Chris and Kelsey's Great Adventure

by - Chris and Kelsey

First of all I want to thank Ben for this wonderful and informative site. My wife and I planned this trip on our own for 2½ weeks in Germany and Italy. We wanted to do everything independent and didn't want to be stuck on a tour group. Italy was easy because we were staying in bigger cities and we would walk everywhere, but for Germany we decided to stay in a few large cities and also get into rural areas. Thanks to all of you that typed up trip reports that I picked information from and thanks to Ben for the site. In particular, I asked a lot of questions from Bill Harrell and Erskine - thanks guys.

My wife was really excited about Italy, but she ended up liking Germany better. We had many higher than high moments and a few moments where we were at the depths of despair. When you plan a trip like this for the first time you open yourself up to more good and more bad. No matter how much research you do there are just things you have to learn on your own and you can't possibly research everything you encounter that is different. When you go with a tour group you are insulated from experiences, but you don't have to worry about getting around or scratching up a rental car in Berchtesgaden.

A few highlights for us were the Master Drink festival in Rothenburg and the Vitzthum family farm we stayed at in Unken, Austria - the Götzbauernhof and meeting people there. This was the place I read about in one of Larry's trip reports - thanks Larry. My wife loved the shopping and neat cobbled quaint streets. Personal highlights for me were a private tour of the Porsche 911 factory in Zuffenhausen and the WW2 history stuff I ran across. I was really looking forward to Germany because of my Grandfather and his participation in WW2 as a C-W radio operator in the 5th Armored Division. It's amazing how far reaching the Nazi's were all over Europe.

For example in Italy we found a Nazi pillbox on the coast of the Liguarian Sea in Cinque Terre at the town of Monterosso al Mare (where we stayed).

This place is really remote and there was an old pillbox used to defend the nearby La Spezia U-boat port. As a kid I'd seen all the pictures my Grandfather had, of some BF109 Fighter in the weeds, a ME 262 Jet. His company was at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp a day after it was liberated. The awful pictures were a stark contrast to the beauty of the landscape in the pictures he took in 1944/5.

The thing that we both liked about Germany is that it offers so much history and technology. I mean you have 12th Century castles and cutting edge technology at the same area of the country. We went to castles that were hundreds of years old and toured the Porsche 911 Factory in Zuffenhausen near Stuttgart in the same day! I was also surprised at how nice the German people are, especially in the rural areas.

Thursday - May 24th - We Begin

We almost missed our connection in Chicago with American. We had to run through O'Hare to make the connection, but with 5 minutes to spare we were on our plane and heading to Germany huffing and puffing. We landed in Frankfurt and picked up our Mercedes A180 Diesel from AVIS in the Airport. The Heidelberg countryside is beautiful. We are from Des Moines, Iowa, and Heidelberg with it's rolling hills really resembles Central/Southern Iowa. It's just that you have more types and colors of crops in Germany instead of just the corn and soybeans of Iowa. Driving on the Autobahn is a treat that everybody should experience. I can't believe how smooth the roads are, and I only came through a construction area once the whole week. We drove around Heidelberg lost trying to use the maps I printed out on Mapquest and had our first introduction to the winding European streets that are nothing like in the USA. The hardest part is that you'll go several blocks with no signs, the road will twist and turn and the signs aren't clearly marked on the street. They'll be on the building and maybe there will only be one sign for a road and not marked for the cross street! To the rescue - the navigation system in the rental car, not sure if every rental car has these, but this was a lifesaver.

We finally found the Heidelberg Marriott on the Neckar river. I work part-time at the Marriott in Des Moines as a shuttle driver, so I can get deep discounts at all Marriott properties. So the Heidelberg Marriott was perfect for $35.00 per night to get a few good nights sleep to start the trip. We wanted to try the big hotels in the big cities and also stay in rural rooms/farms (largely based on this site) to get a feel for each. The Marriott's are what they are, nice beds, comfortable rooms, AC, but no character and you are insulated from other guests. I can say we largely enjoyed staying at the rural areas much better. The people are much warmer and you get more culture the way of the Bauernhof. The Marriott was a nice place to serve the purpose of getting good sleep and ridding ourselves of jet-lag. I found out quickly how much German's love their cars. At the Marriott there was an auto club of Austin Healy's from the 50's and they were all over the parking garage. In the morning they all left at the same time, they were all in perfect condition and even their wives were riding along.

