Munich Driving Experience and dinner at the Hofbrauhaus

Today we headed back to Munich for two more nights to enjoy some sun in the city and check out some sights. 

Had to give the rental car back today, really enjoyed the driving experience in Germany after the initial nerves with driving on the left of the car and the right of the road. 1910km covered in the last week or so at some quite exciting speeds, great fun on the safety of the Autobahn. 

I did note a couple of things about German driving habits:

1. Despite the huge speeds some of them reach on the Autobahn, they are awful at looking ahead for potential hazards or needing to switch lanes to pass. They seem to get right up to the hazard before noticing they need to react to it. For example, road works will give 6 or 7km of warning that a site is coming up, the last 3km will have frequent signs showing that traffic needs to merge to a single lane. There will be 2km of no movement while those in the outside lane try to push into the single lane in the last 200m before the roadworks.

2. Again, despite the speeds on the Autobahn those merging from the on ramps will not accelerate and merge onto the main lane at motorway speed. Instead they indicate to move from the merge lane to the main lanes and slow down, then try to merge into 120km/h ++ traffic at around 60km/h, then accelerate up to 170, cut across 3 lanes and pass everyone else. Weird.

3. I've found the 3 lane Autobahns to be the best ones. Right lane is for trucks, slow vehicles and nervous mergers. Middle lane is for those who want to cruise at approx 130 to 140 (speed limit signs are generally 130km/h), and the left lane is for the lunatics that want to try and beat the speed of sound.

That said, it was a cool experience to drive these roads and I found the German drivers to be very courteous on the regional and city roads. Just need some merge like a zip billboards on the big roads and they will be sorted!

Rich 

Dinner out tonight at the Hofbrauhaus followed by dessert at the Hard Rock Cafe.