Today I decided to rent a car and drive to a museum about 2 1/2 hours away in Speyer. I rented from Sixt a pretty well established European rental company at a location across the Rhine from my hotel. I arrived around 9:30am and walked into this building to pickup my car...absolutely amazing. This is a "typical" office building in Germany.
I checked in with the clerk, provided my US drivers license and Passport. He said he had an upgrade for me (I had reserved a compact). He printed my receipt and handed me the keys to this!
A brand new Audi A5 Turbodiesel! It is a VERY nice car and had great pickup and handling. I punched my first destination in to the GPS and was off. The GPS is very nice, it provides advance warning of lane changes and is very polite ("Please prepare to drive to the left in 1000 meters.").
Driving on the Autobahn was an interesting experience. I've heard stories but didn't know what to actually expect. What did I witness? Everyone stays to the right except to pass...I mean everyone. It was beautiful. I also got to experience this...
The sign on the left indicates the speed limit is 120kph, the sign on the right...well...it indicates something special. The sign on the right means there is no speed limit. In these areas you can drive as fast as you want as long as you are in control of your car. Similar to the due regard statue in the US. I was only comfortable traveling around 170-180kph in these zone (105-110mph), but I was still passed like I was standing still at times. I did try 200kph (125mph) for a short stint on a straight-away, but I was not comfortable going into corners at that speed.
As I drove down the highway I passed exits for several towns. Each town had a brown and white sign indicating their main attraction. I drove past famous race tracks in Nürburg and Hockenheim. I was also near the city when my Ihrig ancestors came from Baden-Baden.
My first destination for the day was Speyer, specifically the Technick Museum there. The museum is home to tons of planes, cars, motorcycles, etc. covering many decades of technical innovation. The main attraction is a 747 mounted 50-75' off the ground that you can go inside.
Speyer also housed a relatively large collection of fire trucks. How could I not visit, planes and fire trucks...what more could you want?
They even have a few American trucks, like this one from Pennsylvania.
A glimpse of part of the interior section of the museum.
They also have several vintage cars, like this 1960 Austin Healey.
The 747 is mounted above a Vickers Viscount. Both are painted in Lufthansa livery from different eras. If you look closely you can see the tube slide that descends from the Viscount.
They also apparently race these trucks. This was one of 3 on display next to a video screen showing several wrecks during the races.
After spending about 3 hours in Speyer it was time to drive to the 2nd museum in Sensheim. They offer a discounted admission to both museums. Sensheim is only about 30km away so it was a short drive on surface streets to get there.
The main attraction at Sinsheim is the Concorde. Also on the roof is the Tupolev Tu-144 (similar to the Concorde).
Seeing the Concorde and being able to go inside was amazing.
Sinsheim also has a lot of specialty items, like this motorcycle constructed from airplane parts. Those are 767 tires on the front and back.
They also have a large collection of F1 cars. This is just a sampling.
And motorcycles like this NSU 1000.
Lastly, everyone knows Lamborghini makes sports cars, but how many know that they make farm equipment too?
I checked in with the clerk, provided my US drivers license and Passport. He said he had an upgrade for me (I had reserved a compact). He printed my receipt and handed me the keys to this!
A brand new Audi A5 Turbodiesel! It is a VERY nice car and had great pickup and handling. I punched my first destination in to the GPS and was off. The GPS is very nice, it provides advance warning of lane changes and is very polite ("Please prepare to drive to the left in 1000 meters.").
Driving on the Autobahn was an interesting experience. I've heard stories but didn't know what to actually expect. What did I witness? Everyone stays to the right except to pass...I mean everyone. It was beautiful. I also got to experience this...
 |  |
As I drove down the highway I passed exits for several towns. Each town had a brown and white sign indicating their main attraction. I drove past famous race tracks in Nürburg and Hockenheim. I was also near the city when my Ihrig ancestors came from Baden-Baden.
My first destination for the day was Speyer, specifically the Technick Museum there. The museum is home to tons of planes, cars, motorcycles, etc. covering many decades of technical innovation. The main attraction is a 747 mounted 50-75' off the ground that you can go inside.
Speyer also housed a relatively large collection of fire trucks. How could I not visit, planes and fire trucks...what more could you want?
They even have a few American trucks, like this one from Pennsylvania.
A glimpse of part of the interior section of the museum.
They also have several vintage cars, like this 1960 Austin Healey.
The 747 is mounted above a Vickers Viscount. Both are painted in Lufthansa livery from different eras. If you look closely you can see the tube slide that descends from the Viscount.
They also apparently race these trucks. This was one of 3 on display next to a video screen showing several wrecks during the races.
After spending about 3 hours in Speyer it was time to drive to the 2nd museum in Sensheim. They offer a discounted admission to both museums. Sensheim is only about 30km away so it was a short drive on surface streets to get there.
The main attraction at Sinsheim is the Concorde. Also on the roof is the Tupolev Tu-144 (similar to the Concorde).
Where Speyer focuses primarily on planes and fire trucks, Sinsheim focuses on cars.
Sinsheim also has a lot of specialty items, like this motorcycle constructed from airplane parts. Those are 767 tires on the front and back.
They also have a large collection of F1 cars. This is just a sampling.
And motorcycles like this NSU 1000.
Lastly, everyone knows Lamborghini makes sports cars, but how many know that they make farm equipment too?
Comments
Post a Comment