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.

7 days and counting

We leave for Munich next Monday. Our travel plans are set.

Monday ATL-->EWR-->AMS. Arrive AMS Tuesday morning.
Tuesday AMS-->MUC. Bus or Taxi to our Hotel in Munich.
Wednesday Pick up the X3! Drive to Dachau and visit the memorial. Then off to Hohenschwangau.
Thursday Tour the castles in Hohenschwangau. Go for a drive in the Alps if the weather is nice.
Friday Take the Romantic Road north to Rothenburg ob der Tauber.
Saturday Zip west on the Autobahn to Rheinland Pfaltz. We are staying in a tiny village south east of Trier.
Sunday Off towards Amsterdam with a stop in Düsseldorf to visit a friend.
Monday Drop off the X3. See a little bit of Amsterdam.
Tuesday Fly home.

Learning German

We are both taking a German Language night class in preparation for our trip. Although we could get by with English only, knowing some German will be helpful. It is a bit easier for me as I had two years of German in College. I've forgotten nearly all of it though. Debbie is making amazing progress. I'm just starting to realize how much I've forgotten. I used to be able to read Kafka. Now I couldn't even order breakfast without offending the waiter.

The class is using two Berlitz books Berlitz German in 30 Days and Berlitz German Phrase Book. The inexpensive Berlitz books are ok but really aren't enough if you are trying to learn German on your own. I'm also going back through Deutsch Heute, my old college text book. If you are willing to spend a little, get a used copy. I also recommend working through several free on-line resources. My favorite is BBC German Steps an on-line course for beginners. The Beeb also has intermediate German on-line but I haven't tried that yet. Deutsch-lernen is also worth a look.

A Car is Born

Our car was assembled a few days ago. BMW North America's website says is our car is awaiting transport. The automated 800 number says our car is en route to the Port of Exit. Debbie says our new X3 is lonely and it needs us. Can we go get it now?

Pokey Clock

Our Pokey clock arrived yesterday. The clock itself isn't a big deal. Receiving it is. Along with the clock was a letter from BMW of North America confirming our production number, color, options, pickup date, European registration and insurance.
As "small gifts" go the clock is kinda cool.