The Road Trip Begins

Snapshot
Where - Amsterdam to Berlin
Weather - Sun and showers...we are driving - who cares!
Distance - 720km

Wow, what a day, so many unknowns we had to deal with but it all worked out. First the ship arrived in port almost 2 hours later than scheduled which meant we were late disembarking but that really was not of too much concern. Then we had to meet up with a shuttle at the airport that was taking us to our vehicle... all went as planned. Picked up our car - a Peugeot 308 diesel - brand new. Then we had to work out the GPS and also filling up with fuel before we even start on the open road.

The funny thing about Europeans is that they think a 3 hour trip is a long way. Our plan was to drive to Berlin via Hamelin (the town of the Pied Piper fame), about 700km. All was going fine until the GPS decided to take us on a little detour to look at...what? It did this to us twice, once to a golf course area and the 2nd time to a McDonalds carpark. Anyway, we are awake to that now.

We arrived to Hamelin around 5pm, had a bite to eat, some photos and then headed to our Airbnb accommodation in Berlin. First the GPS didn't want to recognise the address (Germans have some funny letters in their alphabet). We found something that was kinda similar so we were hoping for the best. The autobahns are pretty good but we generally were only in the slow or middle lane - the fast lane was for the seriously scarey speedsters who would zoom by at something close to 200 km/hr. Anyway, we made it to Berlin and we found the address of our accommodation (don't know how but we did) so all is good. Tomorrow we start to explore Berlin.Read more