So the wife and I leave for Munich on Saturday and the BMW museum is on our list of places to see. Yes, it is on her list and not just mine.
Question for GRM is what other automotive goodness should we check out while we are in the Munich area?
So the wife and I leave for Munich on Saturday and the BMW museum is on our list of places to see. Yes, it is on her list and not just mine.
Question for GRM is what other automotive goodness should we check out while we are in the Munich area?
The BMW museum is pretty stinking cool, but I don't remember much else in the way of "automotive" excursions to do in the city. If you have a rental car I strongly suggest driving on the autobahn (the highway) and opening the taps. It's a whole new world driving 120mph safely, within the law, and then getting overtaken :) Their highway manners are something to envy.
(your GPS will tell you when the unlimited areas are)
My wife also found a monastery where they've been making the same beer for about 500 years. I think it was something like 16%? It was seriously good, and worth the trip. (I think it was an hour outside of Munich)
ummm...
Not car related, there is the Neuschwanstein Castle (Cindarella castle)
Dachau is very close, and worth a visit.
oh, and you're going to be a mere 5-hours away from the Nurburgring 
Hope you like beer man, 
Prost!
Bill covered pretty well. The Castle is worth the drive.
See if you can sign up for the factory tour, might be too late though if you are leaving Saturday. Its accross the street from the museum.
Munich is all about Pretzels (best in the world) and Beer. Stuttgart/Neckarsulm is where a lot of cool car stuff lives. I get to go in a month or so. : )
Thanks guys!
Rental car = check
Driving on autobahn = check - Absolutely the one thing I had to do while in Germany
Like beer = check - second most important thing of the trip;-) will have to search for that monastery
Nurburgring will have to get saved for another trip because we are sneaking over to Vienna for a couple days.
One of the best travel days I have had was the BMW Museum in the morning and Oktoberfest in the afternoon an evening!
Funny Pinchvalve brought up pretzels and you're headed to Vienna. There's a neat little history there:
I called Mrs. Hungary and the place was called "Andechs". I remember the beer being smooth and STRONG! One and done 
http://andechs.de/
I almost got stationed in Stuttgart 
Hungary Bill wrote: Funny Pinchvalve brought up pretzels and you're headed to Vienna. There's a neat little history there: Turks VS Pretzels I called Mrs. Hungary and the place was called "Andechs". I remember the beer being smooth and STRONG! One and done
Interesting pretzel story ;-)
Tell the Mrs. Thanks! I will be looking into that more before we leave.
Be careful with the beer and driving. The drunk driving limits are much lower than in the US. If you have a drink, don't drive. In town, it's not a problem because public transportation is really good.
Post up you experiences. Munich is on my bucket list, I'm hoping to make it there next fall.
maj75 wrote: Be careful with the beer and driving. The drunk driving limits are much lower than in the US. If you have a drink, don't drive. In town, it's not a problem because public transportation is really good. Post up you experiences. Munich is on my bucket list, I'm hoping to make it there next fall.
Good advice!
Will report back ;-)
Deutsches Museum.
Seriously, it's better than the BMW Museum. I'm not kidding, and I'm a BMW guy who goes to Munich to get more BMWs.
If you can only do one, do the Deutsches.
Also, if you're a BMW guy, the Munich 3-series plant tour (in English) is better than the BMW Museum.
My wife and I were there last year. The museum is decent, Dachau is worth seeing, but dark. I would recommend the Hofbrauhaus (beer hall). By dad was attacked by a grizzled old Nazi there back in the 70's (a young German couple rushed to his aid and he didn't have to pay for another beer the rest of the night). Probably not going to happen in this day and age, but it is a place with a lot of history.
Depending on your time frame and route to Vienna, Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Berchtesgaden are beautiful. We did a number of wonderful hikes. Hallstadt, Linz, and Salzburg were also wonderful. What sort of time frame are you on and what do you hope to see?
Had a great time in Germany! As you can see we were only there for a week and we tried to cram as much as we could in to our trip.
Ford had a very cool display set up at the airport when we arrived in Germany. Couple Mustangs, Fiesta ST and a new Focus RS, which I drooled over. Wife just laughed and made fun of my appreciation of hatchbacks. Just an FYI, the Germans seem to have a great fondness for wagons and hatchs as well ;-)
Made the mistake of not snapping a few pics right then (flight coma) because when we were leaving the cars were gone and the display was being torn down.
Tip #1 - if you plan on driving while in Germany and don't speak German make sure you have a GPS that speaks/works in english. Ours only worked in german which made things... interesting.
Our rental was through Avis and we had reserved a compact car (website showed VW Gulf) but since we had also requested a GPS we ended up with a Ford Kuga - Escape/6-Speed manual/Deisel. Which by American standards isn't that big but it was a pretty big car over there. Yes, it will go over 100 mph for those that are curious.
Now to the BMW museum, it was pretty cool and all things BMW! I am not a BMW guy persay but of all the German brands this is the one I find myself drawn to. I will at some point own a BMW 5 series wagon and this little trip might speed that up ;-)
Thought they did a great job showing the progression of BMW auto and motorcycles through time. If I can figure out how to post some pics I will put up a few of my favorites. Some of the early BMW motorcycles are just fantastic!
The Deutsches museum was awesome! I spent way too much time looking at the enigines with cut-a-ways. Tons of very cool stuff in there! Jamey_in_Legal is right if you only have time for one this would be the one.
Bluefalcon - We did end up at the Hofbrauhaus on Sunday night for dinner and beers. We caught a fight there as well, I will use that term loosely as it was a shoving match between some meathead (unfortunately American) and a little guy that looked at him funny.
Tip #2 - If you plan on driving anywhere outside of Germany get a International drivers License. Apparently it was required to drive in Austria - didn't do my homework ahead of time.
We ended up taking the train over to Austria and not driving. Actually glad I did because the traffic in Wein/Vienna was much worse than Muchen/Munich.
Alright off to figure out the picture deal.
see if this works
Here is my favorite car on display.
Favorite bike
Very cool
Glad to hear you had a good time!
Glad you liked the Deutsches museum. I've never seen anything like it before or since.
I spent about a year in Bavaria working with BMW on their X-5. Their museum is great I agree. While you're there, cross the street and cry at the Olympic Stadium where the safety of the civilized world as we all understood it after WW II came to an end!
But the city of Munchen itself was hugely interesting to me. Go to the Bauptbahnhof Platz and The Marian Platz too. Both are great, especially if you like huge old clocks! And i f you can pull it off, a tour of Plant 1 is really interesting because that was arguably where BMW first started. If you're there during the warm months you also need to go to the Englisher Park where sunbathing is done with suits optional.
And of course if you rented a car, you need to pop over to Austria on the Autobahn. Innsbruck and Kitzbuhel are both fairly close & worth the trip. Though if your rental car doesn't already have one, you'll have to stop and buy an Austrian autobahn pass.
Do you really want to see the true Christmas city of the world? If so, try Regensberg! Much if not most of what the English, North Americans, & pretty much other people in the western world consider Christmas traditions started there. Christmas trees, yule logs, etc. all came to England when Victoria married Albert. Even if you're not a Christmas freak, Regensberg is still worth the drive for the beauty of the city!
Neuschwanstein like several of Ludwig's other castles are nice. Though Disneyland and Disney World do replicas of Neuschwanstein which will possibly make the original seem everyday. But no place I've seen shows the real old world better than Regensburg! I prefer it to any town I've seen in Switzerland.
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