A story from Matti Lahtinen.
Greetings fellow Bimmer enthusiasts!
Returned last week from doing ED on 3/17.
Flew from Detroit to Frankfurt and to Munich arriving around 10:30 am then took a taxi to the ED Center. The taxi cost about 45 Euro plus tip and the ride took about 20 minutes. Had no problem entering the compound. Upon entering the building was promptly greeted by a smiling and very helpful Bernard, who informed me that the only thing he needed was my passport. He advised me to go upstairs to the "bistro" and relax while they prepare the paperwork.
About thirty minutes later a different gentleman came out and told us that he was ready for us and went over the papers to be signed and asked where we would be traveling and told us what kind of gasoline to purchase and that we would require the vignette when driving through Austria and Switzerland. I would have preferred that Bernard helped us out as this other gentleman was courteous and nice but no Bernard. He took us to our car and did not really want to spend too much time with us. He did help us program the navigation system to get us back to the hotel and then drove the car out of the garage and we were on our own. It was a sunny and pretty warm day and there was quite a bit of dust blowing around the parking lot so we decided to head out of the compound immediately so our car would remain clean.
The Navigation disc from "Beewang" was a life saver and quite amazing for someone who had never had one it guided us to the Renaissance without any problems. Actual the hotel is a bit hidden and we were wondering where it was as the fraulein kept saying "you have arrived". As we already had an e60 530 everything was pretty familiar to us, so we just played with the Logic 7 sound system and the navigation which were new to us, and then jet-lag started to creep up on us.
The next day we planned to go to Marienplatz and then to Olympia Park. To our delight the weather was wonderful when we were ready to hit town. The navigation is pretty amazing, under information on location you can actually look up places to visit, restaurants (including Macdonalds), historical building, etc. so we chose Marienplatz and of we were. Once we arrived downtown we realized parking would be a problem, after driving in circles through pretty narrow streets we thought we found a parking spot, but since were not too sure if we were allowed to park there and we noticed a Meter Lady approaching I asked are we allowed to park here and she replied to our amazement in English "not really, this is only for police vehicles", so of we were again, until we noticed a "P" for a parking structure not far away so that's were we ended up parking, right next to another e60.
Later in the day we drove to Olympia Park, again with the help of the navigation fraulein. The park was busy with all kinds of action, joggers, bikers, mothers with strollers and cleaning crews everywhere as it was the first nice day in a while ( I think it was about 70 degrees). The cabbie had informed us the day before that less than a week ago the had a few feet of snow on the streets and now it was all gone.
This was the first time we could push the pedal to the metal (within limits of course) and the car is AMAZING, my son and I were pushed into the seats and we just looked at each other and smiled! I thought our current 530iA was pretty fast but the 545i (6 speed) is something else WOW!
At the park we went to the BMW museum and then to the top of the Olympia Tower which pretty much took up the rest of the day. Once again the flight from the day before was getting to us so we headed back to the hotel as the next day we were leaving for Fussen.
Any day, and it's raining! Crap there goes the clean car. Oh well, needed to get to Fussen by about 11:00 am so that we would have enough time to visit the two castles. The drive started out fine and the roads were amazing too the car up to 220 km/hr which in 6th gear was a little bit over the recommended maximum of 4000 rpm during break-in. Once we got off the highway on the smaller roads things got pretty scary as I was not used to narrow country roads and the locals are pretty comfortable on these. To make things worse they have these white sticks on both sides of the road which are pretty close to the end of the asphalt so too much to the right and there goes your side view mirror, too much to the left and there goes the left side mirror. After a little while it got a bit easier but still scary. We ended up in a traffic jam some 20 miles from Fussen and I was thinking good god are all these people going where we are going. After going nowhere for about an hour we zoomed in on the navigation screen and saw a possible alternate route which we passed a about half a mile back. So we decided to say our payers and do a U-turn on the jam-packed two way country road. The navigation fraulein immediately re-calculated the route to our destination and it only took us 10 minutes to get to the hotel. To our relief all the cars on the other packed road must have been heading somewhere else.
We checked into the hotel and headed to Neuschwanstein and were planning to hot both castled but were told that we would not have enough time to do so so we just decided to see Neuschwanstein. Were given a time that the guided tour would start on and had to walk up to the castle, if you plan to go there be prepared it's about a 30 minute walk "uphill". After the guided tour we decided to drive around and see if we could take some nice pictures from below where the commoners live.
To end the day we hit downtown Fussen to find a place to eat. After some walking around (most palces were already closed) we found a little restaurant and ordered our food, Donner something Kebab. My son ordered a soft drink which was delivered in what seemed a schnaps glass and cost about $3.50. I informed him that he would also not be able to get "refills" here and it was time to learn to sip his Coke instead of gulping it down.
