Sunday, February 6, 2011

Starting to come together...

I've spent much of the weekend getting a better sense of how long it will take us to go from place to place while on our trip - and where we will need to find a place to spend the night.

I've made progress! I have the trip laid out in general and have requested accommodations for the first four nights of the trip, after the first weekend spent with Scott in the Spangdahlem area.

We'll head south and east on Monday, heading for Baden-Baden and a short visit there. Then stopping for the night in Bad Peterstal and a nice little Gastezimmer there. The next day, we'll explore the Black Forest some more and spend the night at another little Gastezimmer near Titisee/Neustadt. We had thought to make it all the way to the Teufenthal, Switzerland area (where Steve's relatives came from) but are finding that budget accommodations in Switzerland are much harder to find. On Wednesday, we'll drive to Teufenthal, explore for a while, then head down to the Lauterbrunnen Valley and stay at a little hotel in Stechelberg, near the cable car station that takes us to the Schilthorn. We'll spend two nights there, one of the days spent exploring the Schilthorn and two villages on the way back down (Gimmelwald and Murren) the other spent exploring the Lauterbrunnen Valley and its many waterfalls.

We'll head out on Friday towards Martigny. Right now that's where I'm at, accommodations-wise. Another area where it's hard to find something on a budget.

My other concern is road status - end of May in the Alps should be ok for the most part, though there are some passes that may be an issue.

Took a time out from planning yesterday and went to the West Michigan Auto Show with Steve. Eric was able to get us free tickets through work. It was nice to see the new cars though Steve does have his mind set on an Outback when we finally do replace one of the vans. He is waiting for just the right combination of transmission and engine size. Subaru makes the right transmission and the right engine, just not in the same vehicle yet. Had a nice sandwich together at Big Boy afterwards and a quiet evening at home. Steve with TV, me with slow dialup but got some of those reservations requested. Google Translate has become my friend as much of the information on these budget places is just in German.

No comments:

Post a Comment