Auf der Autobahn

Today we experienced the Autobahn! It is not the Trans Canada highway, where you set your cruise control to 109 and then drive straight for x number of hours! In fact, there is no point in vehicles having cruise control here. You never drive the same speed for more than a few minutes! First of all,we were constantly changing highways-thank goodness for GPS (not being a big fan of them until today!). Then, you need to slow down for towns, construction, slower drivers and sometimes for no apparent reason at all!

The speed limit ranges from 60 to 130 to no speed limit. It changes often, so you have to be watching for signs constantly. Up and down - 60, then 80, then 120, then unlimited, then suddenly 100, for 7 1/2 hours today! Apparently there are cameras all over too, to catch speeders. Speed limits are shown in red circles. When there is no limit, the sign is grey with lines through the number or blank with lines.

When there is no limit, some drivers go flying by, somewhere around 200km/hr. The highest Cornie reached today was 175. But don't you worry, Cornie is a wonderful driver. He was amazing. And he is very cautious. Most of the time he went between 120 and 130.

It is very draining though because you have to be so alert all the time. On top of all that, since there is no limit and two or three lanes, people basically drive whatever speed they want, so you are constantly weaving in and out of lanes because suddenly you catch up to someone going slower, or someone comes flying up behind you and you need to get out of their way!

Considering all of this, it seems to work well. Things are well signed so you are prepared to turn off in time. The highways are in good condition and there wasn't too much construction. We only hit "stau" (traffic jam) once for about 15 minutes.

So here we are in Fuessen (or Fusion as Cornie likes to call it). It looks like a lovely town, our hotel is right in the pedestrian zone and is great, and it is time to get some sleep.