Itinerary set, Hotels and Apartments booked

03-04-2016, 03:38 PM

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mdsbuc

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2013 BMW 335i Msport, 2012 Mustang GT

Itinerary set, Hotels and Apartments booked

Just shy of six weeks before departure, my itinerary is set, hotels and apartments are booked. The vacation will be comprised of two loops, one to the north, one south and west. Our trip will be bookended with stays at our friends' home in Osnabrueck, as well as a short stay with them between the two loops.

We will fly into Duesseldorf where our friends will pick us up and bring us to their home.

As a side note, how cool it is to have made friends with a family from a foreign country, with a different culture. We have experienced everyday German life in their home, and they the opposite in ours. We've been to a German Confirmation in a Protestant Church, experienced German BBQs in a beautiful Schrebergarten, toured a school that some claim to be the oldest in the western world, and done many more things that there just isn't time to add. In return, they've done some things here that most Germans will probably never experience, like attend school concerts, visit home shows, and attend baseball games. All this the result of a chance meeting at a rental condo a couple of hours from our home about ten years ago. All very cool.

Back to the trip and itinerary. We will spend three nights with them, socializing and such, adjusting to the time change, before we hop on a high speed rail train to Stuttgart, the day before our delivery in Sindelfingen. On the next day when we pick up the car, we will likely do the factory tour, enjoy the provided lunch, and visit the Mercedes Benz Museum. That night we will stop in Hanover before driving to Copenhagen the next day.

We've booked an Apartment in Copenhagen for three nights. We plan on visiting the Viking Ship Museum, which is about 45 minutes away. We also would like to see the Trelleborg Viking Fortress, the National Museum, Nyhavn Harbor, Tivoli Gardens and more. Time permitting we may make a short excursion into Sweden.

Back to Osnabrueck for two nights, the first loop looks like this:

Next we are onto Strasbourg, France to begin our second loop. We've got an apartment there in the Old Town, very near the Cathedral. After Strasbourg, we will travel on to Annecy, France, with a possible stop in Geneva, Switzerland for lunch. On the way we want to visit the Gorges du Fier, which looks really cool.
http://www.gorgesdufier.com/en/gorges-du-fier.html

From photos Annecy looks quite beautiful, but we will only have late afternoon, evening, and part of the next morning there before driving on to Carcassonne. On the way there we hope to stop for lunch in Orange, France, and visit the Roman Theater of Orange, designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, considered the best preserved Roman theatre in the western world.

We've been to Carcassonne before, but our stay was too short. This time we will spend the night within those ancient walls and I am really looking forward to that.

We've booked three nights in Sarlat-la-Caneda. We've had lunch and dinner in this beautiful, small medieval town, but it was not enough time to really enjoy it. This time we have an apartment there for three nights. Not only is this old town quite beautiful, but the surrounding region is as well, and features some prehistoric caves with accompanying ancient paintings.

From there, a night in Beaune, before driving on to Sindelfingen to return the new car for its voyage across the sea, a night in Stuttgart, followed by a train ride to Osnabrueck the next morning. We will spend four nights with our friends there before making the return trip home. The second loop looks like this:

3500 miles puts about in line with our two previous EDs. Exited much? You bet!

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