In Heidelberg we enjoyed the Old Town, which was a 10-15 min walk from our hotel. The Hotel Zum Ritter was beautiful and we sat at the old town square people watching.

I drank beer and my wife discovered Prosecco, a sparkling champagne that is cheap in Germany.

It goes without saying how good all the local Bier is in every town in Germany, that is a recurring theme in these reports, love it!! The night we arrived, I went on a walk by myself and explored. There is a whole underbelly of college bars in Heidelberg that is really neat. I hiked up to Heidelberg castle and there was a prom or similar dance going on. Can you imagine having your prom at a castle?

Friday May 25th - Porsche 911 Factory tour

I have this scheduled as my wife sleeps away her jet-lag. This was one of the highlights of my trip. My twin brother has owned 911's for some time now and during my time as a valet, I drove them a lot. This car is so well designed and the factory in Zuffenhausen/Stuttgart is devoted to the 911 and makes LH drive Boxters also. We love these cars and it's always been a goal to see where they are made. It is ridiculous the level of quality and engineering in these cars, the 911's of the 80's were far ahead of their time and new ones are even better. First thing today is to go to Zuffenhausen to a small private factory tour offered by the plant. The tour is free, you just have to reserve it way in advance and email the porsche museum and they can set it up and give you a confirmation and time to arrive and all the details. I spoke to a wonderful gal (Sigrid Maud) who set everything up for me.

Here is a pic of me standing in front of a really rare 911 RSR racer.

The museum is neat. There are some old cars but the tour is where it's at!

This white car is the old police car. See the blue light on the driver's side door at the top, interesting.

Being an early morning, of course I hit snooze on the alarm and woke up late. I left Heidelberg at 8:10 and I was burning down the Autobahn to get to Zuffenhausen by 9:00 a.m. when the tour started. That poor Mercedes that morning. I arrived about 15 minutes late and the people were so nice at Porsche, they cut me in with the rest of my English tour group. This is when I first realized the German people are really friendly and that was just one example as it was totally my fault for being late. Germans are kind of like some Iowan's. We are kind of standoffish at first, but once we know you and what you are doing we give you the world. The tour operator caught me up when I got there and they were hand-assembling a flat 6 engine for a Carrera. Every bolt and nut were torqued to specific pounds. There were many engine stands where they would run each flat 6 for 30 minutes on a dyno to test horsepower/torque. If the engine was too low on horsepower, the engine was disassembled, too high on horsepower they would detune the engine. All the engine's had to be +or- 5% of the advertised HP of the delivery country. German's love details! Very interesting.

In the middle of the plant they had an old building that couldn't be moved because it had historical significance as it was the building where the first VW Bug body was assembled. It was built in the 30's and it was a stark contrast to the new silver buildings all built around it. The saddlery, the paint shop, the mechanical engineering in the whole plant was world class. I liked the saddlery and the engine building. They had whole hides on this big table, they went over it with a camera mouse type thing to look for imperfections. They had a green lazer with water pressure to precisely cut the interior pieces based on the individual hide. It takes 4 hides per car. You could hear the test track and cars screeching around. It was a really neat experience and anybody that loves cars would enjoy it as it was a very intimate tour. Watch out for the little automated parts carts that run along the white line, they will run into you as you are actually on the assembly floor. It wasn't like most factory tours where you are behind glass. One of my fellow tourers accidentally got squirted with oil from a running flat 6 on the dyno.

