazy to me, so of course, we had to see that as well. Turns out, after combing the streets of Trier and pushing through the thick crowds with some friends of ours who shared the interest, we found the race to be completely blocked off for the public to see - we needed a 60+ euro VIP pass to get up close and personal. Bummer. We did get to see the cars line up (IN THE WALKPLATZ!), driver's cram down some ice cream before suiting up, revving their engines, and taking off, but that was about the extent of it. The day, however, was saved after a nice bike trip to a favorite beer garden of ours - good friends, local yummy beer, & pommes.