Hey all. Finally got around to putting together a thread for my ED trip. Had a freakin blast and absolutely love the car. Just waiting now for the PCD in November. Just a note before starting this - my wife and I love to save money where possible and don't believe in paying just for convience. Most of the places we stayed were in the mid-range and none of our activities were extravagent. It was my first time being in Europe and I was completely happy with just being in a new place - I love traveling. She used to live in Germany (stationed there while in the AF) however had never been anywhere that we had gone. Also, because of the amount of pictures people already have of their cars and the Welt, I really didn't take much of them. If you want to see more pictures of what my car looks like just Google "Sakhir Orange M4" and you'll find plenty :P The majority of our trip was visting a place, parking, and exploring - most of the pictures are from where we went/what we saw.
Here is a Google Maps link to what the original plan was - we mostly stuck to it.
https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?m...7M&usp=sharing
Just wanted to add a quick bit of information. We flew out of Dulles through Turkish Airlines and had a 2 hour layover in Istanbul. Doing that vs a direct flight saved us about $1000 in tickets but added about 4.5 hours to our journey each way. Was it worth it? Yeah, I think so, especially because Turkish Airlines was one of the cleanest and best airlines I've flown on. We each had our own little inflight entertainment with about 175 movies alone to pick from. They also provided good meals and a nice package consisting of a pillow, non-scratchy blanket, earbuds, slippers, light blocker thing(forgot the name) and you get to keep all of it.
Finally, big shout out to David and especially Jimmy of Steve Thomas BMW. They provided great service and Jimmy was always quick and informative with his responses. Now, on to the trip:
Night 0 - Munich
Arrived in Munich at 7:50pm. Customs took a little time but we had our bags and the Sixt driver was there waiting for us. He was the older gentleman others have had that didn't really say much but still made friendly small talk. He also loved showing off the power and smoothness of the 7 series on the autobahn. We got him to take us to our hotel - Derag Livinghotel Karl Theodor. It was a pretty nice hotel with clean rooms and very friendly staff though overpriced ($180/night) due to Oktoberfest. Once we got to the hotel we just showered and passed out.
Day 1 - Munich
My delivery was at 9:50 in the morning. Woke up at 6:45 to find the best route and make sure we had time to get ready and be out the door to make it to the Welt by 8:20. We were taking the U-Bahn to the Welt as cabs weren't exactly cheap and the U-Bahn would be about 6 euros. The walk to the station was about 10 minutes and the ride on the U-bahn another 10-15, so not too bad. Just a word of advice about tickets for the UBahn for those that ever do take it - the tickets machines are right when you go downstairs from the entrance. However, there are no turnstiles preventing you from getting to the platforms like there are in the U.S...the machines to take your ticket don't stick out at all. We walked right by it and just got on the train. We later found out that enforcement is really lax when it comes to this.
We got to the Welt and were directed from the information desk to just go right up (because of no luggage, etc) to check-in at the delivery lounge on the 3rd floor. It was about 30 minutes of the lady going over information about insurance, driving in Germany, etc. After that we had close to an hour so we went to the lounge, ate, and hung out. The food was pretty good....especially the bread. Also note that I'm someone who loves sausage - the texture of the Bavarian veal sausages was different - it was like firm tofu. It still tasted good though, especially with mustard. We checked out the other deliveries that were being done and got a glimpse of my car:
My wife was looking out for the only BMW car she thought looked sporty, the i8
Wolfgang (don't remember his last name) was the guy who did our delivery. He was extremely nice and seemed genuinely happy to be delivering an M...a manual one at that
The delivery took about an hour with him going over everything and getting a smudge off the center console that wouldn't easily wipe away. The car:
Sakhir Orange Exterior
Full Silverstone Interior
6MT
Executive Package
Lighting Package
Adaptive M
Black light alloy rims
The car is fantastic. The interior is beautiful and I'm really glad I went with full SS. The tech on the car is impressive as well - I like how you can write out letters on the top of the dial when entering info. I also love the quick-access assignments for everything. I did a quick test of the performance in M2 mode when leaving the Welt by stepping on it while doing about 20mph and the rear end kicked out to the side. It has a ridiculous amount of torque and I love it. Can't wait for the break-in period to end
After delivery we walked around the Welt where the wife saw her future i8 among the other cars and bikes, and did the factory tour. The factory tour was really impressive and the efficiency is unmatched. After the tour we ate a quick lunch back up in the premium lounge before heading back to the hotel and getting a nice underground secure parking spot for 10 euros for the night.