The next day we were off to Geneva to pick up relative from the airport. We had to purchase a the so called vignette (10 Euro) to drive on the Austrian highways even though we really only drove on the darn road for a few minutes before crossing into Switzerland. The Swiss border patrol made sure we purchased a Swiss vignette before entering the country (don't recall the exact price but about $30). Basically drove through most of Switzerland East to West. Many tunnels and mountains but was not that impressed with the country side by the highway. I guess to see the beauty of the real Switzerland one need to go off the beaten path. Although we had planned to stay in Geneva for three nights, we split after the first night. Extremely congested, cars, bikes and motorcycles everywhere, I'd say even more so than in Paris. We visited Lake Geneva and drove to CERN where my mom used to work some 35 years ago and headed to the South of France.
I must say the french Roads are wonderful, although not quite made for the same speeds as the roads in Germany. Even though the speed limit in France is 130 km/hr many drive considerably faster. During my driving on the highways in Germany and France I did not see any Police, amazing. The one drawback to the great roads in France is the Toll ways which most highways are. During one week of driving I must have paid about $400 in Toll way charges, crazy.
The following five days were spent in Souther France by a small city called Sete, with multiple day-trips to areas around a 100 miles from our hotel. The first was to an area call Ardeche which is between Lyon and Avignon a little to the west. I was familiar with this area as my parents used to have a summer house there and I still own a piece of land there with a spectacular view to the valley below and the river Ardeche. I found the areas we drove through in France extremely beautiful, amazing vistas and spectacular scenery. We were less impressed with the hospitality of the French and the food, keep in mind we did not eat in 4 or 5 star restaurants. And the prices were outrageous, especially when converted to the US $.
The weather was not that great although it did cooperate half the time. Parking in France was a royal pain in the ass. I am talking about garages in most our 545 did not fit, no way to get into the structure, just way too tight. During one such adventure in Avignon we were forced into the structure by a French bastard not willing to let us back out. After jockeying for 5 minutes back and forth and help from the PDC we got in but could not fit into any of the parking spaces aaarrrgh, and left the structure, which also was not easy. Even an underground parking at a Holiday Inn was a tight fit..
Our last leg of the trip took us to Paris via Millau to see the worlds tallest bridge just recently completed. We up through A75 which was not a toll way and the views were incredible. Once we got to the bridge we were amazed that there was nowhere to stop and enjoy the view, we were forced to drive over it and then pay a toll and that's it. Not giving up I decided to get off the beaten path and try to get closer and under the bridge. Supposedly the tallest pillar from top to bottom is higher than the Eiffel tower.
Once we completed our quest to see the bridge up close, we decided to drive through the Gorges Du Tarn, slightly east of Millau. The views there were incredible This was on Easter day and traffic was light, luckily so as most of the roads were so tight there was barely room for two cars to pass each other. No barriers to prevent you from rolling down the ravine or protect you from the rocks on the other side. When encountering a car I always slowed down and tried to pull over as much as possible to the right, unfortunately the French did not offer us the same courtesy.
The condition of the smallest roads were superb, just extremely tight. After a couple of hours of driving trough this area we decide to find a highway on the navigation system as our tank was starting to run low and the few gas stations on the small roads were all closed, did not want to risk getting stuck in the middle of nowhere in hostile french territory. After dozens of hairpin turns we made it to again, a toll way, which took into Versailles.
Again we were lucky, it being Easter the crowds were pretty light and the weather cooperated for a little bit. After we left the rain came down in buckets. The next da we headed to the center of paris the hotel concierge advised us against going to paris with a car, but what the heck you only live once. We looked up on the navigation the Eiffel tower and a parking structure close by, however, once we reached the structure there was no stinking way to get in with our 545, no way. So we backed out, this time luckily there was no one behind us and started looking for a parking spot on the streets of Paris, we could see the Eiffel tower over the roof tops so we were pretty close finally a parking spot, but again we were not sure if we were allowed to park there. After a few moments we noticed a ticket lady and were able to find out that we needed a parking card which can be purchased a tobacco stores. She was nice enough to give us some time to find one. After walking around for a few miles we finally found one, purchased a parking card for 10 Euro's and had to walk back to the car to pay for the parking and place the ticket on our dashboard. Unfortunately the maximum parking allowed was two hours so had to hurry to the Eiffel tower. Once there it took us about an hour to finally get into the tower, we didn't bother going to the top level as it involved another wait.
The next day we headed to Frankfurt to drop off the car at Harms, we were hoping for nice weather to take the car to the limit as it by now had almost 2500 miles on it, unfortunately it was raining all the way to Frankfurt and the visibility was none. We found a Holiday Inn close to the Airport and close to drop off center and the Harms people were kind enough to give us a ride back to the hotel.
That's about it for our trip the next day we were back in the US. The two weeks went by rather fast.
Trip observations:
The car was incredible, the Germans very friendly and the country beautiful. France was very beautiful, especially the middle part which we saw, the roads amazing but expensive and the people not so friendly. The French drivers also seemed very short tempered.
Can't wait for the next ED in about three years, will plan more time in Germany this time.
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