Heidelberg to Munich

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Geo: 49.4019, 8.68024

For our last full day in Germany, the Neckar Castle Cruise was a perfect way to wind up Heidelberg. We grabbed a cab to the boat and headed out on our 3 hour tour. This tour was to take us from Heidelberg, through 2 locks, past the towns of Ziegelhausen, Neckargemünd, ..... all the way to Neckarsteinach...... And back. The trip up was nice and relaxing. As we cruised, a narrative of the town and castles was played. It was really quite nice to just sit back and not have to do anything but look and take the occasional photo. The city where we turned around, @@@, is the only city in all of Germany with 4 castles. Quite stunning if I mayday so myself. Once docked, several folks got off .... and an entire bus load of senior citizens got on. Something pretty cool about German elders. Just something about them. Oh the things they have seen ..... After sitting in the sun for 15 minutes as they reloaded the boat, Tim and I went below deck because the sun was brutal.

It literally took us 5 minutes of watching others get beer before we had one in hand ourselves.

After all was set with the boat, they headed back to Heidelberg. Watching the ships go through the locks was pretty cool. I had been on a few lock and dam cruises in Pittsburgh but this was a little different. Same concept .... Little different. We got off the boat after a few very lovely scenic hours and grabbed a cab back to the Marriott where we packed up, loaded the car, and off to Munich we headed.

Now, I'm not sure who told me the Autobahn now has speed limits. Section do of course, but there are still quite a few that are full bore as fast as your engine can take you. I would say out of the 300 km we traveled this afternoon, almost 100 of it was under construction. Another 100 was in congested areas, which left only about 100 that had a good moving traffic flow. I think my 3 favorite things about the Autobahn is there are virtually NO stupid left lane drivers, trucks can pass in the middle lane but, on the three lane sections they can't go into the left lane, and merge points are just that .... Merge points. You don't have some self appointed merge police dickwad who blocks the merge lane 5 miles before the merge point screwing everyone up. People actually merge at the merge point and play nice. Once again .... There's SO much we could learn from other nations if we'd just allow ourselves to ......

After a few rest stops, we got close to Munich. One of the most surprising things was the area I thought was going to be the most jacked up traffic wise .... Was in fact the least. Only one incident on the Autobahn leading directly to the airport .... And it was a tragedy beyond words. The horror we had to face was so horrendous I might not be able to write this without crying.

Here it goes .... But I caution you .... This is guaranteed to affect you in a very profound way.
So .... We come up to a traffic jam. I can see the police lights ahead. We roll past a fender bender when we surmised was a result of seeing the horror show we were about to witness. After we passed that fender bender ..... I saw it .......

....... From what I can tell, the truck was going to fast on the on ramp and lost control. Scattered, broken, and destroyed all over the Autobahn was about .... I dunno hundreds of racks of beer .... Destroyed. Completely shut down the other side of the Autobahn ......

I tried to warn you .....

So we get to the Airport Hilton around 6:30. We unload the bags and the Hilton bellhop takes the bags to the room with the girls while Tim and I take the VW Touran back to Sixt. It was the easiest car return ever!

I can't even describe the rooms Tim had procured for us so I'll just post pictures. They were suites with a living room, a bedroom, and 2 baths. How the other half lives. Very very VERY nice.

We had planned to go to Munich for the day. My friend Judy was going to pick us up and give us the quick tour but as fate would have it, by the time we got everything settled it was just too late. So the four of us had a very nice last dinner together at the restaurant in the Hilton. It was a grand ending to a grand adventure with grand people.

Tomorrow we fly home. Boo.

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