As part of a charity fund-raising auction, Sigfried and Andrea, who live part of the year in Biberach an der Riß, Germany, and the rest of the year in the U.S., had offered a four-night stay in their home for us and Julie’s parents.
We decided to rent a car to get from Amsterdam to Biberach, and also to get around in Germany. We had reserved a Peugeot 208 “or similar” through the SIXT car rental company. Their system is sort of automated, so we did the paperwork, then went to the underground parking garage with just a key. I was surprised to find the key fob unlocked a Mercedes C200. It has a Munich license plate, so I think we got a free upgrade because the car needed to go back to Munich (where we planned to return it).
It’s good we got the free upgrade because, while the C200 is not that much bigger than a Peugeot 208, all of our luggage barely fit. (It’s hard to pack light for a three week trip with bicycle helmets!) Julie and her mother had to have a suitcase on the seat between them.
We finally got on the road at about 9:45. We ended up using Navigon on my iPhone to navigate our way out of Amsterdam. We tried using the Mercedes navigation system, but found the interface really unintuitive. I think while we were fumbling around trying to accomplish the simple task of selecting a destination city I accidentally activated the Mercedes speed control system. It’s sort of like cruise control reversed in that it won’t let the car exceed a set speed, which in this case was 30KPH. Not knowing what had happened, I ended up turning the car off in the middle of the road to clear it.
Later in the day we discovered that the weird rotating knob can also be pressed down to select things, so eventually we could make use of it. I’d still avoid buying a current Mercedes nav system, as they really need to improve the usability.
In any case, Navigon (and later the car nav system) said we would arrive around 4:30. Unfortunately, they did not account for the numerous traffic jams (“Stau” in German) and frequent construction zones. American style freeway construction is to make single lanes in both directions on half the freeway while working on the other half. German style is to make four narrow lanes from the two lanes and shoulders of half the freeway. A 2.1 or 2.0 meter wide lane posted for 80 KPH (50 MPH) leaves very little room for error in a mid-sized automobile. It gets more “interesting” when large trucks go through, and there were tons of big trucks on the road in Germany.
It was also “interesting” to be cruising at about 140 KPH (85 MPH) and still be passed by other cars as if we were going slow. There were also a few opportunities to test the Mercedes’ brakes when 140 KPH cruising changed to stop and go traffic. The car did handle and drive quite well despite being fully loaded.
We bought a map book at a gas station. During yet another Stau, Julie looked at the map and realized that the navigation systems both planned to take us through Ulm in rush hour traffic, but we could leave the freeway and take a more direct route on country roads. (“Recalculating…”) We had a lovely drive down the country roads, and finally arrived in Biberach around 6:50.
After a bit of unpacking and freshening up, we walked down to the Pflugkellar Biergarten and had a great dinner with Sigfried and Peter, Andrea’s brother. Julie had the Jaegersteak mit spaetzle and I had a “devil’s sauce” Teufelbraten with “American style kartoffeln”, which turned out to be jo-jo fries.
