My First Trip to Europe - Evening 3, Day 4, and the Trip Home

March 24, 2007

After an entire day of walking through the beautiful city of Salzburg, John and I were ready for an authentic Austrian feast!  A short walk from our hotel, we found a restaurant specializing in Italian, Indian, and Austria food.  An odd combination to be sure, but we rolled the dice...

First the appetizer - beef carpaccio.  Beef carpaccio is thinly sliced raw beef.  Since I'm a fan of steak tartare, I was looking forward to sample this delicacy, and I was not disappointed - it was fantastic!   

Next was the dumpling soup:

Followed by a nice salad....

..and finally the main course - turkey schnitzel and rice!

We also had a delicious peach ice tea with the meal which was wonderful - and I don't normally care for ice tea.  After what was no doubt our best meal of the trip, we headed back to the hotel to get some shut for the drive back to Munich the next morning.

The next morning (Monday) came, and we hit the road with John behind the wheel.  We couldn't believe the sharp contrast in the weather - the day before had been sunny and pleasant to walk around.  Today was decidedly different and made for some white knuckle driving conditions.  However, the snow covered mountains and trees were a sight to behold:

We kept one eye on the road, and one eye on the indispensable BMW navigation system:

Fortunately, as we neared Munich, the snow was gone, but it was still a bit chilly::

Once we got back to Munich we headed to the Dachau concentration camp memorial site:

Dachau was a famous Nazi German concentration camp - my buddy John is quite the history buff, and he was most anxious to visit the camp and tour the grounds.  Unfortunately for us, the site is closed on Mondays!  However, we did get in to take some photos, but there were no tours going on:

Here's a close up of the main gate to the concentration camp with the famous words, "Arbeit Macht Frei." (Work sets you free).

After visiting the somber Dachau memorial site, I was in the mood for something a bit more up beat, and we found just the ticket with what has to be one of the world's largest BMW dealerships, not far from the BMW factory in Munich: 

They had some beautifully restored classic BMW cars inside:

After visiting the dealership, it was starting to get late.  Since we were flying back home in the morning, it had finally come time to take the car to the shipping company that would transfer my friend's car from Munich, directly to the dealership in Dayton where he had initially placed the order:

We went into the office of the company (called Harms) which would handle the task of shipping John's car.  The gentlemen who helped us was very nice and very efficient:

Here we see John removing the front license plate from his car - Harms would have done this prior to shipping the car, but they would have discarded the plate.  John wanted to hang it up in his garage at home - a nice keepsake:

And here we see John saying a last, tearful goodbye to his car - the trip back will take 4-6 weeks:

After a bus ride to the U-bahn, and another ride on the U-6 train, we were back at our hotel - we'd need to be up early for our flight home.

After breakfast the next morning (one last "wit worst") we were instructed by the front desk where to go to catch the bus which would take us to the airport for 10 Euros each.  As you can see, it was a very cold and snowy Munich morning:

Ahhh...our flight to Washington DC (where we connected to Dayton) is on time:

Time enough for one last Pepsi light before I land:

We made it back home safe and sound on Tuesday evening, and my brother-in-law picked me up at the airport. It was nice to be behind the wheel of my very own BMW again:

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