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https://gfycat.com/ConstantWellinformedFieldmouse.webm Some goons mentioned they’d be interested in reading a thread about the adventures I and my partner have had over the last couple of weeks to avoid making GBS threads up existing threads with photos and anecdotes. Both of us turn 30 this year and decided to do something big before settling down and buying a house, and after watching a bunch of Top Gear specials decided gently caress it why not? Lets do our own adventure. We quickly settled on Germany being the main country where most of the trip would take place, as neither of us had been before, in particular the state of Bavaria. For me it was the alpine roads, and for her it was the fairy tale towns and castles. So over the next few months I got to work plotting our route. The Route The route underwent some pretty serious changes before it was finalised. After having done some research, we quickly agreed the main anchor point would be the national park of Schonau am Konigsee due to its natural beauty. The rest of the route would be planned around this location. The second anchor point was Castle Neuschwanstein; however it unfolded, these two locations would definitely be stopping points. We decided a relaxing stint at Lake Geneva would be the perfect way to end the trip, but due to Geneva and its surrounding areas being expensive as gently caress, we would stick with Montreux on the opposite side of the lake. The original route went as follows:
It was not meant to be. While my partner and I were travelling back home in the evening after visiting my parents on Christmas Day, my car suffered an engine malfunction which was uneconomical for me to repair. While I sorted out a new car and was back on the road less than two weeks later, the extra financial burden so soon after Christmas forced us to substantially change the route we would take. Due to costs, Amsterdam was axed entirely, along with Kessel, Bamberg, and Nuremberg. Due to realising that Lake Lucerne was actually a gorgeous lake in its own right, Montreux and Lake Geneva were also axed from the trip. The revised, and as became apparent, considerably better route went as follows:
On a map, the route looks somewhat like this:  Hotels were booked, policies were taken out, and the ferry crossing arranged. So what would our wheels be? The Car Wouldn’t be much of a road trip without a car would it? Having taken it abroad multiple times in the past, we would be doing this road trip in my MINI Cooper S.  MINI Cooper S 2007 R56 N14 1.6l – 4 cylinder petrol 175hp FWD 0 – 60: 7.1 seconds Whilst cargo space was something of an issue, the nippy little front wheel drive hatchback would be a blast to thrash around on the alpine routes, not to mention easy to manoeuver around in the cities. Sadly it was not meant to be. The R56 Cooper S with the N14 engine has a poor reputation for reliability, and my MINI had been slowly turning into something of a basket case over 2016, despite keeping on top of maintenance and fixing issues when they arose. Finally, on the way home after visiting my parents on Christmas Day, the engine suffered a sudden power loss and severe misfire. After it was recovered and looked it, it transpired the engine had lost all compression on cylinder 1. I loved the car, but faced with mounting diagnostic and repair costs, the car being 10 years old with over 90,000 miles on the clock which had other issues that needed rectifying, decided to accept a very generous sum from BMW to take the MINI as it was as a deposit toward a newer car. While all this was going on, I had taken a new BMW 1 Series for a test drive and had been very impressed. A new car was beyond my budget, but not an approved used one. So I said I wanted a 1 Series, but it had to be a 5 door manual petrol, which in the UK is a surprisingly hard combination to find. As luck would have it, one was on the lot. So five days later I was driving off in my shiny new(ish) BMW.  BMW 118i Sport 2015 F20 LCI 1.6l – 4 cylinder petrol 136hp RWD 0 – 60: 8.5 seconds My 118i was 13 months old with under 18,000 miles on the clock when I picked it up. It also has the remaining balance of manufacturers warranty, as well as the remaining balance of the service package. Overall, way fewer potential nasty surprises than the MINI. Whilst not as fast as the MINI its no slouch, considerably easier on the spine than the Cooper S, packed with technology and of course gets much better mileage which would help with the petrol costs on the trip. The additional cargo space wouldn’t go amiss either. So we have our route, our car, and on the 2nd of April our journey would begin. I’ll be writing up each day in subsequent posts as and when I can, and will link them back into this first post, starting with day 1. • Day 1 (2nd April) – The Road to Germany. • Day 2 (3rd April) – The Romantische Strasse (Wurzburg to Rothenburg ob der Tauber). • Day 3 (4th April) – The Romantische Strasse (Rothenburg ob der Tauber to Munich). • Day 4 (5th April) – Munich. • Day 5 (6th April) – The Dachau Concentration Camp, loving in Austria and Schonau am Konigsee. • Day 6 (7th April) – Lake Konigsee and Berchtesgaden. • Day 7 (8th April) – The Salt Mines and Salzburg. • Day 8 (9th April) – The Deutsche Alpenstrasse (Schonau am Konigsee to Fussen). • Day 9 (10th April) - Castle Neuschwanstein, The Deutsche Alpenstrasse, and the Road to Switzerland. • Day 10 (11th April) – Lake Lucerne, and the City on the Lake. • Day 11 (12th April) – Lazing Around the Lake. • Day 12 (13th April) – Return to France. • Day 13 (14th April) – The Champagne Region and the Road Home. Please by all means if anyone has any questions fire away, or indeed if you’ve been in the area and have anything to add then go for it. There are times in the week where I have no access to my computer so updates might be a bit slow. In the meantime, here’s a preview of what lies ahead.               
