Röthenbach

Phew! We finally made it home. That drive was long and stressful and not that much fun, though we did get luckier than we could have with it. Starting out in Croatia was sunny and beautiful, then we got into some spooky clouds which were fun, and then all the rain. So much rain. There were times I thought we were going to have to pull over at the next exit and wait for it to let up as it was raining so hard. So much water on the road at times too so it was slow going for most of the way. That and there was a lot of traffic through Austria so it all was a lot. There was one point where google said there was a backup of an hour because of an accident at a construction zone, but we could get off the freeway and go around it through the small towns and save some time so we decided to do that. I think a lot of people did and we got to a roundabout where the first exit road went to an entrance to the freeway where the traffic was really bad and the second continued on. We of course were going to go with the second exit, but some guy was standing in the rain making most of the cars go to the freeway exit road (not sure who he was or why), and we had to as well. But there was a gas station or something on the corner behind him between the two roads so I pulled in there and went out on the roundabout behind him and we went on our way. I really don't know why other people didn't do that, but they all just listened to him and went and sat in traffic.

I was thinking before this that we do a lot of driving here and I have never actually driven past a car accident. I know they happen, but I just have never seen one, but yesterday there were quite a few. I think a lot of people were not driving for the weather and disregarding the speed limits they had posted which were quite slow, but for a reason. We were lucky as we passed a lot of areas going the other way where the traffic was backed up and not moving forever, over 5km each time, but we didn't have anything like that (or maybe the bit we went around way). The radio said the one section going the other way that we had passed earlier you should expect a 3 hour delay! 3 hours! I was like if we were there that would be stop and continue on tomorrow kind of delay. I cannot imagine sitting there for that long.

We were going to stop in Munich to get dinner at this Afghan restaurant that is amazing, but with the weather and all the severe weather/flood warnings in the area we decided it would be best to just continue on to where we were staying. It was a long day already and we didn't really feel like walking around in the cold and pouring rain (it was pretty cold all day too. Whenever we took a quick break we had to bundle up). We got into southern Nuremberg where we were staying after just over 10 hours of driving what should have been maybe 9 hours, so not that bad (it said it was an 8 hour drive, but with breaks that adds time), but it felt like so much longer. We had some food and then went for a walk in the area since it wasn't raining and found this pretty nice park. They had all these play areas that were like those courses in trees where you walk along unstable things - I don't know what they are called, but it was pretty nice. There were some for smaller kids up to really difficult ones that I don't even know that I could do them! And we found a few other fun things on our wanders.

Today we headed off and it was more pouring rain! All the rain! There was a lot of flooding just south of us and the freeway we took the day prior from Munich was closed because of it. So I was glad we stopped as far north as we did! Then when we finally made it to Berlin we got here just as the cops were closing off the freeways we needed to get home, no clue why as we couldn't find anything online, but luckily it only added about a half hour to our travel time (I imagine if we had been later the traffic would have been much worse!). And it was sunny and gorgeous when we got home so that was nice.

So that was our trip. I really enjoyed it, even though getting home was kind of a mess. The water was gorgeous, we both agreed we loved Dubrovnik and Makarska area the most, and Baska in the north was also really nice (though the beach was already way too busy). Overall it wasn't as warm as I thought it would be, which is good for me, but then we didn't swim as much because I freeze (though still tried to swim for a little bit every day!). We had some really good food, the scenery was great, and we enjoyed exploring all the things.Read more