Author Archives: BH

Driving – Germany & Austria

Driving the German roads and my first time driving a left hand drive vehicle apart from heavy earth moving machines scrapers and dump trucks. Scooting along the autobahns at 120 to 140km per hour and a lot of cars passing me like I was tied to a tree. I hate to guess what speed they were going.
Really have to keep alert with slower trucks and cars coming up fast and just as you are about to move across a lane something else comes zooming up behind you ready to do the same.
On one road we had a few tunnels with one of them being just over 9km long. Most tunnels we came across have an 80km limit. Some small towns we went through had a 30km speed limit and after sitting on 120km/hr plus for a few hours it seems very slow. I think I got pinged by a couple of speed cameras stategically placed where I would not see them.
We have also come across a lot of road works where speeds are reduced, and one section going in the opposite direction thank goodness was a line of maybe 8 to 10km of trucks and the last 2-3km of that line up they were in two of the 3 lanes.
Salzburg to Berchtesgaden was simple, barely even knew we were in Germany apart from a signpost saying so. But, when we went from Salzburg to Munich we passed through what must have been an old border patrol gate where everyone was slowed down to 20km/hr and a huge area where some vehicles were being hauled in for inspection by the several police there.
My last time driving on German roads was in an old 1958 Double Decker Bus called Woftam in 1983. My memory of it back then was that it was simple, but this time quit stressful. Maybe I just need more time and practice. Life was a bit slower back then.

RHINE CRUISE

We came from Erfurt to Rudesheim am Rhine and stayed a couple of nights there. We booked a cruise boat up the Rhine which crossed the river to Bingen and went up as far as St Goar.

This is a cruise that I have in the past just dropped my passengers off and driven up the side of the river on the Bingen side to St Goar and picked them up so it is the first time I have actually been on a boat there.

A lot of castles enroute on the hills of almost every little town and when at St Goar we had a wander about and had lunch there. Schnitzel and chips of course.

From there a bit of a walk to the station to take the train back to Bingen. A small issue was the ticket machine at the station was not working. My phone was not getting data to book the train. Eventually after finding I had data off I got my tickets on line and off we went but it did cost us some time.

We got to Bingen and had a long but nice walk from the station to the car ferry to go back over to Rudesheim am Rhine. Once we were across it was an even longer walk from there back into town and back to our hotel.

The hotel was nice but interesting, it had a tiny bathroom about the size of an airline toilet space but the included breakfast more than made up for it. The car parking was about a km away and not cheap. When we did drive to the hotel we ended up on a tiny cobble stone street and it seemed we were lost yet again but nope, all was good. Quite a hill from the hotel down to the waterfront which we did do a couple of times.

From Rudesheim we drove down what is described as the Romantic Road, however, the waeather was not so good so any towns we wanted to stop and look around got bypassed. We ended up going as far as Augsburg and then continued on the following day down the rest of the Romantic Road as far as Fussen. The famous fairytale castle Neuschwanstein, built by the mad King Ludwig II very near to Fussen to which I have been many times back with Top Deck trips.

From there a short drive to Salzburg, Austria and just before the border stopped at a services to pickup a Vignette for the car which covers toll roads in Austria.

The services had nice metal t-spoons with the coffees we got and one magically jumped into my bag, which came in handy a few times later for coffee in our rooms. It was considerably better than the plastic and wooden spoons we had with us.

Berlin To Salzburg

e left Berlin in a left hand drive car a first ever for me. I had one very nervous passenger indeed (I think AVIS will have to scrub the front passengers seat when they get the car back). We haded off down to Slazburg via an old Top Deck favourite the Rhine Cruise from Bingen to St Goar. We stayed at Rothenburg ob der Tauber (across the river from Bingen. We did the river cruise and got the train back to Bingen and the car ferry back across to Rothenburg ob der Tauber.

The following day off down the “Romantic Road” which was nothing special a few towns e stopped at were nice enough but since it was pissing down with rain we did not wander around much. We stopped overnight at Augsburg then onto Salzburg the following day. A quick photo stop at Neuschwanstein castle, near Fussen which we have both seen before.