Lord Ludikrous fucked around with this message at 21:56 on Jul 17, 2017 |
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Apr 18, 2017 20:39
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Sorry about taking forever to actually get around to doing this, right after I sorted this out I went down with a nasty bout of tonsillitis, and didn’t get back home to my PC for over a month, got kicked out of my parents home for a bit, and was helping my girlfriend move into her new flat. So, here we go. Day 1 – The Road To Germany 02/04/2017 This will be the shortest account of all the days on the tour, as the overwhelming majority of the day was spent on the major autoroutes booting it through Europe to our destination in Germany.  The plan was to drive from my partner’s home in Gravesham (just outside of London) down to the port of Dover, where we would catch the 08:00 ferry to Dunkirk in France. The drive to Dover takes just over an hour, and the ferry crossing takes about two hours. Once we reached Dunkirk, we would then hit autoroute E30 and head through Belgium and The Netherlands into Germany. Given it takes over an hour to reach Dover and you need to be at the check in point no later than 45 minutes before the ferry departs, it was going to be an early start. As it happened we both woke up earlier than expected and decided to use the extra time to double check everything and go grab a coffee for the long journey ahead. I then programmed the single longest journey I’ve ever done into the sat-nav system.  My 118i’s starting mileage.  Heh. Brest. We arrived at Dover in good time, which was fortunate because our boarding lane was a million miles away from the toilets and that coffee had gone straight through both of us. If you’ve never been on a large car ferry, its fairly straight forward. You drive into the ferry docks where you first have to get through French passport control. Our government has an agreement with the French where our respective border controls sit in each other’s country, and the speed of getting through passport control largely depends on how annoyed the French are with us on that particular day.  Waiting to board. Once through you then head to the relevant check in point depending on which of the two ferry companies you booked with. All bookings are done in advance, so the ANPR system knows who you are and who’s coming on board, so all they do is check your passport and issue a tag to attach to your car that tells you what lane to head to. After that, its just a matter of driving onto the ferry and parking up as directed. The car decks are completely sealed off from each other and the rest of the ship (this all came about from a very nasty incident 30 years ago where the car deck doors weren’t shut on a ferry when it departed; the decks promptly flooded the whole vessel and sank it, killing a lot of people), so you have to take whatever you want to have on the voyage or leave it until France.  Our ferry departs from the port. You can see Dover Castle perched on top of the white cliffs. So now began the 2 hour slog of keeping ourselves occupied while we crossed the channel. Most people including ourselves go and grab themselves a hearty breakfast at the restaurant to start off with. Other than that, you can go shopping in the boutique, play on the gambling machines, or head out on deck. Personally I prefer to be out on deck as much as possible as I like the relative quiet compared to the hustle and bustle inside the ship, and because it gives me a respite from having to persuade the other half to do her boutique shopping on the return trip.  It was very cold and foggy for a good chunk of the channel.  Then the sun came out and all was well again. Dunkirk is an industrial centre and not an especially picturesque introduction to France, which can set a bit of a gloomy tone with those expecting something more in line with Calais. If you’re heading eastwards into Europe, it is the preferred destination due to being cheaper, in close proximity to the Belgian border, and is rarely affected by the disruption Calais has suffered in recent years. Once the ferry docks, everyone returns to their cars, and you simply drive out the ferry and out of the port onto the main routes.  Our ferry arrives at Dunkirk. So began our six and a half hour journey to Wurzburg.  Our route took us into Belgium, where we navigated around Brussel’s equivalent of the M25, which was mercifully light on traffic at the time. Once clear of Brussels, the route cuts through a small section of The Netherlands, where we stopped at a service station on the Dutch-German border to empty our bladders and fuel up on coffee.  