The story and photos of our June - July, 2008 vacation in Europe follow. We began in Munich, Germany, travelling to Switzerland, Italy, Austria & back to Munich meeting quite a few nice people along the way.
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Days 1 & 2: Munich to Scwhangau. Vists to Neuschwanstein & Hohenschwangau castles, pictures of both as well as the small and touristy village.
This was a busy stretch. The plane was on time in Munich but it took about an hour to get the luggage. After that we had to Sbahn to Marienplatz & Ubahn to Obersendling. - Problem: Ubahn signs don't list Obersendling. None of them. Not one. We made an educated guess based on the GPS map and it was right. Same line as Sendliger Tor. We got to allroundrent, and spent an hour plus on paperwork, getting dressed, fitting my Givi top case to the bike and by the time we were ready to ride, we found the power outlet had no juice at all. Repeated tests showed it was dead. I planned for this. I broke out the battery connect, hooked up the powered RKA bag to the battery and reassembled. About 20 minutes delay. By now it's lunch, and we're hungry but it's time to bail from the city. W/ Jill (the Zumo voice is named Jill) powered we punched in our destination and headed for Schwangau, hunger notwithstanding. We eventually found ourselves on an "A" route. Maybe you've heard it referred to as the Autobahn? It didn't dawn on me that there was no spped limit until I saw the 'conditional' signs and a few drivers passed at high speed.
We joined them. Outfitted with a BMWR1200RT, TOWMBO & 3 full cases fitted the bike did ok. At 126mph, that was all there was and there wasn't any more. Over 105, the bike began a mildly disconcerting weave. Not uncontrollable and certainly manageable. It settled back into smooth running about 110-115.
After an all too brief time at high speed we found ourselves on some very unpopulated secondary roads. A little over an hour later we were nearing Schwangau when we could see the castles off in the distance. We pulled over for a few pictures at the Church above.
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After arriving we ate at a local hotel/Biergarten. We stayed at Hotel Muller- highly recommended, moto friendly, great service.
The staff was very friendly, very helpful, accomodating and really went above and beyond, including covered moto-parking.
They arraged both castle tours, and we got some really good pictures.
Quiz: Here is a full size picture of Neuschwanstein taken from the pedestrian bridge. What is "out of place" on the castle (not the scaffolding).
Hint: You have to view the picture in full size to notice.
After the tours of both castles we walked around town, snapping a few pictures of the locale. The whole area is very picturesque. We stayed another night at Muller and headed out late the next morning for Lake Constance (Konstanz).
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