It was about 2:00pm or so when we got back to the hotel and we were (or at least I was) still pretty tired. However I wasn't about to waste any time sleeping when I could be seeing Germany so we took the U-Bahn (this time using our tickets) to Oktoberfest. The best way I think I can describe Oktoberfest is as a massive state fair with beer gardens.
We walked around a lot of it and tried a few places to get a beer but it was just too ridiculously crowded. Even the smaller places had people standing all around in it. We did grab some food though which was basically french fries topped with turkey and doner sauce. It was ok...nothing great, but not terrible.
After being there a couple hours we headed back to the hotel for dinner. We ended up eating at this place right next to the hotel which was supposed to be pretty good - my wife (being the indecisive person she is) ends up ordering pizza while I end up getting a dish with calamari and some other forgettable stuff. My calamari was super salty and I did my best to scrape off the breading they had on it so I could tolerate it. We should've known for how dead the place was to just find somewhere else but we were tired. However, the one redeeming feature was my beer - I randomly picked one from a list and was pleasantly surprised...and ended up doing the same on the rest of our trip as well. My wife got...wait for it....a pina coloda. Embarassing
After dinner was finished we were worn out so we just went back to the room and fell asleep.
Day 2 - Nuremburg
I woke up early the next day (about 7) for 2 reasons - to get out of the hotel and on the road by 9 and to remove the speed limiter on the car before I hit the 10 hour lockdown. I had brought my laptop loaded with ESET and had a cable I got off of ebay for $10 and went at it. Details on how to do it can be found in other threads but it was pretty straightforward and I ended up finishing in about an hour. Really if you know exactly what you're doing and what you're looking for it could be done in under 10 minutes but it was my first time ever coding a car. After coding I went back upstairs, got my wife, and we had the rest of her leftover pizza (bleh), got ready, packed, and headed out. I had intended on going to Regensburg and having lunch outside of the city at Rechberger Hof on recommendation from my brother in law who had been there during the previous winter. However, I wasn't paying attention when entering the destination and ended up being routed to Regensburg Street in Nuremburg which was our second destination for the day. I didn't notice until I realized we had already passed Regensburg waaaay to the west. I was disappointed on missing out on the town, but I think it ended up working out for the better though due to time constraints.
We got to Nuremburg around noon and went hunting for our hotel (Hotel Avenue) which was inside the walled part of the city. A word of advice when travelling to the city - a lot of the streets are cobblestone and holy crap do you feel it in the M4. Also it's mostly pedestrian traffic so be careful. We ended up parking in a crowded garage (20 euros/day) about a 2 minute walk from the hotel. We had about an hour to kill before our room would be ready so we went on a short walk around the main part of the city and looked for a place where I could get a sim card. Ended up just getting one from Aldi which provided good reception for the rest of the trip expect for in Schwangau. We headed back to car to get our luggage and then to the hotel which was decent. The older lady who worked reception there looked like you'd expect someone to look who worked in a hotel their entire life - tired and annoyed. I was really worried about our room from the sight of reception but it turned out alright. Basic room with wifi and a free breakfast. Plus it turned out to be right near city center. We walked around some more and stumbled across some interesting statues -
We grabbed a quick lunch (though I can't remember what the hell we did have for lunch), and then had a fantastic dessert and beer at this ice cream place with seating outside.
Probably one of my favorite parts of the trip was that. After dessert we headed walked towards Kaiserburg Nuernberg which overlooks the walled city, then back down and through a bunch of other parts of the city. It was really beautiful.
During our adventure we did manage to stumble across the red light district where you could basically window shop for girls eager to take your money. It's on a street along the wall of the city to the south-west if you want to see or avoid it.
After the walk it was getting dark so we headed back towards the hotel for a bathroom break. We were trying to decide what to do for dinner when my wife remembered this place when we were walking towards the castle - Bratwursthäusle bei St. Sebald. It was easily my favorite meal of the trip - grilled sausages with the best sauerkraut I've ever had. So simple, so delicious.
