Briget and I have always wanted to go to Europe and it looks like we can finally make that happen. We want to see the Porsche Museum, drive the Nurburgring and see Auschwitz but the rest of our 2 week vacation is wide open. We are thinking of renting a car and driving everywhere, is this a bad idea? I am looking for recommendations based on first hand experiences only. Got links? Got some insider information? I need your help!
I debated posting because my information is 30 years old, but my wife and I spent a week in southern Germany and Austria in 1992. We rented a car for the week (I still remember that it was a VW Polo) and loved it. I highly recommend it. Yes, Europe has better public transport than many places here but it is still worth it to be able to go off the beaten track and go when and where you want to.
Just as one example, we drove the Grossglockner High Alpine Road, which was beautiful. We stopped at a several attractions that were not really possible without a car. For exampe the ruins of a castle that were reached by pulling off at a wide spot in the road and hiking up a hill.
Sorry, I have no recent info but I do recommend renting a car.
If you're in Munich get to the Deutsches Museum (engineering and technology) along with the Verkehrszentrum branch which is all things transportation (a separate location. Also Motorworld Munich is very very good, can stay in the hotel there. Finally the BMW museum is there too. Take a quick train out to Neuschwanstein Castle and will balance things with the wife.
When in spring? Usually later is better, I tend to recommend May and ideally later in May.
Some of the recommendations depend on where you're flying into. For example, if you're flying into Germany, make sure that the rental car company will allow you to take the car into Poland if you want to go to Auschwitz. Not all rental car companies do allow you to take cars to all European countries, especially in an easterly direction.
For any travel between larger cities in Western Europe, my preference these days is the train, it's usually faster and - with the current fuel prices over there - cheaper. Plus you don't have to worry about parking the train, as parking in a lot of the larger cities in Europe plain blows.
The Nurburgring is pretty close to the middle of nowhere as Western Germany goes, so you'd have to get a rental car to go there. Plus another rental car to drive on it as most regular rental car insurance doesn't allow for that. Not that people don't do it, but things get ugly expensive quickly if something goes wrong. There are several companies that rent cars at the 'ring.
As to "where else" - I think that depends a lot on your interests. In Germany, the Auto & Technikmuseum in Sinsheim would be somewhere I'd definitely recommend, and it's something like an hour depending on traffic from the Porsche museum.
A lot of it depends on how much you want to travel - in general, the distances are much shorter compared to the US and Canada. The old joke about 100 years being a long time ago in the US and 100 miles being far away in Europe is definitely true.
For flights, you probably get the best choice/value combo if you plan on the international leg being out of NYC if you're flying from the US. I personally strongly prefer non-stop flights these days as there is slightly less scope for chaos. For example, I just visited family in Hamburg and instead of flying into Hamburg, flew into Berlin and took the ICE (high speed train) to Hamburg. Helps with the "passenger in Hamburg, bags in Instambul" type problems.
Other car things I can think off the top of my head would be to visit the Cite de l'Automobile in Mulhouse, France. That's the old Schlumpf collection with some other cars added on and the location where my avatar hails from. You'll be pretty Bugatti'd out after that. Mulhouse isn't that far from Stuttgart (about 3h).
johndej said:If you're in Munich get to the Deutsches Museum (engineering and technology) along with the Verkehrszentrum branch which is all things transportation (a separate location. Also Motorworld Munich is very very good, can stay in the hotel there. Finally the BMW museum is there too. Take a quick train out to Neuschwanstein Castle and will balance things with the wife.
If you're visiting Neuschwanstein it might make sense to tour all three of ol' Ludwig's castles - Neuschwanstein, Herrenchiemsee and Linderhof.
Not to be a jerk, but did you mean 2024?
All of my best memories of traveling Europe are of the smaller town experiences. All of the large cities in Europe are pretty "tourist jaded". Amazing how quick this changes as you got our of the major cities. Amazing memories of Pyrenes stays and while you do have to see Paris just cause, it might as well be New York or Toronto.
England as a whole Blah; Scotland and Ireland rock.
