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.