I use to go skiing in the Swiss Alps, when I was stationed in Germany. Also use to enjoy lake Konstanz, Zurich, Liechtenstein, and Bern. But, I liked going to Berchtesgaden and the Zugspitze more (mostly because I enjoyed staying in the old General Walked Hotel).
rtm
Did you learn any German while in Germany? I remember Germany and Switzerland as being very clean and well kept.
My wife and I took a trip to Europe around 2000. Before the euro became the standard currency. We spent a week in England starting out in London. Flew Edinburg which was a beautiful city. From Edinburg we rented a car driving all the way down to Exeter. This was the year of Mad cow disease. We were amazed that there was still a long line to enter a MacDonald's in London Piccadilly Square.
We flew from London to Brussels and rented another car. Brussels was an interesting city with all it shops filled with fancy chocolates and European luxuries. We spent awhile just looking through windows and occasionally stepping in to look more closely.
We also went to Amsterdam, Netherlands. Now we had just left England which was celebrating their Queen Mother's Birthday. Amsterdam also was getting ready to celebrate their queen's birthday on the following day's visit. We spent a whole day in Amsterdam walking around and had to leave shortly after dusk because they were shutting down the streets for the celebration. That night we had had to drive all the way to Belgium to get a hotel, apparently the Queen's Birthday is quite the big deal.
From there we went to Munich, Germany. Stopping at many places along the way. We had rented a lodge for a week in Bavaria. Don't remember the city. From their we took side trips to Prague, Vienna, Venice and Zurich. We tried to do way to much but one never knows if they will ever get back again.
Before leaving Germany we decided to spent a night in Berlin and drove through Bonn. Fortunately we stopped outside of Berlin near a subway. Driving in the major cities of Europe is not an experience I want to repeat. Subways and train in Europe are the way to go if one is primarily interested in the cities. In the country side a car is important.
Leaving Germany we went down to France visiting a couple places which included Paris. We unfortunately drove into Paris
. Getting down to Paris was not the hard part, getting around and parking was a joke. Also finding the way back to the highway was confusing
In the car we missed almost all of Paris.
Spain was not in our original plans, but my wife really wanted to go. We drove down to Barcelona, Spain. Spent most of a day walking the streets, looking into shops and eating some great food. We spent to much time. It was afternoon and I had to return the car the next morning and catch the return flight home from London. I had drove all night through France to Calais. From there we took the Chunnel back to England.