Leaving Stuttgart, I ran across my first Stau. I see what these trip reports mean now. Traffic backs up for miles and I was 2 hours late back to Heidelberg. Wife was mad. After Kelsey slept in we were off to the old town in Heidelberg. We took the newly renovated Cog train up to the Castle and to the top where there was a falconry setup and a few outside bars and a beautiful view of Heidelberg old town and the Old Bridge.

We had a clear day and the weather was beautiful as you can tell. We just drank at outside cafe's, admired the old town square where Hotel Zum Ritter is located - beautiful area! People watching is fun here. Next we crossed the bridge and hiked up to the Philosopher's way, or walk. That was beautiful and from this side of the river you can see a good picture of Heidelberg Castle.

Also I wanted to hike to find the Heidelberg Nazi Thingstatte. A Thingstatte was started in 1933 under the Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels to get local people on board with the Nazi movement. The economy grew and they didn't need them anymore, so they are pretty rare. Here is a site you can read more about them.

Heidelberg's Thingstatte was constructed using the local sandstone, and is the same color as the castle.

My Grandpa's unit came across one of these as they went across Northern Germany so that was somewhat significant to me. This thing was hard to find and I thank my wife for her patience as we hiked a bunch to find it. It was not well marked and eventually we found a road that you could drive up and get close to it. A few of the original flag poles were still intact and the whole area was kind of eerie.

Next we went to the Techkik Museum in Speyer/Sinshem. I basically wanted to see the intact U-boat they had on display at Sinsheim but I got more than I bargained for because I love military warbirds and saw a perfectly perserved Messerschmitt BF 109G, part of a Messerschmitt BF 110 and a Junkers JU 88. Plus going through the U-boat was really rewarding, it was in perfect condition! Traveling to Europe you find that the fun things are all the little things that are different. For example we went into a grocery store in Heidelberg, bought some fruit by the pound. In Iowa you put your fruit in the bag and take it up to the cashier and they weight and you pay. Here we did the same thing, and the cashier looked at us funny, and another worker took our fruit, we followed her thinking they were putting it back, but then realized we were supposed to weigh and tag the bag ourselves.. LOL Those are the funny things that we liked during our trip. We loved Heidelberg with all it's rosebushes everywhere, the old town and so many things to do.

Saturday May 26th - Off to Rothenburg o.d.T.

We wanted to stop by Ulm (as I've read about on some of the other trip reports) and see the cathedral, but we wanted to get to Rothenburg since we've heard from so many people how neat it is. This weekend was one of the busiest at Rothenburg because there was the Meistertrunk Festival or MasterDrink festival going on and we couldn't get a room at any of at the hotels recommended by this site.

We stayed at a castle hotel in Colmberg - the Burg Colmberg.

This was a really old castle hotel and only about a 15 minute drive from Rothenburg. The castle is beautiful with old armor in the dining room, old church inside, old decor and complete with creaky floors and character to boot! Of course a beer garden in the center of the castle courtyard. Arriving in Rothenburg it was rainy, but nonetheless we went anyway and arrived in the town about 8 p.m. The town at that time was really deserted and that was nice. Most of the tourists were gone and we were surrounded by locals. We ate at a hotel, very good and stopped by a few bars. One bar we walked in - in my broken German and her broken English - a lady there explained to me "All of Rothernburg here". Meaning that all the locals come to this bar after the tourists are gone. But the highlights were around the corner. We kept hearing what sounded like a medieval song with flutes and drums and singing. We followed the music to the town hall in the middle of town. We walked in and all the locals were there, dancing and singing this song that we had heard. You should have seen it - all the people were in unison, singing and everybody but us knew the words to the songs. People young and old, all singing together like a big family. It was something to see that I can't describe in words. I think they knew we were tourists, but it was really nice to be able to witness this. The Master Draught festival celebrates the time when an invading army's Field Marshall (Tilly) offered the city council a last chance to save the town from plunder and destruction - "If one of you is able to empty this goblet - in one draught - then I shall be merciful, forget all fault." The former mayor Nusch did it and saved the town. It was kind of an independence day celebration that would go on in the states. There were locals drinking big mugs of beer and wine in medieval drab with horses and weapons. We left there after a few hours and fell asleep at Burg Colmberg right away. What a night of local culture and there's no way you would experience this if you were on a tour. You should have seen all the tour buses parked outside of Rothenburg during the day.. LOL Suckers!

