Autobahning with a French diesel compact for the border

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After a fun bus ride to London Stansted, we boarded on our practically free ride to Frankfurt (Hahn) without complication. The Ryanair flight was 2 pence and taxes paid for, but after baggage, check-in and handling fees, it was still only 24 pounds each. German efficiency had us in our citroen diesel in no time and we were off in sunny 18 degree weather going the 165km maximum the wee frenchie could do.

Since the airport was an hour and a half west of Frankfurt, we decided to not go super far the first night so we stopped in Heidelberg. After dumping our stuff at the hotel, we drove into the old centre and looked for a place to eat. After the long walk experience for breakfast in London, Vivi put the pressure on me to make a decision quickly. I was tempted by the curry house... (or would have had there been one)... but we went for a Schnitzelhaus! Good choice actually as we spent most of the evening there and only did a quick tour of the town in the dark later.

Although we planned to walk up in and around the castle, we decided to drive on because the weather had turned. We drove on to Munich to meet Sandra, a friend of Vivi's from Saba that I had a chance to meet briefly there too before I left. I tried to coordinate a meet up with a Norwegian lass that was in Ulm, but I didn't get her mobile number in time when we drove through it. Shame. Anyway, we autobahned onward to white sausage town and met Sandra in the Bavarian tourist haunt of the Hofbraeuhaus! There we had a "measure" (1 litre beer) or two and got whipped at chess while catching up on Saba gossip. Strange place for that while hearing Ein Prosit at the same time, but it was fun.

We were then off to nearby Garmisch-Partenkirchen for the evening and were lucky to just get a cheap place to stay as we were a little late. The plan was see Schloss Neuschwanstein on the way to Austria. I thought it was close by, so we set off in the night trying to find it. Since I didn't do any proper research (because I had been before) and we left our road map in Heidelberg or somewhere, I drove unknowingly into Austria before turning around. It started snowing and I was happy enough to find my way back! During breakfast we found out it was 60km away. We set off driving in heavy snowfall to Austria again and didn't find the castle. We didn't know that we were supposed to drive THROUGH Austria to get there from where we were. I blamed it on lack of visibility. 😊

A metre fresh snow as we crossed the border! Looking forward to snowboarding!

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