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Published: March 10th 2015
Starting the Day Off Right
When booking our German accommodations I look for 3 things: Price, WiFi and whether there is a free breakfast included. The breakfast at Vier Jahreszeiten is tremendous. This would be one of our few days with a time constraint. Because we were flying home the following Sunday when Loginout would be closed and because Mr. Pennypincher had no interest in forking out a couple extra Euro to pay the penalty for the privilege of having someone do the paperwork on their day off, I arranged to do the processing on the one weekday we would be passing anywhere near Munich Strauss airport. Thanks to a number of helpful Bimmerfesters who advised me that this could be done I set up a 12 noon appointment to have all the Loginout papers filled-out and to give them my spare key. The appointment time seemed a reasonable time long before I ran into that Saturday afternoon Stau on the Munich-Salzburg Autobahn.Because I was worried that there might be an even worse traffic jam on a Monday morning heading into Munich we left our Bad Reichenhall hotel at 9 am. The estimated driving time per my
Hot Chocolate to Start the Day
Usually when we travel in Germany during the winter I order hot chocolate every morning. I think this was the one and only I needed on this trip. Temperatures were too warm for hot chocolate. dual GPS systems said it should take an hour and a half. I assumed that if we were making good progress with no traffic issues maybe we could stop at a Lidl or ReWe for some shopping. We encountered no traffic and saw no exits with shopping centers nearby. We got into MUC just after 10:30 and following the GPS directions ended-up in a pay parking lot on the wrong side of the terminal. We were in and out so quickly the turnstile didn't have time to figure out how much to charge us. The next street was the right "Allee" and we pulled-up into an empty space.The ladies in Loginout didn't bat an eye when we told them who we were and apologized for being so early. They handled our documents immediately. If it took more than ten minutes I'd be shocked. At first they were all business and not exactly warm, but once the official stuff was out of the way they lightened-up
The Fixin's Bar
I pretty much wiped out the cold cuts in cheese tray by the time this picture was taken. I loved making a big sandwich out of hard rolls, salami, ham, prosciutto and cheese every morning. It kept me feeling full until the mid-afternoon. and kidded around with us. Sadly the dog was not there. On the way out I snapped a few pics just in case any of you guys might have cars you're looking for.In quick order we were out of the airport complex and heading north on the Autobahn. There were far fewer cars this time and with three lanes I was able to crank the car up to a comfortable 90 mph most of the way. I topped out at maybe 110 at one point but had no real desire to exceed that. Meanwhile I was being blown off the road from time to time by various station wagons and cargo vans. Is there anything better than the rule banning trucks in the far left lane? The only adrenaline rushes I had were from the guys coming up from nowhere behind me. Those in front never caused a problem with radical lane changes or speed fluctuations. Everybody follows the rules and almost everyone heads
Our Chariot Awaits
Two days into the trip and the new baby is already filthy. Bad color choice. right to the far right lane when there are no trucks over there. So civilized.We arrived in downtown Nurnburg just after noon. Once again the Sat Nav kind of screwed us up and forced me to drive around a few blocks of a rather rundown section of South Nurnburg. I don't want to come off as prejudiced but I was a little worried when I started seeing so many signs with Arabic writing and a lot of non-German looking folks walking the streets. When I reached the front of the Smile Hotel I was starting to think I screwed-up and put ourselves in danger in some sort of ISIS stronghold. My fears were quickly dispelled. No one gave us a second glace as we pulled-up on a curb
As Scenic As It Gets On The Autobahn
Surprisingly Gail was staying awake on the boring long Autobahn drive toward Munich airport. next to Ali's Auto Service. Ringing the bell on the graffiti-decorated hotel soon brought out a smiling, bubbly German blonde who was nearly as verbose and lively as my own wife. She knew exactly who we were and even joked about my adding a second night to my initial reservation: "You must have read more about what a great city we have. That's why you decided to stay longer. You will want to add a third night". After showing us our own private garage and taking us to our large two room accommodation (ask for room 101) she spent the next half hour pulling out brochures and maps planning out an itinerary for us. In truth I had only been planning on spending one day exploring the town with the rest of the time spent driving around the outskirts. Her suggestions were so good that we ended-up following them to the letter. We paid an additional 2 Euro for two nights of unlimited internet
Munich Loginout
