Road Tripping in Germany

Thursday, May 12 - Sunday, May 15 2011

When we asked Gavin where he wanted to travel while he was visiting us in Geneva, Germany was on the top of the list.  Good choice.  We have been impressed with Germany on our Munich and Berlin trips this past year and were looking forward to seeing more.  We didn’t have much of an agenda other than “Germany,” so we decided that a road trip would be a perfect way to expose Gavin to all different aspects of this great country.  We planned for some scenery, castles, WWII history, and something you can only experience in Germany: the Autobahn! 

We left Thursday morning for a four-day trip and within just minutes outside of Geneva, were exploring the European countryside.  We didn’t have an agenda other than needing to be at our pre-determined hotels each night, which were spaced throughout different regions of Germany.  The first leg of our journey was through Switzerland on our way toward (and past) Zurich.  This was our first road trip through Switzerland so we stumbled across towns and sites we’d never seen. 

On the way, Dave googled “Cutest cities in Switzerland” and a little town called Appenzell, Switzerland popped up.  How convenient…Appenzell was right on our route!  So why is Appenzell considered so “cute”?  Just think of the stereotypical Swiss town on rolling green hills – Appenzell is that to a T.  

If you were thinking of cows in your imaginary Swiss village, you’re right on as well.  In the middle of town we stumbled across a house with a small backyard with two friendly cows hanging out.  Of course Ang fell in love with them and petting immediately ensued. 

As we exited the town toward the German boarder, the views got even better.  It’s hard to describe the Swiss scenery and the pictures don’t do it that much justice.  We’ll put it this way…Gavin said it was one of the most beautiful landscapes he’s ever seen.  We have to agree. 

From Appenzell we eventually crossed into Germany (and Gavin officially entered his 3^rd European country).  We quickly learned that the autobahn isn’t just the main highway routes, it’s pretty much any two lane road that’s not directly near civilization.  On a side note, if you’re going to be driving on the autobahn you need a high performance vehicle, right?  A BMW 3 Series filled that void nicely (and we didn’t have to splurge to get it!).  Somehow it was the same price as the non-luxury cars.  Thanks Sixt rentals. 

So the likely question on your minds is, “how fast did you go”, right?  The way the autobahn works is that the suggested speed limit is 130 Kilometers per hour, which is about 80 mph.  Sometimes, like a normal highway, that speed limit (or slower) is actually enforced.  However, when you see a sign that shows the speed limit in a black circle with a gray line through it, the restrictions are gone!  Unfortunately there weren’t a lot of good/safe opportunities to “go for it” (it was pretty rainy or crowded streets most of the time).  Dave managed 186 kph (about 115 mph).  Weak sauce because a couple days later Gavin was following the lead of an ambitious Audi and hit 206 kph (about 128 mph).  That felt pretty fast.  Ang decided to let the two of us boys partake in the record breaking contest, rather than doing so herself as well… (plus she was asleep half the time anyway) and of course gave us the reminder, “safety first.”  Next time we roadtrip into Germany Dave will get her behind the wheel on the autobahn.

We reached our first night’s destination (Thursday evening), Füssen.  Actually, it was about 15 minutes outside of Füssen, located on Lake Weißensee.  There are a few things in this world better than an amazing lake view.  This one did not disappoint: blue alpine water, lush trees, alpine peaks, and a little European architecture mixed in.  The best part is that we had this view from our room as well!  

So, what brought us to Füssen?  The Neuschwanstein Castle of course!  If that name doesn’t ring a bell, the Disneyland castle surely will.  Yes, the Neuschwanstein Castle was the inspiration to the Sleeping Beauty Castle, the center point in the Disneyland theme park (it was also one of the inspirations for the Cinderella Castle in the DisneyWorld theme park).  That isn’t the only interesting thing about this castle though.  King Ludwig II ordered construction on the castle in the 19^th century - the only problem is that Ludwig was a little nutty.  He pretty much spent the entire royal treasury on this castle (and had plans for a few more), but was removed from office in 1883 when people finally realized what was going on.  Just a few weeks later Ludwig was found dead in a lake and the circumstances around his death remain a mystery to this day.  Once he died, construction on the castle immediately stopped.  In the end, Ludwig only lived in the castle for a total of 172 days and much of the castle still remains unfinished today.

We were able to take a tour of the inside of Neuschwanstein and also of a neighboring where King Ludwig grew up and lived while waiting for his dream castle to be completed— Hohenschwangau Castle.  Both castles are in sight of each other.  In Hohenschwangau, we saw the telescope that Ludwig used to spy on the workers building Neuschwanstein to make sure they were actually working.  :)  Another interesting artifact was the bedroom that composer Wilhelm Richard Wagner stayed in during visits, and the piano he would entertain Ludwig and other guests on.  

After snapping some shots of the castle and the stunning surrounding valley (unfortunately, we weren’t allowed to take photos inside the castle), we headed north toward Munich.  It was time for some WWII history.  We made it just in time to tour the Dachau Concentration Camp before it closed.  Dachau was where the concentration camp model was born, and all other camps created by the Germans thereafter mirrored themselves after Dachau.  While no mass gas chamber executions were conducted at Dachau, tens of thousands of prisoners were worked to death or died in the horrific conditions and disease (living quarters built to house 200 people were each stuffed with 2,000 people toward the end of the war) over the 10+ years the camp was in operation.  

