Autobahn & Driving

Being on a budget, we didn't rent a sporty German car (much to my disappointment), but instead opted for a thrifty and gutless Mercedes A160.  (Even that wasn't a cheap rental.)  Instead of turbos and stability control, this vehicle has thrifty features like: the engine automatically turns off when you stop and put the car in neutral, and restarts when you push the clutch in.  An indicator telling you when you need to shift for maximum fuel efficiency (aww, thanks Mercedes).  Etc.

It's a good thing we got something fuel efficient - 39 litres of fuel cost us $90 CDN.  Yowza.  And it turns out that it is a lot MORE expensive to buy gas at a freeway gas station than at an urban gas station.  Weird.

Anyway, when cars started flying past me & flashing their lights, I figured I was on the Autobahn and had better speed up.  It's really no big deal - just a regular well-maintained freeway (usually only 2 lanes where we were).  But if you want to go fast, that's fine.  In fact, anywhere in Germany, if there isn't a posted speed limit, then there is no limit.  Of course you're expected to drive within your abilities & to be a capable and decisive driver generally, which I think is great.

Rockin' 4 tiny cylinders of German internal combustion on the Autobahn

There's usually enough traffic and enough curves in the road that achieving astronomical speeds is not possible or advisable.  However, my rear view mirror became my new best friend after a VW minivan came out of nowhere and flew past me at well over 200 km/h.  Our little car really didn't want to go more than about 140 in ideal conditions.

On the A95 south to Mittenwald, there are pullouts every couple of of kilometres where you can take a break.  These are really nothing more than a few parking spaces with garbage cans and nothing else.  No washrooms.  (Even if there were washrooms, they'd make you pay for them, grr...)

Lunch stop at Autobahn pullout

I noticed that the lack of washrooms wasn't stopping people from sneaking into the bush for a pee.  Then I thought hey, maybe this is all by design - maybe German efficiency dictates that you shouldn't waste resources building and maintaining washrooms when you can simply provide a patch of grass and moss for people to fertilize.  But somehow I doubt it.

Anyway, I went to partake in this German tradition after lunch, and just beyond the parking area was a gate, in the below photo.

If you look closely, you can see a bunch of white dots of toilet paper.  Clearly this is a highly-trafficked bathroom area, for both sexes and all types of bathroom needs.  I suppose that's what you get for charging people money to use real washrooms at highway service areas.

There aren't any Autobahns IN the German Alps, but you get a nice view from the freeway as you approach them.

The real fun was driving from Mittenwald to Berchtesgaden, but not on the Autobahn.  Rather than hopping onto a freeway, we sought out the "Deutsche Alpenstrasse" scenic route.  Having spotty-to-no internet access, this necessitated us purchasing a massive, expensive and overly detailed roadmap.  This scenic route is not marked on any map, including the one we bought, and the whole way (several hours) we saw exactly 2 tiny signs indicating that we were on it.  However, I think we managed to navigate through the appropriate scenic country - soaring mountains, narrow gorges and rivers, bucolic farm country, and wickedly windy and narrow yet well-maintained and FUN roads.  This is where I wished we had some kind of powerful sport sedan.  And we could not have timed it better - the snow had just barely come off the roads, so there was almost no traffic at all, yet we had warm sunshine the whole way.

Given the expense, we probably won't be driving again anytime soon.  But it was a pretty fun way to go for one last boot around the countryside.

Mitten-what? Mittenwald

As originally planned, on Tuesday we rented a car to get out of Munich for a few days and head for the Bavarian Alps. I'll let Chad post at some point about the joys of driving our gutless Mercedes A-series on the speed-limitless autobahns and the windy mountain roads, and share with you instead a few pictures from our time in Mittenwald.

Mittenwald is just south of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, which was the site of the 1936 Winter Olympic Games, apparently the first to feature alpine skiing (thank you, Wikipedia). Chad chose Mittenwald because it's known to be the most scenic place in the German Alps - at least Goethe said so as early as the 1700s.

That Goethe knew what he was talking about. Here's a few pictures from the town and from the hike we took in the hills above. If you want to do some easy-to-moderate hikes on perfectly-maintained trails among world-class scenery, this is the place to come.  There are many hillside/mountainside places to eat and sleep on the trails as well, so you could hike town to town without a pack.







This is Chad acting out the Sound of Music. I'm sure he'll be called when they do a remake:


Like every good Bavarian town, Mittenwald has a brewery. The beer from Mittenwald's brauerei is particularly notable because (a) it was the last beer that Chad had before he really came down with an awful cold that has forced him to take a break from beer (I know!) and (b) the beer was the best Dunkel he's ever had, and the best beer in Germany to date.



And then on to Berchtesgaden...