All of Italy is oversold. Big NOPE as a do-over ( I did not visit the countryside, so above rule might apply)
Spain is awesome if you are there for the food and the wine. I speak Spanish so that helped.
All of the Scandinavian countries are cultural eye-openers and fun to experience. Do the Saunas while in Sauna land.
Hungary takes you back to a much older time. Pastries are the ever lasting memories and the older architecture is of note if you are into that. Interesting history if you are into that.
Will always get off the boat in the Netherlands just cause Amsterdam. Even with the stereotyped image, I just like the place.
No significant memories about Germany other than your English will get you around more often than not. And the Autobahn. THAT is a bucket list drive for anyone that likes to drive.
You MUST visit one of the WWII cemeteries in Europe. Impossible to describe the feeling.
I really like Belgium. But that might be the beer speaking or the fact that they absorb 4 cultures within the country.. Nah, its the beer.
Italian alps and also coastal Italy down along the shin such as Sorrento are beautiful.
Likewise the coast of Portugal.
Basque Country in the north of Spain/on the French border is cool. Wife and I hiked 50 miles of the Camino trail in June it was awesome and would be even better in the spring when it's cooler.
A visit to Normandy, France is a pretty incredible experience.
secretariata (Forum Supporter) said:Not to be a jerk, but did you mean 2024?
Yes, sorry, wish I could change the title
Autobahn regular citizens are far superior to entitled Americans who ride the left lane for no reason in the states.
I would recommend any of the Audi, Porsche, Sinshiem museums. We made the trip back to Frankfurt from the Nürbürgring by way if the rhine river valley. Lots of quaint castles and small towns to explore. I would Imagine eary spring is not ideal and it may be a bit dark and wet. We were there in july and the climate was superb and the days were nice and long. Dusk ended at 22:45 or so it seemed.
Oh and I took the regular rental car on the ring for touristfaharten... no issues but it was bone dry in july and I did not wreck it so I might have been lucky.
In reply to slantsix :
Early Spring might be an issue around the Nürburgring, they can get pretty funky weather around there. There's a reason that there wasn't much going on there before they built the racetrack.
I'd expand on NOHOMES WW2 cemetery and suggest the Vimy Memorial
https://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/remembrance/memorials/vimy
I'd recommend sticking to a handful of countries and not try to see the whole of Europe, especially not in two weeks. Says the bloke who thinks that driving a car from California to the East Coast in 5-6 days is a vacation...
Things are a little bit different if you're taking high speed trains, but let's say you want to go to a couple of places in Germany and then drive to Spain - that's most of a two day drive until you're on the other side of the Pyrenees, if you're taking the Autoroute (cha-ching because tolls). That's a pretty big chunk of a two week vacation, because you really don't want to try and return a rental car in a different country.
With the the fixed points already mentioned, I'd try to make a loop, say, do the German stuff first, drive over into Poland to Auschwitz, then through the Silesia mountains over into Czechia (drop by Prague, maybe Pilsen), and maybe from there to Bavaria. There's more than enough to see on that loop to fill two weeks, and it's doable without feeling that's you're running from the law at the same time.
In reply to BoxheadTim :
Yeh, we are limiting our scope for this trip and decided that we need to go back in a few years and see more
In reply to BoxheadTim :
Yes for sure it is in the Eiffel Mountain Region. Lots of tall trees there because of winter and spring rain & snow.
There are some nordschliffe and other various Nürburgring webcam feeds and in the winter it always seemed dark and rainy when I would check in on them.
In reply to randman2011 :
So far we are planning on flying into Paris, take train to Frankfurt, rent car and drive to Cologne, Nurburgring,Stuttgart,Nuremburg,Munich,Salzburg then train to Prague, fly back to Paris then fly home. Of course we will be spending some time in each of those places and seeing the sights, such as The Eagles Nest and doing a lap of the Nurburgring.
How was your trip to Europe? I’ll be heading to Paris this October, and I’m browsing online for must-see destinations and must-do experiences. I found this guide https://gowithguide.com/blog/tourism-in-paris-statistics-2024-your-quick-travel-guide-to-the-city-of-lights-5744 helpful for planning. Did you have a chance to check out any of the spots they mentioned during your trip?
