Off to Vienna we go!
The morning arrived quickly, overcast and damp. The helpful folks at the front door offered to retrieve my car from parking but I declined. I've had more than one bad valet experience back in the U.S. When I pulled the bright blue rocket up, the doorman took one look at it and offered to drive me anywhere I wanted. We all had a good laugh and it was a great way to start the morning.
We hit the road and let the car warm up nicely through the lower speeds through Munich and out to the autobahn. It stayed overcast and chilly so there was no need to push anything too fast. After a while though, we settled in with the flow of traffic. In the unlimited sections, actual speeds varied from about 100 kmh to around 170 kmh. And, every once in awhile, a Porsche or other high end vehicle would rocket by like we were standing still.
To break up the trip we stopped at Salzburg. We stopped at one of the gas stations before the Austrian border to pickup the Vignette. If you haven't driven in Austria before, in order to drive on the highways/roadways you need to purchase and display a toll sticker.
It was a great little town with some real charm. Unfortunately, being Sunday most of the town was closed. Still, we managed to take a few pictures of the area. There was this crazy artwork in one of the courtyards:
Though that might look like Obama, I don't think it was meant as a political statement.
The architecture was really something in Salzburg.
The Austrian autobahn is very similar to the German one. Large sections of it were "unlimited" to the national speed limit of 130 kph. However, the locals don't seem to abide to that much so it is pretty easy to get used to driving very fast. The car handled well throughout - no surprises, at all. Wind noise does tend to pickup quite a bit north of 95 mph though. The 1 series isn't exactly an aerodynamic beast after all. Managed about 23.5 mpg throughout this section of the trip and I was quite pleased at that.
After Salzburg, we headed onto Vienna. I stopped for gas most of the way there and paid a little less than Germany. I definitely noted quite quickly that gas alongside the motorways is not the cheapest source of gas. However, it was still cheaper than Germany.
We reached Austria as it got dark. Once again, the Nav was indispensable - a strange, dark city at night was not easy to navigate into and the Nav's helpful voice and maps made a huge difference.
iDrive note: We setup the iDrive to have the split screen view so that is shows the map plus the current street you are on, what you should do now and what you should do next. It was very helpful for planning ahead. It also will tell you visually, which lanes to be in once you are in this mode.
Once we reached Vienna, the car stayed put for another day, but I'll leave this entry with a couple more pictures of Vienna. It's a really great city.
St Stephans Church
Austrian Parliament
Last edited by former; 11-09-2008 at 08:44 PM.
No comments:
Post a Comment