A special trip to Germany...

I've been away for a while due to unforeseen circumstances and now have a month before I go away again. We are cruising the Caribbean in January to escape the cold of Chicago. That's something we do every January since we started cruising in August 2011 on Princess Cruises. This time we are trying another cruise line- Celebrity Cruises and we sail on their Silhouette January 17th.

In the meantime  here's the story of a special trip we made to Germany in September 2003.

What made it special? Good question and thanks for asking.

It was Special because we went to Munich to pick up a new car. BMW have a Program called European Delivery where you tell your dealer what car you want via an a la carte menu of styles and options. Our dealer was in Indiana where I could get a better deal than in Chicago and at the time I was nearing the end of my lease on my first BMW. Having found that car to be fun to drive ("The Ultimate Driving Machine") and very reliable I wanted to buy, not lease, another BMW. This one I ordered as a 2 door (coupe) with a manual "stick" shift (not the norm in the USA) and a stiff suspension for going around corners quickly. Once you decide what you want inside the car the dealer sends an order to BMW and they build the car. The car was built in Regensburg on July 13th 2003 and we planned to be in Munich to meet it on September 13 and spend a week driving it around Germany before shipping it home (no extra charge versus buying one in a dealership in the USA).

Buying a European Delivery car saves you 7% off the price of the car (about $2800) and I negotiated further discounts with my dealer of $1200. BMW insures the car for a month while you are driving in Europe.

This would be our first time in Munich and our 3rd time in Germany since 1999.

With the help of Rick Steves we planned out places we would like to visit once we had the car.

The itinerary would look something like this....

Sept 12 arrive in Munich by air from Chicago
Sept 13 pick up car from BMW factory outlet and drive to Fussen in the Bavarian Alps to visit the castles of King Ludwig II-Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau. Stay overnight.
Sept 14 Drive the Romantic Road to visit Rothenburg for a couple of days
Sept 16 Drive to Bayreuth in Franconia to visit the grave of Richard Wagner and do a backstage tour of his theater that we had been to in 1999 (and later 2013) Stay overnight.
Sept 17 Drive north to Oberwesel on the Rhine (south of Cologne) and stay in a castle for a couple of days.
Sept 19 Drive back to Munich to drop the car at the shippers then stay in Munich for two days before flying home to Chicago.

So a lot of driving for me, but it's in a brand new car and apart from Bayreuth each town will be new to us.

Next up....Germany 2003 in photos