Stops between Bonn and Hamburg?

[reachme]

I have a day to kill on 4/29 in Germany and since it is spring rather than fly I want to drive to Hamburg. It's a 4-5 hour drive on Google Maps so having a stop or two, especially Porsche related or even a nice town to drive through would be nice.

I usually plan these out myself because I really like exploring different countries but I've seen great responses to other threads with great ideas I would not have thought of so I'll give it a try and hope for suggestions.

[Rick Lee]

Definitely check out Classic Remise in Duesseldorf, formerly called Meilenwerk. There can be no greater toy store for car enthusiasts anywhere on Earth. Plenty of stuff to do in Cologne, which is right next to Bonn. Muenster is also a very cool town and sort of on the way. A cool, sleepy small town near Muenster is Warendorf. The back roads in that area are awesome. Really cool Westphalian farm houses and old bldgs.

[reachme]

Thanks Rick! Classic Remise looks like a great stop. Cologne also.
Hitting the back roads is very much in my plans.
thanks again

[Holger]

Are you going Bonn-Münster-Osnabrück-Bremen-Hamburg (A1)? Then it is 4 hours without traffic.
If you are not taking the Autobahn-route it will take much longer than 5 hours.
Or are you going A2 via Hannover?

And: driving into Hamburg in the morning and the evening is a PITA!

[reachme]

Thank you all-just had a change of plans.
Leaving Bonn and going to Rome and YES I now more excited to drive the 14 hours. Now I get to see more of Germany, Switzerland AND North Italy in a 14 hour shot. Probably will not get the Porsche, I understand they do not like rental cars to cross borders (may be old information) but certainly not one of their prized Porsches to go into Rome! Be too expensive anyway.
I made the mistake of telling one of the Italians last time I was thinking of renting a Ferrari one night to drive through outskirts of Rome and they got very worried and told me nobody drives a Ferrari near Rome. guess I'll be in a tiny Citroen or the like.
So plan now is to drive 2pm (lunch after meeting) from Bonn to Modena-spend night and in morning hit the Ferrari Modena museum and then on to Rome to arrive in early afternoon. Not sure how a Porsche in the Ferrari lot would go over anyway. probably get keyed like a Romney sticker on an SUV in Cambridge. anyway this'll be like a poor mans tour.
And if this sounds like I am boasting here, I am not. Anyone who travels regularly for work knows it is a serious grind-and you have to go out of your way to work any fun in. I want to be home with my family. What I am trying to do is insert my own fun experience in between meetings into what would be a grind. The true big shots are home with their families and they send me.
Is this plan ridiculous?
At end of April am I going to run into Swiss mountain passes packed with snow where I would be a fool to be in a small car?

thanks all

[Rick Lee]

That's gonna be a hellish drive. You might as well stay in Stuttgart and see the Porsche factory, because you're gonna sit in traffic around there for hours anyway.

[reachme]

Rats. I did this same sort of thing to hit the Porsche factory last year at this time and remember the Stuttgart higheway traffic. everything just stopped. I remember trying to avoid the highway traffic back to the airport by driving through the city center (plus more sightseeing). I guess I was not the only one to have this idea because city center route was about 3x longer.

I thought I would avoid this by going straight south through Karlsruhe. am I screwed either way? Don't want to be driving through Swiss mountains at midnight. . . . or do I (evil grin). I better reread the Vic Elford book.

[Rick Lee]

I would definitely stay the night somewhere along the route. I can't remember the last time I was in Karlsruhe, but it was probably when I was hitchiking, so long ago. If you go through Stuttgart, you want to be past there as early as you can. From there I'd probably go the Garmisch via Bolzano route. You want to do that by day, as it's very scenic.

[Jay Auskin]

Originally Posted by reachme

...
Is this plan ridiculous?
...

I just don't know how it is possible, or why you'd want to do it? Last year, I spent two weeks in Germany. Every day or two we had to go somewhere different, usually by car. After the 3rd day, we would all say, "Oh look...more of Germany". It just wasn't that interesting.

In between those two weeks was my own time. Took a direct flight on a discount airline to Barcelona for the weekend. I was thrilled not to be in Germany for a while.

It just sounds like a lot of driving to see nothing?

[reachme]

It just sounds like a lot of driving to see nothing?

I can't understand how you could be driving through Germany for 2 weeks and see nothing. When I look at nothing I usually see something very interesting. I do a ton of work on planes and in hotel rooms so sometimes I have to get the hell out of the hotel.