Despite only being a few hours into the trip, the front of my car had already been transformed into an insectoid mass grave. We promptly discovered a few things; Germany’s autobahn services are really nice, their self serve coffee machines are completely incomprehensible to try and use as a foreigner, and you have to pay to use the toilets, but you get a redeemable voucher in return to use in the shop, and the toilets give change. Had we discovered things in a different order we may have fared a bit better. We then went on our merry way onto the autobahn!  Most people have probably heard of the famous German autobahns as being a speed demon’s paradise; lots of long open roads with no speed limits and plenty of room. This isn’t entirely true. Much of the autobahn network is unrestricted, but there are plenty of areas with varying speed restrictions, and a heck of a lot of areas with advisory speed restrictions. The signage distinguishes between the two, advisory is blue, mandatory is red. The key difference is that mandatory limits are exactly that, should you get caught braking them you will be dealt with by the German police in accordance with the law. The advisory limits on the other hand are a recommendation that you do not exceed the limit due to the conditions in that area. Legally you can go as fast as you want, but should you be involved in an incident and are found to have exceeded the advisory limit, it is highly likely you will be held at fault for whatever incident took place.  Wir fahr'n fahr'n fahr'n auf der Autobahn. Complicating things further are the sudden changes of the speed limit. Some countries such as France and Belgium have signage to warn drivers of upcoming speed limit changes, which is especially handy as these nations have speed cameras loving everywhere. Germany employs no such system, so it was not uncommon to be hurtling along an unrestricted section only to suddenly come upon a 100kph restriction, meaning everyone slams their anchors on and hopes the person behind is paying attention. The 100kph zone then shortly ends and goes up to 130kph or becomes unrestricted, meaning everyone puts their foot down only to slam their brakes on at the next 100kph restriction 2km down the road. What most of the journey ended up being was most lanes travelling between 110 to 130kph, with the outside lane being left to large German saloons hurtling along at 200kph. Regretfully my other half wouldn't let me exceed 160kph when the unrestricted sections kicked in. Despite most Germans having good lane discipline, every now and again you'd have some oblivious idiot in a Peugeot pootling along the outside lane with a huge queue of angry BMWs, Audis and Mercedes all right up their arse flashing their lights to get out the way. The autobahns from what I saw did seem to be well maintained, and there was less road noise in my car going at 100mph as there is going at 70mph back in the UK. On top of that there are services at regular intervals, and these services are really, really good.  Industrial hellscape ahoy! Unfortunately as we approached Wurzburg, we got stuck in some very heavy traffic with constantly fluctuating speeds, which did my fuel consumption no favours. As running out of fuel on the autobahn is an offence in Germany, I decided to stop off at the nearest services and pop a bit of extra fuel in the tank to make sure we had plenty in case we hit some stop start traffic. Once again the services in Germany continue to impress me, with this one having a large sandwich counter with some of the most artfully crafted sandwiches I’ve ever seen, which frankly put all the trendy hipster ones in the cities back home to shame. After a short while of heavy traffic, we finally arrived in Wurzburg.  https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotel_Review-g187321-d638750-Reviews-Hotel_Residence-Wurzburg_Lower_Franconia_Franconia_Bavaria.html Our hotel was the Hotel Residence and was right inside the city centre, which predictably meant no parking. However the lady at the front desk was very helpful and directed us to a nearby underground car park. The car park was immaculate, however my partner, having held out since the Dutch border, nipped into the toilets and promptly came out with an ashen look on her face. Apparently the toilets were filled to the brim with poo poo, blood, and copious amounts of used needles and other paraphernalia. We promptly decided to get to our hotel room as quickly as possible. Whilst comfortable, the hotel was rather…dated to say the least. From the wallpaper to the Made in W Germany markings on the furnishings. It was then we discovered two things about Germany; firstly their hotels do not provide tea or coffee facilities in their rooms, or at least in none of the ones we had. Secondly the Germans do not have double or king sized beds like we