On our way between Bad Reichenhall and Nuremberg we had an appointment to do our paperwork for our car's shipping company in advance. Instead of paying a huge fee to have someone come in to work on our last day in Germany (a Sunday) we filled-out the shipping particulars a few days in advance. All we had to do was leave the car in this little parking lot on the day we were flying home. All these other BMWs are awaiting shipment back to the States. for our various electronic toys. The reason I chose the Smile Hotel over much better places like the Park Inn, Ibis and Marriott was due to the free parking. Other hotels wanted upwards of 18 Euro per night and were no closer to the action.The interesting parts of Nuremburg are situated inside the huge stone town wall that surrounds the original settlements. We were staying just a half block away from the southern wall. As Stephanie had explained it, the area of old town inside the wall but south of the Pegnitz River was the shopping district while the Northern section was more residential, historic and interesting. My wife and I quickly decided she could get her shopping done today and we'd see the historic stuff the next day when we could start earlier and try to pack as much in as possible. Just as long as I could get some lunch right away.<br style="color:� font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica,
sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: normal; background-color: #f6f8f9;" />Just a few steps from our hotel and on the way to the nearest Old Town gate we chanced upon a Doner Kebap joint. Just as curry has become more British than fish'n'chips, Doner has become the king of German cuisine due to the influx of so many workers from the Balkans over the past 25 years. For 10 Euro the wife and I each had a gigantic Doner Kebap and half liter of beer. Neither of us could finish. A most satisfying experience.The rest of the afternoon I played the good husband while my wife did her thing. Seriously, how many shoes do women need? About the only thing I found interesting was seeing how much more expensive men's shoes were. While I regularly saw ladies footwear on sale for under 10 Euro, the cheapest men's shows were
Have No Fear, Winter Is Still Hear
The further North we drove the less snow we saw. However as we climbed up the plateau overlooking the hops country we did see some evidence that Spring wasn't quite here yet. But at no point did we encounter any snowfall. Thank God because we opted to forgo the winter snow tires. triple that. And they don't seem to offer wide sizes either. Most of the time that she shopped I simply sat on benches in the pedestrian zone and people=watched. Eventually she began to tire. We decided to return to our room to drop off her bags nd to check our emails. Along the way I spotted a drugstore where I picked-up a couple of tubes of the German version of Airborne, a few bars of Fa soap, some of the magnificent German spray deodorant that we can't match and some Coke for the road. On our way back to the hotel, about a block from our room, we watched as perhaps 50 riot gear clad Polizei ran interference for a couple hundred red flag waving protestors. I'm not really sure what they were all worked-up about but the one word I could decipher on a few signs was "racism". But I don't know whether they were pro or con. Interesting that they were parading through a predominately Arab-Balkan neighborhood where very few of the inhabitants were paying any attention to them.<br style="color:
We Must be Back in Hallertauer Valley
For the next half hour we continued North through the largest hops producing area in the World. 80% of the World's supply is grown in this area of Germany. #000000; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: normal; background-color: #f6f8f9;" />After spending a few hours back at the room catching up on events back home, posting on Bimmerfest and re-arranging our
suitcases, we ventured back out for dinner. The plan was to cross the river into the historic area and hopefully find a quaint atmospheric Gasthaus or &af_placement_id=1&dv=550cfd2ee4604d72ffcbb1acae045cbe]Stube. Before we reached the Karls Bridge I espied a warm, welcoming old tavern that looked like something out the 1880's. Karlsbruckla (
http://www.karlsbrueckla.de/) was the perfect spot to relax after doing close to 13,000 steps on the
Fitbit. Naturally, we started off with two big Tucher Hefeweizen. I had been in Europe almost 3 full days and had yet to sample my first real Schnitzel. I ordered the Jagerschnitzel and my wife had Kasespatzel. Service was quite quick and served by a very cute girl who spoke excellent English. My mushroom covered cutlet may have been one of the best I ever enjoyed in all my many years of traveling in Germany. Absolutely perfect. Since tomorrow was Fasching (Fat Tuesday) she warned us that restaurants would be packed and the streets chock full of crazies starting early
Best Remote Control Design Ever
Fast forward to our arrival at the Smile Hotel in Nuremberg. In our spacious hotel room we had a big screen TV and this handy remote just in case we decided to buy any beers from the downstairs vending machine. in the day. She pretty much told us not to bother coming back to the Karlsbruckla because they would be full of partygoers all day long. Although the day time temps had been rather comfortable in the bright sunshine once we left the restaurant in the dark things had changed considerably. We spent a half hour window-shopping and snapping photos of some of the old stone bridges. When it got too cold to take any longer we hastened back to our hotel room for an evening of watching German TV. Tonight the entertainment was a night of televised Fasching celebrations featuring what we assumed were big name German entertainers. I never heard of any of them and found them pretty lame and almost embarrassing to watch. But the studio audience loved them and howled all night long. It turned out to be the perfect night to hit the sheets early for an early start the next day.
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