Trip Report -- Day 8.1

After doing paper work at the USA office, we drove the X3 into a parking area inside the fence. I removed the front plate, the first aid kit and the warning triangle. Those items are for Europe only. If they go missing during shipment they are gone for good. BMW North America will replace anything else stolen from the car during shipment. We said good bye to the car, and took a taxi back to our Hotel. From there we took a bus into the city center.

Photo of me taking a picture.

Picture I took.
Debbie's photo of Canals.
More canals.
We went to the Van Gogh Museum. We cruised the canals. We ate Greek food for dinner. We walked. Miles.

Amsterdam was my favorite city of the trip. Really it was the only city. We didn't spend much time in Munich.

Historic Amsterdam doesn't have much room for cars. The streets are narrow and parking is difficult. The way the city is built, I'm not sure if it would be possible to build an underground parking garage. An above ground garage would be ugly and require removing historic buildings. In any case there aren't any. Most of the locals walk, use public transportation and ride bicycles. It seemed to us that there are more bicycles than residents. Near the central train station there is a multi-story parking deck crammed full of bicycles. There are bicycles locked to just about everything and parked just about everywhere. Going back through our photos of Amsterdam I was only able to find one or two that didn't have a bicycle in them.

In a wealthy city where bicycles are the main transportation, you'd expect to find the newest, coolest high tech bikes in existence. Well you won't. A typical Dutch bike is a heavy, low tech, rusty thing kinda like a 1950's English lightweight. Rock solid, dependable and kinda boring really. A few uniquely Dutch bikes caught my eye.

A bakfiets is just what the Dutch name implies, a box bike. I didn't get any decent photos, but there are plenty on the web. Have a look: here or here or here. I saw several in use transporting children, groceries, pets, whatever. A bakfiets is Amsterdam's SUV. I'm sure they weigh a ton with that wooden box. Bakfiets are expensive at just over €1,500. I've looked and there are a few Americans selling them here in the US. Prices are close to $3000. Still if we ever live in a bike friendly city I'm getting one.

Trip Report -- Day 8

Monday morning we hopped in the X3 and headed for United Stevedores Amsterdam. It wasn't far, so I plugged the address into the Nuvi and let it guide us there. Bad idea. There is a lot of road construction in the area. Some of the roads the Nuvi wanted to take us on were just plain gone.

I had looked at the area on Google Earth a few days earlier, so I had a rough idea of where we needed to be. I wandered around a bit annoying Debbie to no end. Eventually I got us to about the correct place. The Nuvi kept trying to take us down the wrong pier. Any readers planning to drop a car in Amsterdam: Email USA and get directions. Don't try and use GPS.

For fellow EDer's planning an Amsterdam drop off:



View Larger Map

The correct building is highlighted in blue.


Drive up this street.


Turn right at this building.


Park here, outside the gates.


Go inside this small red building. This is the one highlighted in the Google map.


Enter through this door.

Trip Report -- Day 7

Sunday breakfast was the now familiar bread, cheese, cold cuts and assorted extras. The Berghotel provided ample portions served at our table instead of a buffet.

The previous night I had carefully checked the Nuvi's route from Holzerath to Amsterdam. The route took us back on the one-lane road we came in on and eventually north east on the A1. We were only on the A1 a short distance. At first I thought this was another Nuvi error, but the maps showed a large section of the A1 is still unfinished. Instead we cut north west on the A60 towards Belgium. Traffic on the A60 was very light and I set the cruise control at 150km/h. I don't remember passing a single car. As we approached the border, the speed limit dropped to 80 or 60 and the Autobahn narrowed to 1 lane each way. Possibly this was a choke point at the old border crossing. The Schengen Treaty ended border controls between a dozen and a half European countries. Driving from Germany to Belgium is like Driving from Georgia to Alabama. There is a sign, the football team changes and a few of the traffic laws are different.

We stopped in Belgium for fuel at one of the ubiquitous rest stops. After filling up, I was going to use the restroom but Debbie warned me off. She said she'd seen about 15 men go in but none of them had come out. One woman ventured in but ran right back out and grabbed her husbands arm. They both left quickly. I decided that my bladder could wait for The Netherlands. Belgium was just a drive-through.

The national speed limit in Belgium and The Netherlands is 120km/h. After the Autobahn, driving at 75mph felt terribly slow. Traffic as we approached Amsterdam dragged us down to 40km/h or so.

