Castles and Cars
Driving to Neuschwanstein
Today is the day to beat. I reserved myself a BMW M135i from BMW Driving Experience at BMW Welt. For those of you not familiar it’s a tiny sporty hatchback with a turbocharged 6 cylinder engine. It was a day long rental beginning at 9am and ending at 5pm for which they graciously only charge you 3 hours... At the HERTZ daily rate an hour... But I’m here and who am I to deny myself the pleasure of a high end, overly expensive toy. I got to the Welt promptly at 9 and proceeded to the rental desk with a giant smile on my face. Five minutes later the paperwork was complete, a bank breaking deposit was placed on my credit card and I followed the “colleague” downstairs to receive my vehicle. There it was, a shiny black M135i sitting next to it’s sister, and big cousins, M3 and M5. After conducting a vehicle inspection where a microscopic wheel chip was noted in the paperwork as prior damage, causing me much distress due to my inability to stay away from curbs, I was ready to get in.
At this point the inspector uttered the most unwelcome words: “Do you know how to drive this automatic?” “What? No! Manual, it was supposed to be manual!,” was my frantic reply. Flustered he looked over the paperwork and not knowing what to do sent me back upstairs. I rushed upstairs hoping to clear things up, but alas it was not to be. They had no manual M135i’s and whoever sent me the email stating so, needs to be send to lug nut polishing duty for assuming paddle shifters imply a manual transmission. As it turns out this was a godsend since having a free hand allowed me to focus much more on my surroundings and take awesome (I think) pictures.
BMW presets their navigations with 3 routes, and the one recommended lead to Salzburg, but I’ve done my research and concluded Castle Neuschwanstein was awaiting my arrival so I set my course there. It was a slow start getting out of the city. Driving in a foreign city is always tricky but luckily the Autobahn was only a few curb dreading turns away, and in no time at all I was blasting towards the castle my hand tightly wrapped around the steering wheel. I dont know whether I was too busy gawking or if I was going really really fast, but pretty soon I was made to leave the autobahn and turned onto a normal country road. Now when I say “Country Road,” this term only loosely resembles the desolate, backwards, “don’t stop till you reach a highway” roads of rural America. These are beautiful, quaint areas, with cute villages, gorgeous scenery, and great pavement.
Since it has been snowing the past couple of days, the landscape was jaw-dropping. Snow covered valleys with cloud of snow mist were the foreground to towering mountains themselves capped with snow and enveloped in fog. In between, villages and farms were sprinkled to great visual effect. I had to stop several times to take it all in and attempt to capture the magnificence on camera.
Eventually I reached the Castle. I booked a spot on the group tour and proceeded to conquer the 30 minute walk in 15. Sweating in the 30 degree weather but proud of myself for beating the hoard of asian tourists, I reached the top a full 30 minutes before my tour time. With nothing else to do I spent the time harassing people to take pictures of me. This lead to a realization that people are either terrible photographers, or they just buckle under the immense pressure of taking a strangers picture. At least my record climbing time allowed me plenty of opportunities for re-do’s.
At last my tour time was approaching. The tour was led by a frail German fellow, who’s annoyance with us blubbering tourists was creeping through his otherwise stoic exterior. I don’t blame him, one must have the patience of the mountain itself to deal with tourists daily. He did make an excellent guide with good information and just the right amount of dramatic pauses describing pieces of furniture and placements of doors to keep everyone's attention. The tour was short, but the castle was magnificent. The intricate details in the paintings and the woodwork were glorious. As much as being King is an enviable position, i must say though, it probably gets to be very lonely up there. After the tour I was left with 3.5 hours to return the car. I decided a scenic route back and a lunch were in order. I slipped and slid down the mountain towards “Das Biest.” I punched in Munich into the navigation and chose the “Eco-Route”, which is the shortest possible land route designed to be driven in Eco-Mode to achieve the greatest fuel economy. My plan was to actually see how much fuel I can waste on these windy desolate roads. What I did not anticipate was that the more remote the road, the more ice will it retain throughout the day. So what was supposed to be a fun sprint towards Munich turned into a white knuckled, neck stiffening crawl down what must be the most awesome summer roads, followed by a desperate dart down the autobahn to get the car refueled and returned on time. I made it with 10 minutes to spare. As far as lunch goes, it was a big bust. None of the 3 restaurants I attempted were open, so I ended up at a cafe eating a pretzel and an apple strudel. Which bring me to a very important topic. German pretzels are TERRIBLE!! This has been the biggest let down. Instead of the expected warm, doughy goodness all I’ve managed to eat was old stale hunks of salted disappointment. My expectations were completely crushed tonight as I dined in the famed Hofbräuhaus beergarden and my highly anticipated pretzel was nothing more than a bloated cousin to something I disdainfully wave away on an airplane. Fortunately the food was good, the beer was large, and I managed conversation with the people around me. Overall today was a huge success and hopefully that will continue on. Gute Nacht. (J/K i don’t know anything)