do. What you get instead are two single mattresses on a double frame with separate duvets. Which is fun because if the mattresses sit on top of the frame as opposed to within it and you want a cuddle with your significant other, the two mattresses will start to move apart as one (or both of you) sinks between them. Having been on the road for quite some time, we were very tired, hungry and in need of a good beer. So we nipped over to a Pizza restaurant called Locanda just across the road from our hotel. https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurant_Review-g187321-d2645235-Reviews-Locanda-Wurzburg_Lower_Franconia_Franconia_Bavaria.html It was very tasty if not especially speedy pizza, and the beer was like nectar after the long day we had.  Tasty.  The view from our table. So that was how we ended the first night on our journey, watching the sun set over the city whilst enjoying the local brew, before heading back to our hilariously dated hotel room to get a good nights rest in preparation for what awaited us the following day.  Cheers! Tomorrow we embark on the Romantische Strasse and make our way to Rothenburg ob der Tauber!
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Jun 19, 2017 19:10
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Nice man I plan on doing something similar one day
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Jun 20, 2017 05:11
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German pizza, eh? Brave soul. I really want to visit Germany so this is an awesome source of ideas.
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Jun 20, 2017 20:28
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Cool trip! Despite driving to/through Germany fairly frequently on business, including in my miata, I never really explored southern Bavaria which is supposedly very nice. I know you mentioned you dropped Nuremberg due to costs but really, how much more would it be to just stop there for a few hours? There's a ton of interesting  stuff there. Also if you can swing an extra ~100 km from Schonau am Konigsee, Großglockner Hochalpenstraße in Austria is loving nuts:  Seat Safety Switch posted:German pizza, eh? Brave soul. That said, what the hell man, eat more schnitzel or something! 
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Jun 20, 2017 21:02
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Seat Safety Switch posted:German pizza, eh? Brave soul. Honestly it was pretty decent, and really cheap (like 9 euros or something?). Truth be told we were both shattered from all the travelling on that day and we just wanted something nice that was right next to our hotel. I'll be including when possible Tripadvisor links to the places we stayed and ate at. I'm not someone given to hyperbole, but I cannot sing the praises of the hotels we stayed at in Rothenburg ob der Tauber and Schonau am Konigsee enough. Overall the standard of accommodation during our trip was high, but these two locations were truly something. Rothenburg comes up in the next update, and Schonau is a bit further along. mobby_6kl posted:Cool trip! Despite driving to/through Germany fairly frequently on business, including in my miata, I never really explored southern Bavaria which is supposedly very nice. I had no idea Großglockner Hochalpenstraße existed, that looks absolutely amazing. Looks like I know where we are going if we get to do another one. The thing with Nuremburg wasn't just the costs, but also a matter of time. On the original route we would have stayed overnight in Bamberg, and had a day visit to Nuremberg on our way down to Munich, as hotels in Nuremberg were monstrously expensive. The new route took us quite some distance from Nuremberg, so while it was possible to divert and visit, it would have compromised our time in Munich or Schonau am Konigsee. My partner and I have often been going at a breakneck pace on previous holidays, trying to see and do everything we possibly could in the short time available, and we decided that this time we were going to take it at a more relaxed pace, and if time didn't allow for some activities so be it. Sadly Nuremberg got the chop this time around. There will be proper German food coming down the line I promise. I did take quite a liking to spatzl.
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Jun 21, 2017 07:05
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mobby_6kl posted:
Or even better, schweinshaxn, sauerkraut and a huge beer
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Jun 21, 2017 09:39
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I really want to do something like this, but annoyingly it's quite hard to get adequate breakdown cover for Europe on older cars. Also I need to fix my aircon.
