We spent a couple nights in a town south of Augsburg (NOT on the 'Romantic Road'—more like Yonkers in rush hour), from whence we visited Dachau. Pamela then found a beautiful spa in Bad Kohlgrub for our final RR 3-night stay—you've seen the chairlift. Then we drove to Munich, turned in the rental car, had a rainy day there touring museums (if the BMW Museum counts too), a night in Milano in a very hip airport hotel, and flew to JFK the next day. During the latter stretch, we spent 7 straight nights in different hotels—no bueno. Never again.
We had intended to head for Füssen and Mad King Ludwig's most famous castle, Neuschwanstein (you know - Disneyland in Germany), but to avoid the glut of tourists there, we swung to the west and our spa. So before departing it we day-tripped to another of his castles, Linderhof—as it turns out, the only one he completed, and the one he died in. (Sort of—he was found in a nearby lake.) Limited photos, since cameras were not allowed inside during the 30-minute guided rush through the interior of a rich psycho's idea of a wedding cake. (But that's just my opinion.) It's too bad he wasn't drowned as a baby. (Ditto.) I have to say, the grounds were nice.
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| Please! Not another castle!! |
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| Nice backyard—Bavaria really is beautiful. |
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| Goddamned front door |
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| External Linderhof inhabitant: more elegant than the castle by far |
That same day, we stopped in Oberammergau, normally an overrun tourist magnet but blissfully vacant on a rainy, misty Sunday. Very, very pretty, especially in fall colors. Distinctive Bavarian architecture and a hotbed of cuckoo-clock making (yuck).
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| Oberammergau's former town hall (maybe) |
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| A detail: the three-D paintwork is best seen up close. Take binoculars. |
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| More trompe-l'oiel cutesiness |
We spent our final day in Munich before hopping to Milano for the flight home. No Oktoberfest, gracias: that tourist-aversion thing... Got a recommendation from friend Julia for a hotel in a youthful, hip area near the massive museums. Stores were closed for Reunification Day, but Pamela managed to see three of the art museums, while I caught the subway to the BMW complex across town.
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| Some Munich museum—not sure about the alien spacecraft out front |
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| The BMW Museum |
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| What's that punk doing on my next bike? |
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| He should drive this |
The superior Emirates wafted us over to JFK—and eventually we got home. Gratuitous photos:
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| Easy Jet to Milano |
NYC photos courtesy of David Hewitt, who met us in NYC for the Rauschenberg show at MoMA:
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| Midtown |
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| St. Patrick's in the afternoon light |
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| Empire State Bldg. @ night |
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| NYC tourists (we like the dark focus)
Amateur Tour Tips:
* Budapest is wonderful. Like Prague, but less expensive and fewer crowds. I'd give you the address of my yoga-instructor amiga—but no.
* The Danube trip did not live up to our Rhine trip on Viking. The boat and staff were just as good, but the logistics (locks and canals and distances from dock to town) precluded a lot of independent flexibility that we had on the Rhine.
* I had heard so much about Austria, but have no urge to see it again. Your mileage may vary. (We skipped the long and $$ day trip to Salzburg, but our Kiwi amigos got hosed. Of course they were too nice to say so.) Pamela does not agree here...
* Without exception, the German river stops were superior: Passau, Regensburg, and Nuremberg. They just do everything right.
* Ok, obviously we're biased about DE—we spent nearly 2 weeks there after leaving the barge, and it was hawesome. If things went awry, and we lost our way down the 'Romantic Road', the worst that occurred was a pedestrian hotel that made any Holiday Express look like shite. We even forgive the rental car, now.
* Rothenburg was incredible. We missed a bunch of other towns along the 'Road' due to our inability to use the GPS—but if they're all that good, go.
* The final 3 nights in southern Bavaria were a treat. Not a lot to do, but so what? Murnau and Oberammergau was a bonus side-trip. It's astoundingly beautiful.
* We saw three autumns—in Bavaria, then New England, and then Seattle, as we moved along. Lucky peeps.
* We no longer trust Rick Steves, or whoever writes his books for him now. High-handed dismissals or omissions of great places, an overweening use of "my" and "I" in the prose. His group tours are still good, though. Capitol Hill, Seattle: 
La Myrtle, waiting for us in the mail box:
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