We stayed at the Golden Tulip Amsterdam Art, a modern 4-star just outside central Amsterdam. The hotel has secure underground parking for 14Euros per night. In Amsterdam, finding a hotel with parking is essential. The hotel room was quite nice, if a bit strange. Think stereotypic gay. We unpacked quickly and headed out into the city.

The front of Amsterdam houses and building lean out into the street. I suppose this was done to give the upper stories a bit more room. It may also have something to do with the Nuvi's total failure to work. I had set the Nuvi to give us a walking route to the Anne Frank house. As soon as we got into historic Amsterdam, the Nuvi turned into an evil box. It did things like put us 2 or 3 blocks from our actual location and gave directions that made no sense. I finally turned the navigation off, and used the Nuvi as a dumb map.

We queued for the Anne Frank House a little before closing. That is the best time to go as the crowd is much smaller. The museum consists of the building her family hid in as well as the adjacent house. The Nazis took the furniture, but much of the rest remains. The book case concealing the entrance to the secret rooms, the wall paper, even the magazine pages that Anne used to decorate her room are all still there. It was quite a contrast to Dachau. This was home to several families. No one was murdered here. But it was equally haunting.

That night we had Indian food at a restaurant somewhere between the Anne Frank House and our hotel. After a week of German food, something else, anything else was a welcome change.

Back at the hotel we watched a little Dutch TV. Dutch programming is an intersection of Dutch and American culture. We watched the Blues Brothers Movie in English, with no subtitles. The commercials were very Dutch. The next channel over had music videos. Dutch rap seemed very odd.

Trip Report -- Day 6

Saturday morning we ate breakfast at the hotel buffet. Food was quite good. Cheese, cold cuts, bread, fresh pastries, and other assorted goodies. A large Japanese tour group decimated the buffet right as we sat down. The staff apologized and put out fresh food for us. We stayed at the Prinz Hotel Rothenburg. Good location right inside the town wall. Tourists walking the wall had a wonderful view of our room. Room was fine, the curtains worked and the price was reasonable. Staff was a bit cold but not too bad.

After breakfast we walked the town wall. Worth doing if you are there. We went to the market set up in the town square. Most of the shoppers looked like locals, not tourists. We bought bread, fruit and cheese that became our lunches for the next few days. I don't remember what kind of cheese we got. Wish I had, it was really good. Debbie bought chocolate from one of Rothenburg's many shops. I also stopped in a at a book store and got paper maps for Germany, Belgium and the The Netherlands.

We set the Nuvi to Trier, and then checked the route against the maps I'd bought. The route to Trier was mostly Autobahn. There were long stretches on the A6 with no limit. Debbie and I took turns running the X3 up to the 100mph break in maximum. The car was smooth, quiet and comfortable at 100mph and clearly would have had no trouble going even faster. There was a lot of construction and the speed limits constantly changed. We had to keep a careful watch for limit signs. None would suddenly become 120km/h and that could change to 100, 70 or even 60 with little notice. 60km/h is darn slow after you've been running at 160.

Driving the Autobahn requires constant attention. Even at 160km/h one is expected to drive in the slow lane. The left lane is for passing only and must be used with care. Cars in the left lane might be going warp 9. More then once, I had cars run up behind us in the left lane. With the break in speed limit, I couldn't go faster. My only choice was to get back into the right lane as soon as possible. Most of the time we were under no speed limit, I set the cruise control for 140km/h which kept my time in the left lane down to a minimum.

Autobahnen have many opportunities for a break from driving. A typical Rastof has a Tankstellung (gas station),clean restrooms, parking, and a restaurant or two. There is usually a 50 cent charge for the restrooms. In between the Rastofs are smaller pullouts marked by a blue and white P sign. Most of these smaller pullouts (we called them P's) are wooded and only have trash cans and parking. We used the occasional P to switch off driving. We would have liked to use one as nice place to eat lunch. However the main use of a P prevented that. Most German males are too cheap to spend 50 cents to use the restroom at a Rasthoff. Instead they take advantage of one of the numerous trees at a P to relive themselves.

Just past Ramstein air base we turned off the A6 onto the A61 and then onto the A1. That part of the route goes through a hilly region with some spectacular high bridges over valleys. Debbie drove part of that segment and I was able to enjoy the view. As we approached Trier I reset the Nuvi to Berghotel Holzerath, our actual destination.