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Jun 21, 2017 10:06
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Day 2 – The Romantische Strasse (Wurzburg to Rothenburg ob der Tauber) 03/04/2017 So our second day on our trip begins bright and early, and the lack of coffee facilities in our room was felt gravely. We wanted to have a look around Wurzburg before we departed, so we decided to shower first, get all our suitcases packed, then leave the suitcases in our room while we had breakfast and a look around town, and would then finally check out and take our luggage back to the car. While lack of tea and coffee facilities in our room was most unfortunate, the selection at breakfast was really quite brilliant. You could pick from a selection of various cured meats, sausages, breads, cereals, yoghurt, fruit as well as the more familiar options of eggs, bacon and sausages. For drinks there was a selection of fruit juices as well as tea and coffee like you’d expect.  I opted to start my day with some cornflakes, strawberry yoghurt with a generous helping of summer berries, black coffee and some orange juice. We left our hotel and had a little wander down the main streets, before turning onto the pathway that runs along the river that flows through the town.  Quite the view. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzq6DOUamrg You can see the Marienberg Fortress perched at the top of the hill overlooking the town, and it was extremely regretful that we didn’t have time to go and visit it. Given the time pressure we were under, we decided we would go onto the main bridge itself, have a good look around, and then go and check out.  Bikes are very popular around here.   The view from the bridge. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uA3bD58JNHM After soaking up the sights and the morning air, we went back to our hotel, checked out, and got back to the car. Before we could set off on the Romantic Road, there was one small thing we had to attend to. Germany like many countries in Europe has introduced low emission zones. You obtain a sticker called the Feinstaubplakette (fine particle sticker) that goes on the inside of your windscreen which will display a specific number, colour and your registration plate number. The number and colour of the sticker are determined by the emissions your car produces, and as time goes on vehicles with older stickers are no longer permitted into the low emission zones. This restriction covers both German and foreign vehicles, and as it happens we had to enter one of these zones to get to our hotel in Munich. I opted to get it done as soon as possible in case any last minute issues cropped up, and there was a DEKRA centre on the route we were taking, so off we went. These DEKRA centres are just like the MOT testing stations we have back in the UK, except instead of booking an appointment wherein a technician takes your vehicle into a bay, theirs is like a conveyor system where you simply queue up, drive in one end, and the tech does his thing and drives it out the other end ready for you to pay up and collect. Needless to say the locals were a bit confused as to why a UK registered BMW had shown up in one of their centres. The tech was also initially rather confused as to why my girlfriend was ignoring his gestures telling her where to park the car, until it dawned on him that as it was a right hand drive car, the driver was standing in front of him. As it happens the staff were very friendly and helpful, and even waived the fee, wishing us a great time in Germany. So should you opt to do the same route and find yourself in need of a feinstaubplakette, head to these guys and they will sort you out.  If you are touring Germany in general and find yourself in need of one of these stickers, you can get them from any DEKRA centre, and there are loving loads of them. However, and this is important, you must bring your vehicle registration documents with you (the V5C if you’re from the UK). If you enter an emissions zone without a permitted sticker and get caught, the fines are heavy. Now that bit of paperwork was out the way, it was off to the Romantische Strasse! That is, after we get some fuel for the car, and some fuel for ourselves. So we stopped off at a nearby petrol station, and then visited the McDonalds next door. If you visit McDonalds restaurants in different countries you’ll notice there are differences between each one, usually in the food and drink they serve. Spain for instance serves beer along with its regular meals. Germany seems to have not had all the high tech upgrades the French and UK ones have, but instead has a rather upmarket section inside called the McCafe.  The McCafe is a far cry from the fast food we all know and love and much more in the league of something like Starbucks or Costa, serving up posh coffee, snacks and muffins, but keeping the price point more in line with your usual McDonalds fare. Classy stuff. So we grabbed a coffee each, a large Sprite and a chocolate muffin and hit the Romantische Strasse.  