Europe Day 2: Germany and Austria

Our second day was an interesting one.  We got up early and took a long subway ride with all of our luggage to pick up our rental car.  We grabbed drinks and croissants at a gas station, figured out how to change the car's GPS to English (well, James did) and hit the Autobahn south toward Austria. 

We drove for several hours on the "Alpine Road" just looking at all of the gorgeous scenery.  I really didn't expect every town to look like a postcard, but they were all picture-perfect.  We stopped and did some shopping at Oberammergau and I finally got a "smoking man" that I've wanted forever.  Dad got one of the famous wood carvings and James got a Tyrolean hat to wear for our future Oktoberfest parties.  I can see why it is such a popular stop for tourists--the setting, the buildings, the entire town was beautiful!



Next, we drove by Neuschwanstein on our way to the Bregenzerwald Cheese Road.  We started at the information center/cheese warehouse where we sampled a few cheeses and watched a short film about cheese making in the area.  Local farmers produce cheeses and then send them to the cheese cellar where they are aged.  





Next, we drove by the Bodensee and then through a bit of the Black Forest before heading to Freiburg for the night.  This was the only night of the trip that we hadn't made hotel reservations for (we had originally intended to go to Switzerland, but decided not to shortly before leaving the U.S) and we know now that we won't do that next time!  The evening was mostly a mess from then on...

1.  We attempted to find Wifi so we could look for hotels, but after about an hour search and a worthless (without a German phone number) trip to McDonald's, we gave up--but at least I got to try the Curry Chicken sandwich I'd been wondering about...and it was delicious!!

2.  We then drove around until we found a hotel with two rooms--170 Euros each!

3.  ...And one was a smoking room.

4.  It took nearly an hour to find a parking place, and we ended up being almost a mile away from the hotel and had to drag our luggage down dark, cobblestone streets to get back.

5.  We still hadn't eaten supper (at 10:30 pm) so we walked to the nearest (not very!!) restaurants, just to find out they all closed at 11 pm...



At this point, James ate the $8 minibar chips and beer and we hoped for a better day the next day! :)