The next day we did the shopping thing at Rothenburg. Look how busy the streets were because of the festival going on.

One story - we bought a nice lithograph picture from a vendor near the Rathaus, she explained that there was a parade at 3:00 and she invited us to watch the parade from her private balcony. She said that there was a problem with theft during the parade one year because business owners couldn't watch the parade and watch their businesses, so they all close up. I thought this was another example of how warm the German people can be in the right situation. It kind of surprised me when she invited us to watch with her. We loved Rothenburg with the walls and all the character and the Festival added a lot. The busy crowds during the day was a stark contrast to the quiet deserted streets with mostly locals we experienced the night before. It was funny, some of the same people we saw drinking late at night and singing on Saturday night, we also saw Sunday. We were having lunch at a little outside cafe, and they came slowly walking up like they had a hang over. Then they played a little song, and kind of seemed tired and out of it. Then the restaurant owner came out with beer for each of them plus some clear shots of something. They were like energizer bunnies, they all livened up in unison and sang and drank and the party continued on. Later we saw them doing the same thing at other restaurants! It was hilarous and those guys can drink me under the table for sure. Also be sure to stop at the criminal museum at Rothenburg, that was really neat. Here is a picture of a spike chair used for interrogation!

We wanted to stop by Dinkelsbühl and Nördlingen, but you know, you just don't have enough time to do it all, so off to Unken, Austria to stay at the Götzbauernhof. We loved the Franconian contryside around Rothenburg, the scenery is beautiful! Burg Colmberg's website has a few nice pictures of the area.

Sunday May 27th - Austria

Wow - flying down the Autobahn, I have my Mercedes Diesel floored most of the time in 7th Gear, down the hills I'm going 220 km/h and up the hills 190 km/hr. It's Sunday, no trucks, no campers allowed, hardly any traffic - I drove from Rothenburg to Unken, Austria in half the time it said on Mapquest.com. Arrived at the Götzbauernhof, the farm of Monica Vitzhum whom I emailed for accomodations and mentioned this site. She was very warm and her house is beautiful. In the picture of the barn - that silver cylinder by the door is the milk container that has milk from the family cow. We had the Turnkammer room (tower chamber), wow, what a nice room. There is a tiny road you have to take to find this place, the road looks like a driveway from the main road. Pictures tell the story, large bathroom, nice balcony, eating nook area. Beautiful scenery, what more could you ask for for 22 Euro/night per person.

We explored around Unken, had a wonderful meal at a hotel in Unken (the owner was Charlie and his nephew was the waiter), good food. We were surprised at the food in Germany and Austria. I assumed everything was Goulash soup and Wienerschnitzel. No Sir, wonderful soups (tomato soup in Heidelberg was really excellent), the thin pizza was really good, the menus had a lot of choices of wonderful food and the Bier goes without saying!

Monday May 28th

Today we explored Werfen, Austria - what a neat town.

Unfortunately it was the German equivalent of Memorial Day and all the shops and downtown area was closed down, but here's a picture of Castle Hohenwerfen.