Holzerath is a small vilage about 15km south of Trier. Exiting the autobahn, the Nuvi took us down an ever decreasing set of back roads, ending with a one lane road through a forest. Nice to look at, but it made us wonder about the Nuvi's sanity. Just about the time I was ready to check against a map, we popped out of the forest into the tiny village of Holzerath.

I picked the location mostly because I couldn't find hotel room in Trier. After we saw Trier, I'm glad we stayed out of town. The hotel was solid two star. Nothing fancy at all, but it was clean and comfortable. Inexpensive too. The staff (owners??) speak English and are very friendly. After the 3 and 4 stars we'd be staying at it did feel less luxurious. The bathroom was decidedly cramped and much more like the Europe I remembered.

Trier is home to Dom St. Peter and a holy relic or two. Trier itself was a let down. Maybe we didn't go to the right places, but most of what we saw wasn't worth the trip. The only photo I took was of the inside of the Dom. We ended up eating dinner back at the Hotel. Food at the Berghotel was quite good. Better than we expected. If I had the day to do over, I would have skipped Trier and explored the forest around Holzerath. Even better would have been staying an extra day at any of our other destinations. Amsterdam certainly deserved more time then we gave it.

Trip Report -- Day 5

Friday was a near disaster. Our next scheduled stop was in Rothenburg ob der Tauber. That was a bit far, so I picked a town about half way there and punched it into the Nuvi.

Driving on the Autobahn took considerable concentration. I paid attention to what the Nuvi was telling me but not to where it was taking us. We left Hohenschwangau the way we came, back through the terrible Stau in the Munich area. After a miserable couple of hours we cleared that and were making 150km/h on the Autobahn. Which Autobahn, I had no clue but at least we were getting there fast. After a while we saw signs for Ingolstadt. Ingolstadt is the birthplace of Frankenstien and home to the Audi factory. It was also not anywhere near where we wanted to go. First chance I got, I pulled off the Autobahn and into a Tankstellung. Debbie was upset. I was less then pleased. At least we were still in Bavaria. I fought with the Nuvi for a few minutes and finally convinced it to take a reasonable route to Rothenburg odT. The best route took us back the way we'd come, something that did little to improve things. I made a mental note: always check the Nuvi.

We stopped for fuel and split a miserable sandwich I'd bought at the Tankstellung. 1/2 tank of gas for the X3 cost us about $70.00. The wretched sandwich about $7.00 After that I made the best possible speed. During the break in period, BMW recommends keeping the speed under 100mph. I set the cruise for a little under that. The kilometers flew by. Approaching an interchange, I saw a sign in German saying the ramp was closed and suggesting an alternate. I misunderstood the directions and sent us off in the wrong direction again. Fortunately we caught this almost immediately and only lost a few minutes getting turned around. Did nothing to improve the mood though.

We arrived at Rothenburg odT in the late afternoon. The T and the H are both pronounced. It sounds something like wrote heN berg. The Nuvi and I both did a terrible job navigating inside the city walls but we eventually found the Hotel. I found a safe place to park the car.

We wandered around town a bit and then had dinner at one of the many restaurants. The waitress spoke no English, so we ordered in German. I likely if unwittingly offended her, the town and Bavaria, but they served us anyway. I had wurst, sauerkraut and bread. Debbie had the same. The meal was wonderful and that did a lot to improve our spirits.

After dinner we wandered towards the town square where several crowds were gathering. One was heading to a play. I checked and the performance was in German. The other was crowded around someone talking about the town, in English. That sounded interesting, so we followed along. Just by luck we'd come into Hans Georg Baumgartner's Night Watchman tour. Luckily we'd caught his English performance. The tour is both entertaining and informative. Highly recommended. Having come in just after the start, we didn't realize until the end that he charges for the tour. We were happy to pay as his tour saved the day. We didn't have enough euros, but he happily accepted dollars.

We don't have any decent photos of Rotenburg. We didn't have much time and the town itself is a difficult, if beautiful subject. I put the best I've got at the top of the post. Google or the night watchman's website have more.

Trip Report -- Day 4

Thursday morning we sampled the buffet breakfast that was included with our stay. The spread included breads, cheese, cold cuts, cereal, muesli, yogurt, assorted fruit juices and more of that amazing butter. Like the dinner, everything on the buffet was first rate.

We scheduled a tour of Neuschwanstein early in the day and a late tour of Schloss Hohenschwangau leaving us most of the day free. The plan was to drive up into the alps and get lunch in a town on the Austrian side of the border. It was raining, so I checked the weather. Sure enough, it was snowing just a bit farther up. The X3 isn't afraid of snow, but some of the snow falling on the local weather cams looked quite heavy. I wasn't sure what the road conditions would be like and I didn't want to get stuck, even for a few hours. Debbie agreed and we decided to spend the day in Hohenscwangau.

