No need for speed. Well, maybe a little.

The idea of driving through Germany was to have the freedom to stop along the way, but Rothenburg was planned. We had originally thought about spending a few hours in Heidelberg on the way to Rothenburg, but realized we wouldn't have enough time, so we'd catch it on the way back. From our last stop in Dirmstein to the outskirts of Munich was the most interesting and pleasantly surprising part of our trip, not necessarily because of the scenery, which was nice in parts, but because there were no speed limits.

First of all, let me say something to the people in charge of maintaining roads in the state of Baden-Wurttemberg. Or maybe I shouldn't, because it wouldn't be nice. I swear, that entire state is under construction, and the lanes are dangerously narrow. (Yes, there are speed limits in construction zones, and in urbanized and traffic heavy spots as well, and trucks have speed limits, too.)

Once we hit the Bavarian border, everything was much, much faster. Apparently, there is an advisory speed limit of 81mph, but you won't get a ticket, although if you cause an accident above the advisory limit, you have increased liability. Americans are mistaken in thinking that the "Autobahn" is one road. It is not one road; it is the entire federal highway system.

I had not once thought about a speed limitless autobahn when deciding to rent a car, and I certainly did not remember they existed while driving through Baden-Constructionburg, but when cars started blowing by me at racing speeds, it dawned on me. I myself was going 80-85mph for large portions of the drive. I'd look in the rearview mirror one minute and would see nothing, then suddenly a car is next to me. There are no slow left lane drivers - if you do it, you get smashed. At my fastest I got up to about 104mph before our economy car started shaking. I did not feel comfortable at that speed, but I wanted to do it for a little bit. It was a pretty thrilling stretch of the trip and felt like...freedom.

The road goes through it

There were no more stops aside from maybe a rest stop toilet break. We arrived to Rothenburg at night in a light drizzle, one of two times we had any rain at all on the trip. The GPS took us in a winding, confusing pattern around the town, finally directing us to drive through an old church. Yes, through it. I was sure I was doing something wrong as I crept through the narrow archway into the church courtyard - er, rather the sheepyard, as we found out later. (It is presently sheepless.) Across the cobblestones was another narrow arch to pass through. I had no idea what we'd find through it, but this was an adventure, so there we went, through what looked like a bell tower. Turns out, our hotel was on the other side, a great location in the medieval part of town. We barely made the check-in time, having twenty minutes to spare. We left the big bag in the car for the night (it was nice to not have to lug bags around everywhere) and headed out to look for food. We met some locals in a nearby bar who had lived in Washington and Baltimore, of all places. We were the only tourists at the place, exactly what we wanted. They gave us a little advice on things to see the next day, but Chris and the Baltimore guy talked too much about NFL football, as the guy was a big Ravens fan. The bartender seemed skeptical of us in the beginning, but warmed to us after we were accepted by her regulars.

They made a point of saying they were Franconians, not Bavarians, and I got a bit of a history lesson. It was Napoleon who gave Franconia to Bavaria after he destroyed the Holy Roman Empire. (I later found out that the term for this legal process was Reichsdeputationshauptschluss (29 letters), which I add here only because I am amused by the length of the word, not because it was the last law ever enacted by the Holy Roman Empire.) Every time I go to Europe I marvel at all the microethnicities and different dialects they speak and how the tribalism still exists, although I suspect it is strongest when it comes to football (soccer) rivalries.

In the morning we discovered what a gem was the medieval town of Rothenburg ob der Tauber. Unsure of what to do first, we walked to the church I had driven through on the previous night. There, we climbed stairs that led to a walk on the city wall. From there, we saw overhead views of a city straight out of the fourteenth century. Rothenburg had once been an important city in the Holy Roman Empire. Today, it is a prime tourist destination on Germany's Romantic Road, but as it was the off season, the crowds weren't bad.

We both loved walking around the wall, climbing a tower (well, I didn't like the actual climbing part of it, but the views were spectacular), visiting medieval churches, and even visiting the overpriced Christmas shops, as Rothenburg is also famous for its Christmas market.

Alas, we had to leave in the early afternoon to drive to Oberndorf, Austria, where we would stay with my friend for the next several days. It would take four hours plus a stop in Frasdorf, Germany, for a snack and a break from the car. It was here we met the foothills of the Alps. We would soon leave the motorway and drive through small alpine towns until we reached Laufen, Germany, crossed the bridge into Austria, and began the next chapter of our European adventure.

If you click the first picture, you can start a kind of slideshow. The resolution is probably better that way. Then just click the right arrow to move to the next photo.