They have a falconry show at this castle at 11:00, but I was just exploring and trying to get a feel for the area. The backdrop to the castle is towering mountains and it looks like the castle grows out of rocks. Wow! I didn't go into the castle, but what we saw was beautiful. In the afternoon the weather was turning for the worse, so we decided to tour the Salt mine that built Salzburg at Bad Dürrnberg. This was very interesting and the slide into the salt mine was fun! This is a nice activity when it's raining. Journeyed over to Salzburg for just a little bit. Very crowded city, saw Mozart's birth place and the Residenze and had a bite to eat at an Italian restaurant in Salzburg. You could spend several days in Salzburg, but we are just wanting to scratch the surface of places because we know we'll be back someday again! Werfen looked like just another quaint, wonderful town that needs exploring some day! That night, we arrived back at the farm and were greeted by a couple from Holland named Fritz and Georgie. They have been staying at the Goetzbaurnhof in Unken since 1976! I'm not sure how to spell their names, but Georgie was pretty fluent in English and could translate between us. Also there was a nice couple from Germany staying there. This is the reason you stay at these farms to meet people like this. We had lots of nice conversations over beers/wine that we could get from the cellar of the house on the honor system. We talked about everything from cars rusting out, vacation time, WW2, and everything in between. I think Georgie was exhausted after all the translating. I explained how my grandfather in late fall 1944 spent 4 days on leave with his company and they stayed in a barn in Holland. Georgie explained how happy the Dutch were to be liberated. She said the whole country stops everything and observes in silence for 2 minutes every year of the liberation anniversary. Monika the owner was out talking with us and gave us some shots of homemade schnapps made by her grandfather. It was sooo much fun and was one of the highlights of our trip.

Tuesday May 29th

Woke up to a little bit of rain. Georgie and Fritz from Holland gave us an umbrella, they had like 3 in their car, we didn't have one. Another example of how nice most people can be once you know them. Today we are going to Berchtesgaden. Everybody says how beautiful it is and Kelsey's Grandpa spend some time there as he was a MP for railroad security after WW2. We arrived in Berchtesgaden, how beautiful of a little town, the water of the mountain streams is so blue. Unfortunately it was raining and cold. I was really looking forward to going up to the Kehlsteinhaus (Hitler's Tea house or Eagle's Nest). We drove around Berchtesgaden and then bad things started happening. We were trying to find Obersalzberg and I was on a skinny street that at the last turn turned into a PEDESTRIAN walkway, but I didn't notice that.. DOH.. We drove about 20 feet, then we got stuck on a stone step. The car wheel went over the step and I couldn't back it up. Think about it, the road goes down at a steep angle, and the stone step was level, my wheel couldn't back up! It was quite the ordeal, a tow truck had to come tow us off the road and they had to build a wooden ramp for the tires of the car to get over the step. There were some locals I think cussing us out. Some were just standing there looking at us. Some were snapping pictures as if this had never ever happened before. We were so embarrased, but I was like, who cares, they'll never see us again and it will be a funny story. It's only funny now because my MasterCard MasterRental program paid for the damages, otherwise if I would have had to pay the $6,576 Dollars it cost to fix the car, I wouldn't be so cheery about it. So we went from the highest of high, drinking beers and schnapps the night before to this. It was cold and rainy and about 40 degrees and we were outside the car, it took 2½ hours to free the car and we were on our way with a scratched up car and a 290 Euro towing bill. Argh.. We were tired and hungry, I wanted to tour the Hitler bunker at Hotel Zum Türken. We did it then because it was only open until 4 p.m and it was already 3:30. Needless to say we weren't in the right frame of mind, the stairs were slippery and Kelsey slipped and bruised her arm a little on the steps. Then what looked like a cement curb in the bunker, actually was water that was a clay color. She stepped her whole foot/shoe in the clay wetness, her shoe and foot were covered in sticky wet clay oozing from the bunker floor! All these bad things were suddenly happening to us. Oberalzberg was closed off due to the weather, so no Eagle's Nest, so we just left town. I can see how everybody loves Berchtesgaden, but it just wasn't in the cards for us that day. I have some video of the area, but didn't really take any pictures because I wasn't really too concerned about pictures when I had just scratched up the car. That afternoon (since we had the accident with the car) it pushed all our plans back. We had to scratch the Ramsau Church, and lake Königssee. We just didn't have time. The good thing is that we can come back and experience these things later!