Spent one cool early morning in Arklow Ireland just sitting on a hill watching the town wake up and go to work/school.
Took a train from Reading England, conf call in Paddington Sta. then got to Greenwich at 10pm or so (GMT ha) in time to look at the Cutty Sark in the dark and eat bad Chinese., then back to Reading hotel. I heard Cutty Sark burned down a few years later.

Drove from San Fran to Monterrey and back just to see it, drive down a highway I later learned was San Andreas fault line and while driving saw an eagle? grab a snake and fly off with it. Drove past Pebble beach golf course and along the ocean there. Nothing in particular but beautiful.

Arrived in Tokyo 2 days before my handlers expected me for nothing in particular, just to wander and be immersed in cultural differences and get money, food, Pachinko and Shiatsu (Maslows needs right) and how to translate my english hotel stop to kanji characters to navigate the labyrinth Tokyo metro and finally get sleep.

Stopped in Chular California where there is nothing, no earthly reason anyone would drive to Chular but I saw what agricultural worker poverty was in the United States like I will never forget, and stopped in Chinese Camp California where there was an untouched ghost town-barely a blip on a map- that I could explore without barriers holding me back.

Drifted through Valetta Malta in the blazing sun to find WW2 bomb damage evidence (most bombed place on earth during WWII). go figure

Walked through Parc Citroen in Paris just to soak my feet in the fountain

Some of these were just stops along the highway where I had to pee and found something really interesting (to me) or wandering out from hotel to a minor sight like it was something to see and lo and behold there was. there are 30 more "nothing" experiences I'm so glad I did.

Other stops I plan like Porsche Museum-just freaking wow. Red light/Anne Frank in Amsterdam Detour from meetings to find my 930. Spanish steps in Rome in the rain. Sagrada Familia in Barcelona while under construction.

I don't really watch TV, and I'm not into hookers or drinking in the hotel bar so what else would you do when you travel to break the boredom?. I just can't see 2 weeks in Germany and not seeing anything. My work allows me to gather experiences and though I haven't met the Pope or salsa'd with Jennifer Lopez it beats watching Bourne Identity (or Porn IdenTITy) in the hotel room.

maybe I'm some kind of drifter. . .with a mortgage and a family but I'll take a 14 hour drive through a new part of Europe (under the illusion of work travel) over an airplane flight in a heartbeat.

[creaturecat]

Durbach and area - it is a bit of a German paradise.
The Linde is a great little hotel.

[reachme]

just to finish this thread off, and hopefully help someone else out, I learned something
Nobody rents cars for one way cross border trips in Europe. So much for the "Common European Market" where borders don't matter.

I contacted a specialty high end sportscar rental company who never called me back so I tried a couple regular car rental places and they would not book it. Wonder if I could book a round trip and just return it in another country? I've noticed German rental cars have some kind of official documents in the glove compartment, must be country specific laws like that. I probably would not even be allowed across the border.

When I mentioned this idea to Europeans when I was there they thought about it and agreed saying they would never do a 14 hour one way cross country drive like that, they would take a train. And because they would not drive it, the car would probably never make it back to the home country.

So I flew and spent the extra time in the hotel room catching up on Car Porn. I love me some European Car Mags. Notice a theme? You'd never get that much Porsche ink on one shelf in the US and this was just a small place in the airport.




Oh and I did get to eat a Mercedes Benz sandwich. Talk about crazy brand extensions. . .

[Rick Lee]

You can certainly rent in Germany and drive it in other EU countries. Done it many, many times. I rented a car in CA once, said I'd return it in Vegas and the folks in Vegas wouldn't take it back, said it had CA plates and could only be returned in CA.

[Norm K]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

You can certainly rent in Germany and drive it in other EU countries.

Yup. Rented a car in Hamburg and drove into The Netherlands, Denmark Sweden and Norway. Returned it in Copenhagen. Fun stuff!

[LakeCleElum]

I've rented cars for at least 5 Europe trips. Always had to return to where I started. Rental rates really vary by the country....These rates will often determine where I fly into. Once it was Geneva as it was much cheaper than flying into France or Germany at that time.

I hate driving into the big cities of Europe. Best to find a Hotel on the outskirts near the airport and take a train into town; especially Rome.

I find Bonn-Modena-Rome travel times of 17 hrs, non-stop......Can't see touring a factory in Modena in the morning and making Rome early Afternoon??????

Glad you had a fun trip.