The Altmuehltal (Old Mill River valley) is reputed to be one of the last unspoiled river valleys in Germany. Beginning a few dozen kilometres south of Nuernberg, it winds its way through central Bayern (Bavaria; actually Niederfranken - lower Franconia) ending near the Danube valley and Weltenburg monastery, at the Danube gorge (Donau Durchbruck). It was the plan to follow this valley to Weltenburg, and then go more or less directly to Koenigssee. I'd programmed the route, that is the succession of towns, into my GPS, which had the "latest" German maps installed - latest is in quotes because sometimes we wondered just how latest latest was, since the GPS map didn't know about some roundabouts, one-way streets, or no entry streets (more comments on GPS navigation later!).
Life is what happens while you make plans!
The valley is indeed very beautiful, and the towns scattered along the Altmuehl river are quaint and very pretty. At least the first third. Somewhere after that, just as I was looking at the GPS to get a hint of how the next bit of road curved, it went blank. Dead as a doornail, nothing would bring it back to life.
But, not to worry; the rental car had a GPS installed - except that a year ago Scott and I had the same model of Mercedes-Benz, and never did figure out how to work the GPS. This year was somewhat easier, as the manual for the radio/CD/DVD/MP3/GPS unit was actually in the car, but written in extremely dense and obscure German - not my forte. Nevertheless, I was able to, eventually, persuade this machine to take us to Weltenburg (forget about the valley tour) and it did.
[However, I now understand why most gurus advise against in-car GPS units; relative to the portable units they are clunky, and sometimes almost non-functional. Unlike the unit that I use, which always shows a map of the nearby roads, this in-car unit basically showed an arrow pointing straight up, so long as you were to follow the road you were on - no matter how much that road curved (you were supposed to know the name/road #/whatever and follow it). The verbal directions were basic; turn in some direction, with no text-to-speech using street names or highway numbers that the portable units have. We did get there, eventually, but there is no way that any future car that I might purchase offering an in-car GPS would persuade me to lay out the three to four times cost of a very high-end hand-held GPS for the built-in. They get you there, maybe, but not nearly as conveniently as portable units. Plus, the software in the portables can be easily updated at no cost from a home computer (a simple USB plug-in) and maps can be updated the same way for relatively modest cost versus the several hundred dollars for a new map CD for the built-ins. I suppose the software updates could be done by a dealer, but presumably at a cost.]
And so, we eventually arrived at Weltenburg, in the early afternoon. You have to park about a km away from the monastery, and then walk along the Donau (Danube). Along the way there is a car/people ferry, that last year didn't operate. This year, we were able to watch this passive ferry, run totally on water power while tethered to an overhead cable and with a skilled steersman, ferry people from one side of the river to the other, without any motor or other source of power.
Weltenburg monastery itself is an Augustinian house, noted for having the oldest continually operating monastic brewery in the world. It also has a very beautiful church, which is mostly for visitors; the monks have their own chapel which is not accessible to tourists, where they get on with their own worship, rather than becoming another tourist display. There is a very large outdoor restaurant, run by civilians, which serves excellent food and the above noted beer.
Before eating said food and drinking said beer, we went down to the river (Danube) and hired one of the several boats ready to take you on a ride through the Danube gorge. Very scenic! Worth the price.
After lunch, we programmed our hotel at Koenigssee (near Berchtesgaden) into the in-car GPS, specified fastest route, and set off. And therein lies the (eventually very expensive) problem!
Koenigssee (a town and a lake) are very near Berchtesgaden, both in a little corner of south-east Germany that juts into Austria, near Salzburg. Berchtesgaden is connected to Salzburg by a very good road, even if it is a Bundesstrasse with much of it limited to 60 km/hr. The problem this creates is that a GPS, programmed to take you to Koenigssee by the fastest route will avoid some of the secondary roads totally within Germany, as they will go through a number of towns with 50 km/hr speed limits, and instead route you on the Autobahn to Salzburg, then back to Berchtesgaden. This would not be a problem except that Austria has a toll for non-Austrian registered vehicles using its Autobahn system (only the Autobahn, not any other roads). I knew this, and was happy to pay the toll (about $13 for 10 days), when I realized that the GPS was routing us through Salzburg.