The Romantische Strasse, or Romantic Road, is an official signposted route set up by the German government in the 1950s, and is popular with tourists and Germans alike. The route is 350km long and passes through 28 towns. It combines glorious scenery with towns that many would call quintessentially Bavarian, so at times it does feel like you’re driving through a fairytale. We weren’t going to see all of the Romantic Road as we had to break off near the end once we hit Landsberg am Lech to go to Munich, however we would see most of the towns that would come after later on when we travel along the Deutsche Alpenstrasse. In addition we were not going to stop at all the towns we journeyed through, merely take in the sights as we go. Due to time constraints as well as time lost obtaining our emissions sticker, we regretfully had to skip the first couple of towns and instead head straight to Bad Mergentheim. Bad Mergentheim was a picturesque town to be sure, albeit slightly ruined by the construction works going on in the main square. We parked up and wandered into the town in the hopes getting a map or something as the signage for the route was poor to say the least.   Approaching the square and a view of the square and tourism office. We found the tourism office, and despite everything having a price tag on it, the lady running the office gave us the guide for free, wishing us a great time in Germany. Seems to be a theme here.  This castle was the original thing that got my partner hooked onto this trip in the first place. As it turns out the guide was fairly useless. Sure it had loads of pretty pictures telling you what awesome things there were along the route, as well as the route superimposed over a graphic of Germany, but there were no road names, directions or anything. We were forced to follow the signs, which as mentioned before were not especially helpful. As it was approaching mid-day, we decided to stop in one of the many laybys on the route and have some lunch before venturing further.  My collection of dead flattened insects continues to grow. Our lunch consisted of the sizable remnants of the pizza from the previous night along with the muffin we had grabbed from the McCafe earlier, and it was nice to stop and just take things at a relaxing pace.  Enjoying some fine cuisine at the helpfully provided picnic table. After this classy meal, we resumed our journey on the Romantic Road. As I was driving and not in a position to take photographs until we reached our destination my partner helpfully took photographs for me. Unfortunately as I didn’t know exactly when she was taking pictures and was also concentrating on driving, I don’t know exactly what the pictures are of, only that they are on the route between Bad Mergentheim and Rothenburg ob der Tauber. So below is a collection of photographs that give you an idea of the visuals on the route.           At last, we arrived in our destination: Rothenburg ob der Tauber. This town was the inspiration for the town in Disney’s adaption of Pinocchio , and it really shows. Frustratingly the car’s navigation system took us through all the side streets in a zig zag pattern towards our hotel when it could have just driven us up into the square and turned left, but we got to see a lot more of the town on our way in. Our accommodation for our stay was the Hotel Klosterstuble, an absolutely gorgeous period building manned some of the most warm and welcoming staff I’ve ever had the pleasure to deal with.  https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotel_Review-g187319-d260819-Reviews-Hotel_Klosterstueble-Rothenburg_Middle_Franconia_Franconia_Bavaria.html Should you decide to pay a visit to Rothenburg, I strongly recommend you stay at this hotel. Parking in this area is restricted, but you can get a temporary pass that covers the majority of an overnight stay, which the lady at the front desk helpfully took care of us. The room was a sharp contrast to our previous accommodation, instead of dated, it was period, and absolutely charming.  We dropped our luggage off and decided to go look around the town.  Walking up the street from our hotel.  Can’t go wrong with beer and ice cream. Delicious too.  Looking into the town square.  Regretfully my budget didn’t allow me to purchase this mighty beer stein.  Probably the most well known buildings in Rothenburg.  Looking at the town from the medieval wall.  Another view of the square.  My Bavarian machine sitting in a Bavarian town. After this bout of exploration we opted to look for somewhere to eat, and after finding out our first choices were actually closed until Wednesday, we decided to just go back to the hotel and eat at their restaurant. Glad we did too, as it was delicious.  My first taste of spatzl and escalopes, followed up with some tasty ice cream. After having a couple of rounds of beer, it was time to retire to our room. We would explore more of Rothenburg before we embark on our journey to Munich, but this was one of those places I feel I could spend a whole week in relaxing. Should the opportunity arise I would love to go back for the Christmas Market. Tomorrow we head back onto the Romantische Strasse and head to Munich! Lord Ludikrous fucked around with this message at 17:27 on Jul 18, 2017 |
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Jul 17, 2017 21:55
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| # ? Apr 19, 2024 06:43 |
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Holy moly good post. I'm going to have to come back to read it all.
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Jul 18, 2017 13:41
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