wise monkeys abroad

speeding through the romantic road

Posted on October 1, 2006 Updated on July 16, 2013

Got the keys to our hire car, an upgrade to a Mercedes, which was equipped with a sat nav (thank goodness)! Except that the directions were in German so before we could get out of Frankfurt we needed to work out how to communicate to “Olga” in English. And once we did, Olga was so very helpful, it made our road trip through Germany child’s play.

A thing about driving in Germany, which we were fully aware of before we decided to do this trip, was that there are no speed limits on the autobahn. Little did we know how nerve-racking it would be to start off with. Cars, vans, motorbikes alike were all zooming down that right-hand lane at speeds we didn’t even know road vehicles could go. Yes, we had always seen on car odometers that the dials do go up to 220 kph (or beyond) but to witness it, not on a race track, is a different ball game altogether.

So we began cautiously but we soon hit speeds of 150 kph, which is much faster than anything Australian roads would allow. In four days, we had become speed demons, that still had no idea how to work our hire car’s headlights or windscreen wipers! We’d worry about it when we needed to.

And all this for the ultimate destination: Hohenschwangau, the home of Neuschwanstein Castle. The moment we glimpsed at it high in the mountains was while we were driving around a bend and there was the dreamy home of King Ludwig II nestled in the side of the mountain, a pure fairy tale image. The extravaganza before the curtains come down for Germany!