And of course, a delicious beer or 3 to wash it down with. We also had a really friendly waiter and a great outdoor spot to eat. I highly recommend this place. After dinner we were pretty tired and buzzed so we went back to the hotel to shower and pass out.
Day 3 - Würzburg/Rothenburg/Nördlingen
Woke up and had breakfast, got cleaned up, and left Nuremburg. This was probably my favorite day in terms of scenery and driving for the entire trip. We headed northwest to Würzburg and the top of the Romantic Road. Took just over an hour to get there. We got lucky and parked in a parking garage in the center of the everything it seemed....parking there for about 3.5-4 hours was about 5 euros if I remember right. There weren't many people there initially however that changed in about an hour. We stopped by the tourist info center to grab a map and started walking around. We started at the Würzburg Cathedral before making our way towards the Würzburg Residence and Hofgarten. We went slightly too far east on our walk and ended up seeing a park behind the Hofgarten as well
All were really beautiful in terms of architecture.
(Google Sphere picture, so it's distorted)
While tempted to do a tour of the Residence our time was running low and I figured castles would be much more interesting. We were looking for a place to eat and ended up just stopping at Nordsee - a chain my wife remembered from when she used to live there. Good food - definitely better than the seafood chains I've been to in the states.
After lunch we started heading out of Würzburg and making our way towards Rothenburg. I was a little tired of the Autobahn and wanted to stay on the Romantic Road, so we ended up taking that. It was easily the best leg of the trip - though there were a number of road closures due to Oktoberfest (we guess) along the way. It was really surreal passing from each little town along the way and then going through the forest or farmland inbetween. Sadly we didn't get any pictures of it other than when we stopped and switched for my wife to drive for an unfortunately short time. Sorry for the blurry picture - apparently I should've left autofocus on
Rothenburg was easily the most beautiful and fun parts of the trip - however, it was a Saturday and unfortunately the town was packed with tourists. As soon as we walked into the city we decided to go up and walk along the wall that surrounds it. It was really like walking along the wall of a castle with little lookout areas. Kids would definitely like it....even I did as an adult/man child. My wife loved it so much we ended up spending the next 4 billion hours walking along it
It does provide some beautiful views that you likely wouldn't see from just walking around. Personally though I think I'd rather spend more of that time down in the streets, but happy wife, right? I didn't manage to capture the
most famous shot of the city due to the vast number of people, but we did get a few others.
Another cool thing we saw here was a crapton of these really ornate coo coo clocks....I kind of regret not buying one while I was there. Beware though that the larger ones start around $700 or so. We wanted to have lunch in the town square but of course there was no room. I did get some nice shots of it though.
We ended up getting a massive slice of this almond dessert (basically looked like a large coffee cake but unfortunately not quite as good IMO) that was just waaaaay too much sugar on an empty stomach. After that, we headed towards the car where I had my wife decide where to go next (as I didn't have a planned hotel for that night). She decided on Nördlingen.
We got there at about 7 o'clock and with the help of Google found a relatively cheap hotel (NH Klösterle Nördlingen) which turned out to be the nicest room of the entire trip with a nice little view.
A word about Nördlingen for those that decide to go - the streets are narrow and the turns sharp. The parking garage was right behind the hotel and pulling in and out of it was tighter than an inappropriate metaphor - I turned on the parking sensors which didn't really help much as they were screaming at me the whole time. It was pretty dark after we had settled in and decided to just go look for a place to eat instead of walking around. Google took us somewhere which was pretty good (can't find the name) - I had roast beef and potatoes which was one of the better meals I've had. The waitress was really friendly as with most places we ate. After dinner and a couple beers we just went back to the hotel to crash.
Day 4 - Nördlingen/Schwangau
We woke up around 8 so we could see a good bit of the town before heading out as the plan was to see Neuschwanstein castle near the end of the day and I wanted to make sure we had plenty of time. Now, I should mention that one of the reasons my wife picked this town was because it had one of the (if not the) only completed walls surrounding any city/town on the Romantic Road. So guess what the first thing we did was? That's right, walked on the wall and went all around it....7 times. Kidding of course, it was only once and took about an hour and a half to do. In a way it was better than the wall in Rothenburg as it did provide very different angles of the city.