After breakfast we hiked up to Neuschwanstein. It is a pleasant walk with fantastic views.


Hohenschwangau castle overlooking the town. Alpsee in the background. Hotel Müller is the yellow building in the center of town below the castle. As always you can click the photo to enlarge.



The tours leave exactly at the scheduled times. There is an automated queue system that admits you to your tour at the precise time. Very German.



Cameras are not allowed inside. I took a few photos while we waited for our tour time. The tour itself felt very rushed. I was not impressed with the tour guide either. Schloss Neuschwanstein is bizarre. Ludwig built it as an homage to Richard Wagner. Left unfinished by King Ludwig's death (likely murder) it is a reflection of his personality.

After the tour, we hiked in the area around the castle. While the castle is very crowed, as soon as we got 10 meters out on a trail the crowds were gone and we had the woods to ourselves.





We went back down into town for some warm tomato soup and a ham and cheese sandwich. After that we went back to the room to relax a bit before touring Neuschwanstein.



Me on the patio of our hotel room.

The room has a great view of Neuschwanstein but this photo Debbie took came out better.

We caught the last tour of the day at Neuschwanstein. The guide makes the tour and this time we did much better. Funny, informative and we learned a bit more history too. After the tour we ran into our guide as she walked down to her car. She is a Human Biology graduate student as was working as a guide only during the German fall holiday.



After dinner at the Müller we watched German TV. There was a Stargate SG-1 marthon on. Having already seen the show, we know enough German to follow along. Stargate dubbed into German was so funny I nearly threw up. The dubbing was just terrible. I have no idea why they couldn't just subtitle it and leave the dialog alone. I do have new respect for how good the Stargate cast is. Christopher Judge really stands out as someone who excels in subtle body language.

Trip Report -- Day 3

Wednesday morning we walked the 2.5km from our hotel to the old BMW Kundenzentrum Freimann. It would have been a pleasant enough walk except it was raining and the Nuvi didn't work. While the Nuvi works great in a car, it doesn't work at all well in pedestrian mode. The buildings and trees along the sides of a road cut into the signal. Although the Nuvi has a pedestrian mode, it doesn't seem to understand you aren't in a car. It kept assuming we were on the right hand side of the road and that caused all sorts of position and navigation errors. In the end I turned it off and guessed the way there. Fortunately I made a few correct guesses and we got there with little trouble. Well Debbie was a bit annoyed.

We just about turned out the lights at Freimann. The old customer center is now closed and BMW will be starting European Deliveries in an impressive new facility. One that we didn't see. We saw an old but well lit industrial building. Freimann reminds me of the buildings my father-in-law used to design. Big cement boxes. Practical and no nonsense.

Even though we arrived early in the day, the customer center was already busy. We had about a 45 minute wait at a table in the small cafe. A large number of people arrived just after us. We shared our table with a German family. They were picking up a 116i.

Eventually the wait was over, a BMW rep went over the German paperwork with us and finally took us down to the car. Since we told him this was our fourth BMW, he gave us an express delivery. Instead of the usual 1 hour, he went over the car in about 5 minutes and we drove out the very narrow door. Debbie would have liked a longer introduction.


One of the advantages of ordering a car is you are the first and only customer to drive the car. Our X3 had 4 miles on it when we took delivery. Munich built cars often have less. The X3 is built in Austria and had to be driven a bit during the longer delivery process.

Once we were outside, I activated the Nuvi and had it take us to the Dachau war memorial. If you are ever in Muich, go. Yes it is depressing. It should be. Didn't take any photos. Seemed disrespectful. I was surprised how very crowded it was. Mostly Germans, but at good mix of people from all over were there. If you can't make it to Dachau, rent The Ninth Day. It is not a typical concentration camp movie, but Dachau wasn't typical.

Cold, depressed and hungry we ate lunch at a nearby cafe. Lunch was fine, but not memorable. I don't remember what I ate. After that I set the Nuvi for Hohenschwangau and we headed south.

My first experience with the Autobahn was in heavy rain mit Stau. Stau is German for traffic. Endless stau. Stuck in stau. Stau stau stau. Eventually it cleared out and we were cruising at 120km/h in the slow lane. Higher speeds could wait until the car was broken in a bit.

