A Tandem Tour of CZ and Austria

Salzburg, Austria to Munich, Germany by train and on to Grainau, Germany by car.
Day 12: Wednesday, June 2.

The pouring rain that greeted us when we awoke confirmed our decision to train over to Munich and rent a car. We packed up our bags and went down to breakfast, where we found a nice, well-appointed breakfast room and an attentive waiter. Usually hotels simply provide a breakfast buffet, but this one offered a sort of buffet menu that the waiter brought out to the table. Kind of a cross between the standard B&B practice of a fixed breakfast and the hotel practice of a buffet. We had soft-cooked eggs, yogurt and muesli, and all the normal accompaniments.

It was still raining hard after breakfast, so we suited up in GoreTex and steeled ourselves for a messy ride through city traffic to the train station (about two miles away, across the river). Much of the ride was on a bike path, so it ended up not being too bad. And, we managed to stay fairly dry between our rain gear and our fenders. We purchased a "Bayern Ticket" at the special DB window in the train station (even though it was an Austrian station, the German railway DB has a presence there since so many trains run back and forth). This ticket allowed two people unlimited travel for one day on the rail system in Bavaria for only 22 euros (plus 6 euros for the tandem). It's an excellent deal, as it also covers travel within Munich on the regional and city lines. It's essentially the same as the "Schones Wochenende" ticket we've used on weekends, but is valid on weekdays. We could have also traveled the same route on an Austrian Railways train, but the fare would have been higher because they do not offer a similar ticket scheme.

The hour or so train ride to Munich was uneventful, and we arrived at the main train station by mid morning. We had booked our rental car for pickup at the Munich airport, since the rental rates were much higher at the train station (most of the rental agencies have a presence at both the airport and the train station). Oh a whim, I decided to stop by the Hertz counter at the train station and see if they would match the airport rate. Surprisingly, they did! (I had tried this on a previous trip to no avail.) They even had a nice turbo-diesel Opel Vectra station wagon for us. The tandem easily fit in the wagon, and we didn't even have to remove the rear wheel like we've had to do with other small wagons.

So, we had a car, but still no destination. I spent a few minutes in the excellent "Easy Internet Cafe" directly across from the train station looking at weather forecasts for the general area. The rain seemed to be pretty much everywhere, but it looked better in southern Germany down near one of our favorite areas, Garmisch-Partenkirchen. We both agreed to spend our last few days in this Alpine vacation area, home to the Olympics in the 1930s and plenty of good hiking and biking.

Picking up the car at the train station instead of the airport probably saved us almost two hours, as the train to the airport is about 30 minutes and then we would have had to backtrack south again to head toward G-P. Our Opel had a nifty navigation system that greatly helped us getting out of the center of Munich and onto the Autobahn heading south. An hour or so of high-speed driving on the Autobahn brought us to the Alpine resort area of Garmisch-Partenkirchen.We have stayed in this area several times, usually finding a B&B in the small neighboring village of Grainau. After picking up a lodging-finder booklet at the TI in Grainau, we drove around looking for something that was available and looked good. We ended up at a really nice B&B with charming hosts and a large room with a balcony facing the mountains for only 32 euros a night. We decided to stay here for three nights until we were due to return to Munich for our pre-booked room on Saturday night.

Daily costs 6/2 (euros): Train: 28; Room: 32. Dinner: 25. Total: 85 euros/$105 USD. (Not incl. car rental fee of 211 euros/$260 USD.)