I thought this was a little amusing - looks like an American backyard:
After doing that we headed towards the church in the center of the town and climbed (there is no elevator) to the top of it's clock tower and got an awesome view of the city. The climb is quite steep and if you're out of shape I'd imagine you'd be in a bit of pain by the time you reach the top. I think the reason they did this was because once you're at the top the there is very little room to move and an overweight person would literally block the ability to circle (or square, more accurately) the tower.
At around noon we headed out of the free garage (yay broken ticket machines!) and made our way towards Schwangau. I decided to take the Autobahn as I didn't want to get to Schwangau too late and screw up the plans for the rest of the trip. Even on the Autobahn and doing 90+ mph on long stretches it still took us about 2.5 hours. Once we got there we checked into our hotel (Alpenstuben) and luckily had gotten a free upgrade to a room
with a great view:
A note about this town - there are 2 outdoor lots, both within a 2 minute walk from the hotel. The lots were really crowded, have really tight parking spots, and one is all gravel. Thankfully the hotel's sister hotel was the Hotel Villa Ludwig which has an underground parking garage and is just a 5 minute walk away. They were more than happy to allow me to park there for a nominal fee of 10 euros. If you're going to be staying in the area, I highly recommend one of those 2 hotels just for the piece of mind in parking. Also, if you stay at Alpenstuben and it's after 10am to check in/out, you can't park in front of the hotel due to the amount of tourists in the area. You should be able to get away with parking in the front of Ludwig and telling them you're guests at Alpenstuben while you check in.
Anyway, once we had checked in, my wife commented on how beautiful it was and how much she liked the area. I agreed - it really is serene - minus the tourists. Due to reports of snow in the Alps, how tired and rushed we felt travelling from place to place, and how nice the area looked we decided to stay. Luckily the manager was able to extend our stay for an extra night as well. Once that was all settled we started walking around the area - it's definitely the smallest of the towns and cities we visited - maybe a total of a third of a mile from one end to the other of the main tourist part. There is a castle perched just above the town (Hohenschwangau) that we went around and looked at. On our walk I decided to try and make reservations at the place Bluex recommended - though I can't for the life of me find the name of the place. It's right by the lake with a gravel outdoor eating area that's quite beautiful. The place closes relatively early (7:30) so if you decide to try and go there keep that in mind. We went back to the room to change and dress up a little for dinner, but unfortunately all my dress shirt were really wrinkled. So I put on the nicest non-wrinkled outfit I had - a sweater and jeans and figured it be good enough. Unfortunately after getting there we realized we were pretty underdressed - most of the men had on a dress shirt and slacks at the very least and nearly all the women were wearing dresses. The waiter didn't say anything though. The place was also packed, unlike Bluex's experience. Dinner was...ok but the best part again was the beer
After dinner we ended up just walking around part of the lake (no wall there unfortunately :P) and then back to the hotel and the to bed fairly early.
Day 5 - Schwangau
We had made a reservation the day before for a 10:20 tour of Neuschwanstein castle - something my wife and I had been really looking forward to the whole trip. There are 2 ways to get up - a shortcut path which kind of goes pretty steep up the hillside, or the road around. We couldn't find the quick way so we ended up taking the road up and it took us probably around 30 minutes. Even in the 50 degree weather we were sweating at the top. Unfortunately there was still a massive amount of fog so we really couldn't see much before the tour started, but still got a few pictures of the outside of the castle. It's pretty impressive - even if it was never finished. Unfortunately the tour left a lot to be desired - it felt rushed and short. We visited maybe a total of 4 or 5 rooms within 35 minutes or so with a soft-spoken German who was a little hard to understand. It was completely the opposite experience of the factory tour at the Welt. Don't get me wrong, what we saw inside was very impressive, but I feel like if we would've been given an audio device of some sort and went through the castle (and more of it) at our own pace I would've enjoyed it a lot more. Luckily by the time the tour had finished the fog had cleared away and we had a rare sunny and clear sky which provided specatular views of the surrounding area.