Salzburg we stayed at Hotel Goldener Hirsch, A Luxury Collection Hotel which was very nice indeed. We had 3 nights there.

First day there we did a drive out to Salzkammergut and Hallstatt but Hallstatt was swarming with tour buses and people all car parks full so we carried on back towards Salzburg, found a nice little bakery then back home.

Following day off to Konigssee, Berchtesgaden and Eagles nest. The Eagles Nest was closed due to early snow, but the scenery around was fantastic with snow capped mountains everywhere.

The Salt Mine tour was much better than I remembered. It took about an hour with a lot of steps, walking, tunnels, slides, train, boat and a few visual displays, very enjoyable indeed.

Our Lufthansa flight to Bilbao left from Munich so a 3 hr drive there via the Oktoberfest grounds. Beerfest 2024 was due to start the following day.

Checkpoint Charlie – Berlin

A walk around the area from our hotel to Check Point Charlie. Last time I was here was in 1981 and was here twice that year. At that time it was one of the borders between East and West Germany, but now surrounded by tourists, and tour buses, including us with souvenir shops on either side of the street.

Manchester – Frankfurt – Berlin

Lufthansa.
Leaving Manchester was a bit of a challenge. After finally finding where the plane was leaving from we got to a security area. We thought leaving Singapore with the plane carrying on to USA was heavy security but this security check was on another level, by far the most officious I have endured in a long time. Belts off, Shoes off etc, small plastic bags of liquids like something we dealt with just after 9/11.
After going through the body scanner it showed two waring triangles on the screen in my crotch area. The guy had his stick scanner hovering around trying to work out what it was. After a while of feeling me up and scanning me I asked if he wanted me to take my Jeans off but he then gave up and let me through putting it all down to the rivets in my Jeans.
The plane ended up leaving about 20 minutes late and we made our connecting flight at Frankfurt heading to Berlin by mere minutes, our bags ended up on a later plane and this was only the second time in all our travels a bag has gone missing, but this time two bags.

Update: Bags were located and are due to arrive this afternoon, 26hrs after our flight did.

Bletchley Park

After Turville we went to Bletchley Park. It is something I have wanted to see since we saw the TV series of Bletchely Circle several years ago. Well, the place was not well signposted so no wonder the Germans never found it, even my GPS was struggling but eventually we got there. It was massive, originally built on a huge estate and at it’s peak had 9000 people working there doing code breaking work during WW11. The preservation and work that has gone into renovation and setting up this place is amazing a real credit to them. Dozens of buildings and signs and displays some interactive there telling the story.

Queens Hotel

We had arranged with family (my wife’s 2 sisters and 1 brother plus partners) to meet up in Cheltenham. We had 4 couples meet up at the Queens Hotel in Cheltenham all staying there and a meal out together on the second night. All 4 of the family had gone to school there and often passed the hotel thinking it was only for the rich and famous and had never been in so it was something special over 50 years later to all meet there. The spouses of the four heard a lot of stories during our time there of time spent as kids in the town. We had my wife’s pre 65th birthday dinner there.

Rental Car Woes

Whilst at Cheltenham we decided to do a day trip out to a couple of small village towns. We set off in the MG HS Avis rental car, as you do and only got around the block to find we had a flat right front tyre. After a quick check found we had no spare in the car, so figured best we call the Avis 0800 number and they would send help. WRONG.
We were using a New Zealand phone and on a global roaming plan so not a cheap thing to do. After speaking to FIVE different people and a total of 58 minutes of phone calls (a lot of that on hold listening Avis advert over and over again) and just over NZD85 spent on calls and time spent in total from 9.30am to 4pm we finally got a tow truck organised to take it to a tyre place and get a new tyre fitted. (The flat tyre had a screw in the side wall). During all this we also found that the car had no current Road Tax so AA would not touch it which was part of the delay in getting it move.
The final person I spoke to after a lot of passing the buck was reasonably nice to talk to and has agreed to pay for a lot of inconvenience plus the phone calls and drop a day off the hire. Barely enough but it is better than nothing. My Global Roaming exceeded my daily limit so the last part of my phone calls were on a much higher price.