Except, there seemed to be no way to pay it. The Autobahn simply went into Austria, no toll booths, no toll plaza, none of the things we North Americans associate with toll roads. I even went off the Autobahn, through a vast number of transport trucks all waiting to get back on the road (they are not allowed on highways on weekends in Germany or Austria - praise the Lord! Why can’t we do that?) searching for a way to pay the toll. Eventually, I was back on the road leading to Berchtesgaden, and lo, there was a check-point; a van, two pseudo-police (they actually work for the equivalent of the department of highways) who waved me over, told me that I was in violation of the toll requirement, and that would be Euro 120 ($200, give or take), please and thank you. I tried to explain that I had tried to find the toll booth/plaza/whatever, and was told that everyone knew that you bought the sticker indicating you had paid the toll at the Autobahn gas station(!), in Germany(!), right at the till where you paid for gas, chocolate bars, and anything else(!), just before you crossed the border. I suggested that obviously not everyone knew, since I didn’t, which just prompted another demand that I cough up Euro 120.- I didn’t want to find out what the "or else" was, so I coughed. My polite comment that the system wasn’t very friendly to people who obviously were visitors, didn’t know how the toll payment system worked, and had tried to pay but made an honest mistake was met with an equally polite German equivalent, with a charming Austrian accent, of "tough noogies!" and an assurance that with my receipt for the fine I was free to drive anywhere I wanted in Austria until midnight the following day!
Reviewing the entire event, the lack of signage explaining how the toll system worked (in any language), and the carefully chosen location of the check-point (a van, two cops at probably not a bad rate of pay, just after you left the area where you might possibly figure it out, get back to the gas station, and pay), the whole set-up reeks of a money-maker - no jurisdiction is going to put out that sort of resources to punish a non-criminal activity unless it more than pays for itself. I am still working on a letter to the appropriate Austrian authorities, protesting this whole set-up; it won’t change anything, but I’ll feel better for having vented.
[Comment inserted later : Over the next eight or nine days we drove into Austria quite a lot, with extensive distances on the Autobahns. Nowwhere else did we encounter this kind of check-point, nor for that matter any other police presence, checking the toll stickers. Which makes me think even more that this was the Austrian equivalent of the speed-traps on the route south to Florida that Canadians who make that trip complain about.]
[To be fair to Austria, I have no problem with them charging a toll for using their high-speed highways. Austria is a small country, their consumption taxes (VAT) are lower than Germany, and somebody has to pay for highways. If you look at a map, anyone in Germany or north of there, travelling to Italy or anywhere east for holidays or whatever, has to go through Austria. So why not collect a toll for the use of their (generally very good) highways from those who don’t pay Austrian taxes? That said, Germany has virtually the same problem; anyone from Scandinavia going south for a holiday has to travel through Germany, and are not charged a toll, nor are Austrians driving into Germany charged.]
Well, that took a long time to get off my chest! After settling up with the toll extortionist police (slap on wrist, Gerry, for not appreciating the valuable work these guys do to protect Austrian roads from free-loaders like you) we headed on to Berchtesgaden, and Koenigssee, arriving there just at about 6 p.m. A very bad time to arrive, as the road to the hotel we were booked into is also the road that hundreds of day-trippers who were out on the lake take to get back to their cars. Walking-tempo driving only, but we did get to and into the Hotel Koenigssee, in a room with a balcony looking directly at the lake and the mountains surrounding it, one of only six rooms with such a view!
One not great note about this hotel; as I’ve mentioned before, I use hotel.de to book accommodation, and in the room description of this location they claim "Internet". What this turns out to be is a terminal in a public room; from the security point of view you’d have to be crazy to use this for anything other than checking the weather. There was no other Internet connectivity available, although several secure wireless networks were within range. (I intend to have a separate post about the general issue of Internet availability in small hotels in Germany later.)
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