After the tour we went around one the grounds of the castle checking out where different paths went before making our way down the "quick" route down the mountain towards the village. It turned into a bit of a nature hike and I don't recommend anyone who is not wearing sneakers or is clusmy to try to go down. After we reached the town we decided to go rent some bikes and ride around Schwangau. We ended up heading away from the town and went along some gravel roads through some fields where we met a farmer and his 2 dogs. He suggested riding through a couple of his fields on these paths provided we "weren't afraid of cows." Really friendly guy. We ended up near the gandola lifts but unfortunately didn't go up them - which looking back I think we should've probably done as I think it would've provided an excellent view. We slowly made our way back towards the town and had lunch at our hotel's restaurant where I had a really good meal - it had deer meat, cranberries, and some kind of potato side that was unique and delicious. The wife had something with Balvarian sausage which she struggled to finish. After lunch we headed out towards the lake to walk the rest but ended up renting a canoe (they have paddleboats as well) for 7 euros for an hour. It was really nice at first but then got a little chilly and windy which made rowing tough - but we enjoyed it
After canoing we headed back to our bikes and were going to ride around the lake, but instead turned off onto a bike trail (not made for the bikes we were on) and went down a pretty decent sized hill with a precarious drop (my wife has balls) and went riding around for a bit. We made our way over towards Fussen and road along the river. I really couldn't believe how blue the water was - it's amazing what stuff looks like when you take care of the environment. It was getting late (and pretty damn cold) so we made our way back to drop off the bikes and grab some dinner. We did take the M4 out looking for places to eat but the ones we stopped at were closing pretty soon (about 8) so we just went back and had dinner at our hotel again. We were both exhausted so just headed to bed afterwards.
Beckoning a cow to feed it
She's not having any of it
I'm missing some pictures from that day...I'll get them up later.
Day 6 - Dachau
Honestly there isn't much to say about this day. It was pretty uneventful and a little depressing. We did go to Dachau concentration camp which was really informative...but again, depressing. I honestly kind of wish we would've done something else that day like venture around Munich. I feel like everything you can hope to experience from that place could be gotten from watching a documentary honestly. Others might feel differently but I really feel like we kind of wasted time there given other stuff we could be doing on our last day. After Dachau and all the driving and seeing as much as we did, we were extremely tired. We headed to our hotel (NH München Airport) and checked in. After getting settled we went to the self car wash (AGIP) where I cleaned a car. A note about this if you forget to bring towels like me - they do have microfiber cloths you can buy inside for about 8 euros for 2, so try and remember them if you don't want to get ripped off. Drop-off was quick and painless (in an out within 15 minutes). We ate a dinner at the airport which was pretty decent (donor kabobs) before heading back to the hotel for a couple of last drinks and then heading to bed. Oh, I did just remember one cool thing about the day - on the way to wash my car I did see the most interesting car of the whole trip - a M1 with (I assume) a father and son riding. Really badass looking.
Notes
Here's a few things I feel I should mention that might help others on their trip:
- Even though we didn't do as much as others have done on their ED, I really felt kind of rushed the entire trip. I wish we would've just gone to 2 or 3 places and done much more exploring at each location. Schwangau was the only time I didn't feel rushed and felt like we saw a lot of what the town offered. I also feel like 6 days is just not enough time in a new country. Next ED I plan on at least 2 solid weeks.
- Apparently Germans really don't have plush pillows. Every hotel (except for the last by Munich's airport) had fluffy pillows that just deflated to nothing when you laid your head on them. You can request another pillow if you like though. Not enough to really bother you or keep you from sleeping, but I'm use to a lot more.
- My wife loves those big pretzels you get with salt and mustard and all that mess. We found that nowhere we went in Germany had those pretzels warm - they were always room temperature.
- There were a number of instances where there was no warning about a left lane or right lane being an exit lane and just abruptly going in another direction...when we were leaving Würzburg this happened and I ended up pissing off a number of Germany drivers trying to make my way over to the lane I wanted to be in.
- There was not an iron to be found in any of the hotels we stayed at. None. All but one had a pants press, but it never seemed to really work and took forever to do anything. I found this really surprising.
- German beer is the bomb, and I'm not really a beer person. However, their food is....mediocre for the most part from my experience...and this is coming from someone who loves to eat all kinds of food and is willing to try anything. I mean, maybe we should've done a better job looking out for places to eat, but out of all the places we went to only 2 stood out, and one was dessert.
- beware of the turning radius of the M4. It's fairly large IMO.
