From Dresden to Berlin
Trip Start
Sep 09, 2005
1
5
150
Trip End
Ongoing
Berlin, Germany
Saturday, May 14, 2005
Our escape from Dresden wasn't nearly as painful as the arrival. We figured we might have missed a turn or two coming in. You think!?? We found ourselves on the Autobahn and on our way. We encountered construction and congestion about 50 kilometres into the trip. We came to a complete stop on a bridge. Oh happy day for me! Judy was calm and collected as usual. We continued on in stop and go traffic for quite a while. It did give me time to take pictures of the landscape though. Travelling at 140 KM an hour doesn't make good pictures, and that was our usual speed. So I took advantage of the slower travel. Anyway, when we could finally get back up to speed our grand Mercedes didn't want to comply. It stayed in first gear! The tachometer would nearly approach the red zone, so Judy would back off the accelerator. I think we were both near a state of panic! We drove very slowly until we came to an exit. We got off, found a parking lot, parked and turned the car off. We kind of looked at each other and shrugged our shoulders. We waited about 5 minutes, turned it back on and everything was fine! Sometimes the girl way works!
Another interesting thing you don't see in the US. There was a sign along side the road that had something to do with Polieze. Cars slowed down and there was a policeman standing in the middle of the Autobahn selecting cars and sending them to a roadside stop. Apparently there was a camera several miles back that was taking pictures. Fortunately we didn't look like criminals or whatever and didn't get stopped. It could have been for speeding also. Contrary to popular belief, there is a speed limit on the Autobahn! We just don't know what it is. Sometimes cars would make us look like we were standing still and we were moving along pretty good!
We made it to Berlin, except for the last couple of miles. Once again, we took a scenic route. This time, a real scenic route, about 40 miles out of our way. We nearly ended up back in Nurenberg! Not really, but we were pretty far off course. We did finally find ourselves back on the map and made it to Tegel to turn the car in.
The taxi driver nearly fainted when we started unloading the Mercedes. We had stuff crammed in everywhere. It was like a black hole with things just continuing to come out. He had a Mercedes too, but not everything fit in the trunk, so we had stuff on our laps, and a suitcase in the passenger seat!
The drive to our hotel was short, and the fellow told us about things along the way. Our hotel is grand. Right along the Gendarmarkt, a famous square and a block from la Gallerie LaFayette! We are two blocks from Unter Den Linden, the street on which the Brandenberg Tor is located. We are going to have some wonderful and busy days ahead!