Living Quarters

"Work will set you free"

You can read about the horrors of the concentration camps, but until you set foot in one it doesn’t fully make sense.  One of the things that hit home the most was the security barrier surrounding the camp.  On the edge of the camp was the “kill zone”, which if you set foot into, the guards would shoot you without question.  If you happened to make it past that, there was a 6 foot wide moat that you’d have to clear, then a 6 foot inward-bending barb-wired fence, followed by another moat on the other side of the fence.  You could see how it would be nearly physically impossible to escape.  We learned that some prisoners ventured into the kill zone on purpose to end their suffering.  It’s hard to find fault in that.

Also, one more crazy fact - the Dachau concentration camp was only 20 km outside of the city center on Munich!  That’s not much further than the drive from Seattle to Bellevue.  It felt very much like a suburb of Munich.  It’s hard to image that the citizens in Munich could be so close to such horrors and be unaffected.  We learned that after the war was over, the citizens of Munich were forced to visit Dachau and witness the sufferings first hand that had been ignored for so many years.

After a short, but sobering visit we made it to our hotel just outside of Nuremburg, in a small suburb town called Schwabach.  This would be a good time to talk about the food.  So good!  Every night on our roadtrip we made a point to find a German restaurant and ask the waitress what the traditional German dishes were.  We got a different plate each night, mostly ordering “blind” because the specials were non-touristy and therefore not in English on the menus.  That’s the best way to order in our opinion, just eat what the locals love (unless it’s liver… more on that in a later blog…).  :)

If you’ve heard of Nuremburg then you probably know it was the famous rallying grounds and planned-headquarters of the Nazi party (we did not know this until our friend Jaime told us a week prior to the trip).  On Tripadvisor we found a review and directions to the Zeppelinfeld (Zeppelin Field) but honestly knew little about what we were going to see.  Even when we arrived via Garmin directions, we had to convince ourselves we were in the right place.  It eventually dawned on us that the Zeppelinfeld was just a small piece of this significant historic site, a huge complex of facilities that were to eventually be the headquarters of the Nazi party if all went as planned.

Let’s start with Zeppelinfeld though.  Today, it looks like any old, run-down cement bleachers structure (it looks like what you might find at a high school football field).  The view from the seating is an ordinary park and a large cement roadway that is perfect for drag racing (or rollerblade hockey, which was what a group of kids were using it for that morning).  However, when you look at the historic pictures (below), this cement seating used to be covered in extravagant marble and additional seating surrounded the field, which could accommodate over 200,000 people.  The platform that Hitler made his speeches from even stood to this day.  What was personally interesting to us is that this main structure was designed to imitate the Pergamon Altar (from 2^nd century BC) that we visited in Berlin just a couple months back.  It’s so interesting to see things link together like that. 

Hitler's Platform

Marble "Grandstand"

Marble "Grandstand"

Pergamon Altar

We learned about the rest of these historic grounds inside of the Documentation Center, which was a museum built into the Nazi Congress Hall (that was never completed).  If you are interested in Nazi history, this is easily the best museum we’ve been to yet— they did a great job with the layout and display of information and photos and even had numerous pieces of actual video footage, which were extremely interesting.  What was also interesting is that the museum focused more on how the Nazi party started and their plans for the future, rather than the chronological history around the war itself.  If you take a look at the photo below, it outlines the layout of a huge town center composed of monuments, governmental buildings, and stadiums.  The items in yellow were never completed (for example the roof on the Congress Hall), but several were.  The stadium you can kind of see on the right of the picture was to be 430 feet tall (!)…to give a little context, the observation deck on the space needle is 520 feet tall.  Crazy.  Construction stopped once things became out of control for the Nazi’s during the war.

Congress Hall

Congress Hall

What could have been...

But enough about the Nazis – after all Germany is more than just WWII history.  From Nuremberg we set out for our final night’s destination: The Rhine Valley.  The Rhine River is one of the longest rivers in Europe.  It blends nicely with the green trees, castles and medieval-looking towns that grace the valley.  We knew nothing about the town we were staying in that night, Boppard, other than it was on the river.  We were not disappointed.  It was definitely the laziest part of our trip because there weren’t a whole lot of things to do… so we did what we knew best from the last few days of experience: beer, German food, and ice cream.  That tends to solve most problems. :)

The next day was the last of our trip and we had some driving to do.  We were about 400 miles away from Geneva, but instead of immediately taking the main roads back, we decided to stay on the valley roads as long as possible.  We were rewarded with random castle sightings perched above quaint villages.  We even drove by a medieval festival going on in one of the towns (we think it was Bacharach).  Too bad we didn’t have much time to spare or the desire to spend another 10 Euros each to have a quick peek around.  The costumes were pretty awesome from what we saw outside the “grounds”.  

We made it back into Geneva Sunday night just in time to return the rental car and enjoyed a relaxing evening before work the next day.  Gavin left on Tuesday morning and from what he’s told us since, had a wonderful time.  What a blessing not only to experience these new places, but to do it with family.  It makes it even more special.