We stayed at Hotel Müller. The Müller is one of the best hotels we've ever been guests at. Friendly helpful staff. No excessive charges for extras. For example, irons are not allowed in guest rooms due to fire hazard. However the hotel laundry will iron your clothes free of charge. Our room was large, with a patio that had a great view of town and Schloss Hohenschwangau.

Our dinner at the hotel was the best meal of the entire trip. The cuisine is a gourmet version of classic food from the region. Expect to see deer, veal, Spätzle, and fish on a menu that offers little for vegetarians. I decided against potatoes for dinner. The meat was wonderful. So was Debbie's fish. The little things made the meal. The butter was simply amazing. The bread and cake was excellent as well.

Trip Report -- Day 2

Tuesday morning we arrived in Amsterdam. After clearing passport control and customs I checked into my Lufthansa flight to Munich. On my way out to the gate, I turned on my cell and called Debbie. To my surprise she had done the same and was about 200 feet behind me on her way out to the gate. I waited for her to catch up.

Our flight to Munich was running late so we wandered around Schiphol Airport and found some food. After that we sat out at the gate and stared off into the spot where our commuter jet should be.


Eventually our Lufthansa Avro-RJ arrived. The Avro-RJ is small short range 4 engine jet. This little jet was designed back in 1973 by Hawker Siddeley. With the nationalization of Hawker into British Aerospace, the plane was named the BAe-146. The early version was plagued with in-flight engine failures. Pilots and others in the know joked that BAe stood for bring another engine. British Aerospace changed to more reliable engines and wisely renamed the re-engined design the Avro-RJ. Avro's are quite rare in the USA. Anyone old enough to remember PSA might have seen one of their BAe-146s. US Air retired the PSA 146's shortly after they took over.


Once we were finally on the way, the short flight to Munich was fine. The LH flight safety demonstration was very Teutonic and too darn serious. I had a hard time not laughing. LH served us a light snack. Food was fine and very welcome.

Rather than taking an expensive taxi to our hotel, I decided to use the Lufthansa Airport Bus. The bus saved us about 50 Euros. We highly recommend using the Lufthansa bus and then walking or a taxi once you are in central Munich. The bus driver didn't speak English. Somehow the correct German for "2 one-way tickets to Schwabing, please." found its way out of my mouth. Even now if I try to think about it, I have trouble remember exactly how to say it.

The Munich hotel was fine although nothing special. Typical large corporate 3 star hotel. No personality, clean and comfortable if a little sterile and unfriendly. It just changed ownership and is now the Tulip Inn Muenchen Schwabing. The area is changing from low density industrial to mixed-use residential. There are some new shops located immediately behind the hotel. Useful if you forgot bar soap like we did. Many of the 3 star hotels in Europe have miserable liquid soap dispensers in the showers. This particular Tulip Inn also features killer shower curtains. Do be careful they attack without warning. Here is the view out the room's window:



The hotel is within walking distance of the now closed BMW Freiman customer center and the Englisher Garten. There is a U-Bahn station nearby that makes it easy to reach Central Munich. We'd stay here again, but now that deliveries have moved to a different part of town there may be better hotel options. We had dinner in a nearby bar / cafe. Food was fine. Waiter spoke zero English. Once again my miserable German saved us.

Trip Report -- Day 1

We are back from our delivery trip. I will be making an entry for each day of the trip. Day one was a travel day.

Monday morning we took a shuttle to the airport. Driver couldn't find the house. He kept insisting that we lived in a part of Atlanta about 15 miles from here. After ten minutes of talking in circles, I asked him if he had a map. He didn't and refused to just take directions from me. He drove back to his dispatch to get a map. In the end we did get to the airport, but I'm not using that shuttle company again.

Debbie was flying United to Amsterdam connecting at Dulles. I was on Continental to Amsterdam connecting at Newark. After going over our Amsterdam contingency plans one last time, Debbie headed off to her United flight and I boarded my Continental flight. On approach to Newark we got a decent view of Manhattan.



People flying into Newark see this view all the time. I don't so I took a quick snapshot. On the ground at Newark I traded voice mail with Debbie. We both made our connecting flights.

The long flight to Amsterdam on Continental was better then I had feared. The equipment was 757. Usually that means a miserable ride in a very old airplane. This one turned out to be a newer 757-300 with a modern interior. The food was ok too. Nothing like Virgin Atlantic but much better than the last couple of rides I've had with Delta. I even slept a couple of hours.