Update: I just realized that doesn't work for mobile, and you have to click each picture individually to see it in a decent resolution, and I know Blogger sucks but I have had this blog for 13 years when it was one of the only CSS platforms, and they won't update their mobile stuff because Google is a massive, soulless corporation now and I am going to have to figure out a better way to post these pics on this platform. In the meantime, please scroll down to the bottom of the post, click on "view web version," and view in landscape mode (turn your phone longways). At least then you can just scroll through.

Days gone by

Started this in Luxembourg, ran out of time to finish. Very first part of the trip.

Austria is already just a memory.

It seems like a lifetime ago when we arrived in Europe. We have been here about two weeks and fortunately have nearly another one. I am trying not to think about going home because I don't want to go home. It feels more like home in Europe, anyway.

When we landed in Paris, we hadn't slept much on the plane. I hadn't made hotel reservations for that night because we weren't sure if we would stay in Paris or head straight to Luxembourg, where we would pick up the car in the morning, and we wanted the flexibility to see how we felt with the jet lag and the lack of sleep. I had really wanted to get the two hour train ride over with and to get an early start on the driving, but on the ground in Paris all I wanted to do was sleep, and we looked for a place to crash. A fashion show changed that. There wasn't a hotel under $500 a night in Paris, so Luxembourg it was.

Building in Paris

Gare du l'est, site of a future almost taxi scam

St. Laurent

A different kind of melon

The glorious cheese aisle at a Parisian grocery store

Mississippi Wisconsin?

I wish my Harris Teeter had these, and damn it, I forgot to bring some back.

Two jet lagged people who just needed a seat

St. Martin Canal, kind of a hidden little treasure

I enjoyed watching the locks work

We took the high speed TGV to Lux after spending half a day in Paris, mostly just sitting at a cafe like zombies and staring at people as they walked by. We wandered over to the Canal St. Martin and watched the locks operate before speeding away in a taxi to catch our train. Neither of us were awake for most of the trip. We lugged our bags to the hotel, laid down, and were out immediately.

Breakfast in Lux

In the morning, I very much enjoyed my breakfast of endless bread and cheese and various sausages before walking to the car rental place - about 15 minutes which I stretched out into a half hour or so, just wandering around the streets of Luxembourg wondering what this trip was going to be like. I had never driven in continental Europe; last year driving in Ireland was the first time I had ever driven a car in another country. Based on that experience, I figured the continent would be cake, given that they drive on the correct side of the road and their roads are better.  I picked up the car and we were off. The destination for the night was Rothenburg, a medieval town in Bavaria, but we planned to stop plenty along the way. We crossed the Mosel Valley from Luxembourg to Germany somewhere around noon, maybe closer to one. Throughout the trip, we always seemed to be an hour behind where we wanted to be, sometimes more.

The rolling hills of the Mosel Valley were covered with vineyards that produce Riesling, Elbling, and a few pinot wines, and, as I later learned, a sparkling wine called Cremant. I thought the whole drive to Rothenburg would be like that, but there were some stretches of motorway that were just boring highways with nothing to see but traffic.

Gottelborn menu

We had lunch in a town called Gottelborn, where we ate a buffet full of heavy meats and potatoes, our first real meal of the trip. We just needed to stop, and there weren't exits and entrances with roadside eateries like there are by US highways. We were on a stretch of highway that was somewhat desolate from the looks of it, but I guess there were little towns that we just kept missing because they weren't directly off exits. Anyway, when we pulled into Gottelborn, we just parked on a sidewalk like Europeans tend to do and Chris went into a bank and asked if there were a restaurant nearby. The guy in the bank told him to go down the hill, and that the bank staff would be going there themselves in ten minutes or so.

We stuffed ourselves. Everything was pretty good and it was a great value. I wanted to eat more, but jet lag messes with my stomach as much as it does my head.

Then it was off to Rothenburg. But at some point we hit an accident on the highway, so the GPS routed us around it. It must have been a bad accident; a helicopter landed on the road. Unfortunate for the victims, but a bit fortunate for us, because it got us off the highway and a detour through some little towns.

Now, I haven't spent too much time in Germany in my life, so this was all rather new for me. I had been to Berlin, a large, cosmopolitan city, Munich, Trier, and Gottingen, but that was it. I was thrilled to go to these little towns that looked like what I thought Germany should look like. We ended up in Dirmstein, which looked like this:

Our car

Then we set out for Rothenburg. We had a checkin time we needed to make, and we would be cutting it close.

To be continued...