We still had to drive across southern Germany to Füssen to check in with Haus Weiher in Hohenschwangau. We drove a while after eating and decided to do the paperwork associated with the car accident. We pulled into MCDonald's to use the bathroom and experienced extreme frustration with the T-Mobile phone cards. Try getting ahold of any live person with a 5 Euro international phone card, the only cards they sold at the truckstop. The cards kept running out before I could punch in all the numbers and navigate all the menus on the credit card/insurance company. Word of advice, if you see 20 Euro cards international, BUY THEM!!! It was 9:30 p.m. and we thought we better get to Füssen to check in. Drove 2 hours west and saw a gas station and decided to see if we could buy phone cards bigger than 5 Euro increments. This was somewhere east of Füssen, Germany. The attendant explained they have 20 Euro increments for international phone cards, Yes, is our luck turning? I go to reach for my wallet, IT'S GONE. We have no idea where we left the wallet, so we drove back to the gas station at McDonalds's on the B173 highway - 2 hours east. We scoured the parking lot in the rain, looked at the T-mobile phone kiosk, no wallet. Fortunately I had stripped down my wallet and it only contained my driver's license, credit cards and cash. Although it was 450 Euro as we had recently reloaded money from an ATM in Berchtesgaden, Doh. So this part of the trip was the depths of despair. We called Haus Weiher to cancel the room and we just decided to drive to Munich and stay at the Marriott since it was late and we knew where it was. They got us a suite and we slept good that night and used the hotel phone with our credit card to cancel my credit cards and do the paperwork. By the way, we declined the CDW insurance offered by Avis. I went through all the paperwork with Mastercard MasterRental program offered to Platinum and Gold members. I recently received news that they did cover our claim. The damage was $6,576 Dollars U.S. Whew, dodged that bullet, so Mastercard does give you car insurance if you pay with the card. You have to do some paperwork, but it wasn't really too bad. I spent maybe one hour on the phone and gathering paperwork. Thank you MasterRental!

Thursday May 31st

New day, nice weather, let's just forget yesterday shall we? Drove from Munich to Hohenschwangau. What a beautiful drive, the Nav system took us on some out of the way roads. We were on the Autobahn for a little while, but it was a really neat drive going through more countryside. Frau Weiher's husband spoke English, they were kind of standoffish and kind of mad at me for not calling. I explained our situation and he took one look at our car and understood. I actually did call but it was at midnight and I'm not sure who answered the phone but they hung up right away, but I didn't waste time explaining in my broken German. But we paid half rate for the missed night, that was fine, they are a small pension and every night counts and as far as the Frau was concerned we didn't call. We had the nicest room, 2nd floor, closest to Neuschwanstein castle.

This was the view of the castle from our balcony.

Nice room, wonderful place to stay, location, location, location. You can just park your car and easily walk to the Ludwig Castles.

Here we are on Mary's bridge at Neuschwanstein.

Definitely, if you tour the castle, walk to the gorge and look at it from this bridge, breathtaking views. Both castle tours are recommended, Neuschwanstein just because it is so ornate, the bedroom furniture took 14 carvers like 4 years to finish, it was unbelievable. But there is more history at castle Hohenschwangau.

Ludwig grew up in this castle/hunting lodge, and the tour was more interesting, the heating system in the castle was neat and in Ludwig's room there was a huge brass telescope, probably 8 feet long that pointed to his Neuschwanstein castle so he could watch the construction. The two castles are close to each other and the views with the plains on one side and the German Alps jumping out of the ground behind the castles is really neat! There is a view from the turret room that overlooks the lake that is between the castles, that is a breathtaking picture! That night we ate at a restaurant in Füssen. I loved the food and we really didn't have the time or patience to hunt for specific restaurants that were recommended on this site. I took the printouts with me and I gave it the college try guys, but since this was our first trip we were just happy to get around ok and see all the neat stuff!