Overall it was a positive experience and I was moved to tears several times by the beautiful and wonderful things I felt and saw. Europe in general seems less concerned about health and fitness but are somehow more healthy and fit than we are in North America. They dress better, look better and in many ways act better than we do. I’m guessing that it’s due to all the walking and cycling they do? Or maybe it’s the freshly made food without hormones or chemical additives? I don’t know but everybody looks healthy over there.
Bike and walking culture is far, far more developed in Europe, especially Germany. But even with their love of bicycles, their car culture is far better, too. Roads, even “B” roads are all absolutely perfect and even the road markings are crisp and perfect. It was a mind boggling experience to be driving 185 km/h on a glass smooth road and have to move over for a BMW doing 250 km/h. Suddenly, the big brakes, gear ratios and stiff suspensions on European cars all make perfect sense. This does not apply to Paris, traffic in Paris is chaos and every car is dented or scratched.
Europeans love efficiency and despise waste. Much effort is put into using ONLY as much power or water or food as necessary. Despite Europes advances in efficiency, they are horrible at air conditioning and WIFI. Every room we were in had sensors that would shut off the lights and the A/C if movement or your presence wasn’t detected, and this included if you were asleep. I’m sorry but just because I fell asleep in a cool room doesn’t mean you can turn the temp up to 24 and I will remain asleep.
Europeans seem to not care as much about money as North Americans. They open late and close early and don’t care that they’re leaving money on the table. Some areas(Bavaria)close almost everything on Sundays because it’s the Lords day, not a work day. It is amazing to walk on streets where the cobblestones were laid down 1500 years ago or drink in a beer hall that was opened before America was discovered.
Clashing with all the beauty of Europe is the graffiti. It’s everywhere and it’s ugly, and there seems to be no effort to stop it. Shouldn’t there be a vandalism charge for painting your loser nickname 8 feet high and 16 feet wide on a wall built in the 1300’s? Also, touring one WW2 concentration camp or museum of Medieval torture to see how horrible humans can be to one another will make you feel blessed for being alive now and not back then.
What I would do on my next trip: 1. pack lighter 2. Bring one really good battery back up, one charge cable and one euro adapter 3.Bring a small fan that can be run by the battery back up 4. Have a light raincoat that is also stylish 5. Comfortable shoes are a must 6. Have a high quality, theft resistant cross body bag that is big enough for your passport, wallet, phone, charger and raincoat.
I did 3 laps of the Nordschleife and here is the video about it I drive the Nurburgring!
We arrived in Paris and immediately got on a train to Frankfurt. Frankfurt is a E36 M3hole, we rented a Volvo and got the hell out of there. The Nurburgring is as amazing as you can imagine, I can't wait to go back. It's a thing that shouldn't exist but does until lawyers and insurance companies ruin it. Stuttgart is nice, visit the Porsche Museum if you can but if you can only visit one part of Germany, make it the Bavarian region and specifically Munich. Can't say enough good things about Munich, it's wonderful,interesting, beautiful and safe. It's not as beautiful as Prague, though. Prague is out of a fantasy novel and you must, must, must visit the Museum of Technology. I would be perfectly happy doing the 'Ring then spending 4 days in Munich and 4 days in Prague.
I wouldn’t have thought to make this post except that I learned that some of our staff, educated in good schools, had never heard of concentration camps or even the Holocaust. I wonder if there’s a link to the rise in anti-semitism? Anyways, we spent a day at Dachau Concentration Camp. We walked where prisoners were separated from their families and the sick or crippled were pulled aside and sent for immediate termination. We stood in the “shower” rooms where prisoners were locked in and gassed with Xyclon-B and after 15-20 minutes when the screaming stopped, were dragged into another room and stacked up like cordwood until they could be placed in the ovens. We also stood in front of those ovens, where prisoners sentenced to hang were strung up then their bodies were burned. This was a sobering experience, and we felt the weight of it on our chests. I recommend you visit Dachau or Auschwitz because we need to remember them and what happens when a group of people is dehumanized in the opinion of the public. It will make you feel a whole lot better about your own life.
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