Friday June 1st

Since we were cut short of time due to the accident, we had to leave Füssen early - this is a wonderful town. We used that little internet cafe in town that others have written about. You go into town and make the first major road to the right and it's right on the right side of the road. There are bike trails all around and you could spend several days in this beautiful area. But it's time to head to Munich for the last few days of our Germany trip. I loved this trip because we got some of the big city living and countryside living and we planned it that way. We definitely enjoyed the smaller towns much better, big cities are nice, but they are all pretty similar in some ways and the little towns can be so different from one another. Drove through Reutte, Austria, Wow, this area of the Alps is really neat. The town is surrounded by a backdrop of mountains and we just had to drive through. There is soo many areas of Germany and Austria that are worth exploring, but we just didn't have time. But like Erskine and Bill said, most people plan as if they will never return! Drove to Munich, toured Dachau Concentration camp. That is pretty self explanatory and the rush of emotions you feel is like no other. Everybody should tour one of these camps at least once. The original shower heads in the shower rooms were pretty eerie. The waiting room in front of the gas chamber doors gave me the chills as I thought about all the people that were in that room and what they must have been thinking to themselves. Spent the night in Munich, just typed in Munich Renaissance in the Nav system, car took us right to the front door. Learn to use the Nav system in your rental car. We have a Tuifly.com flight leaving Munich airport in the morning at 11:00. Ate and you guessed it, drank some more beer at some bars around our hotel. We didn't go to the Hofbräuhaus and all that, we were just having fun relaxing after driving so much. I enjoyed Heidelberg much more as a city than Munich, but to be fair I didn't do much in Munich. Heidelberg kind of had a college town feel to it and we had a lot of fun there. Returned the rental car and was kind of glad to get rid of the car. Everytime I looked at the scapes on the car it reminded me of our bad day in Berchtesgaden. Out of sight, out of mind now! We were on vacation and slept in most days until 10 and didn't get around until 11:30 or so.

Saturday June 2nd

We decided instead of taking an 8½ hour train ride to Venice we would fly. We reserved 2 seats on Tuifly.com earlier at the I-net cafe in Füssen for 120 Euro each. The one-way train ticket was 90 Euro and the flight only took 35 minutes, with 1 hour airport time, it was a no brainer. We flew out of Munich and off to start the 2nd leg of our EuroTrip in Italy. We went to Venice which we both really loved, then to the Cinque Terre at the Italian Riviera, then down to Rome where we flew out back to Iowa. The trains in Europe are first class, especially the EuroStar. I would use trains in Italy and drive in Germany. Germany is a country designed for the car, and the freedom that it allows is the way to go. Especially if you go to Bauernhöfe in rural areas.

Here are some summaries for our first time in Germany...

Love all the local beers, all just a little bit different and all good and cheap!

Love the Autobahn, I had so much fun on the highways, sooo smooth and pothole free.

When I come back, I'm getting a more powerful car for sure! Gas is a lot cheaper than I expected in Germany.

Love the rural farms with all the character.

There just isn't time to do it all, and plan like you'll come back. We did about half of what I had in the itinerary.

Packing-wise we packed light, but it surprises you how you think you'll use this item, but you never touch it on vacation.

Credit cards do provide collision insurance, but I think next time I might just pay for the CDW in a foreign country to avoid hassels. Everything went really smooth with Avis as they took pictures and did all the estimating and such, but I can see if you use some smaller rental agency, that they would make you arrange all that stuff, that could be a big can of worms...LOL

Forget the BMW or Mercedes tour in Munich, the Porsche tour in Stuttgart is the best factory tour you can go on!

Germany has an awesome combination of old history, cleanliness and new technology that is hard to beat!

Germany is way cheaper than we expected. We overbudgeted by several thousand and could have stayed another 2 weeks before we ran out of money. I think the cheap accomodations helped, but staying at those farms is definitely the way to go!

If you are going to a few countries in Europe, definitely fly on a long journey, like Munich to Venice, they are cheap and the airport security gets you through fast!

Thanks to all and I hope I didn't write too much. In case you're wondering, our Italy trip went really good, only in Rome we got separated outside the Vatican Museum, but other than that everything went smooth.

Chris and Kelsey Davis