Day 37 Budapest to Schwangau

Sunday 12 August (Day 37) Land Hotel Guglhupf, Schwangau , Germany, 793/12017km
We are now in Germany (via Vienna, Austria). A long 9 hours drive today. We did over 700km, fortunately most of it was on the 4 lane motorway, which makes driving less stressful. When we left Budapest this morning at 10.00 it was raining and it keeps on raining, sometimes heavy, till around 2pm. Then the sun came out and everything was great again.
Two milestones were achieved today. First the currency. No longer do we have to convert Euro into local currency. No more having to calculate how much things cost. No more Saudi rials, UAE dirham, Jordan dinar, Syrian dollars, Turkey Lira, Bulgarian Leva, Romania Lei/Ron, Hungarian Forint (Ft). This last one really gives me a headache. Because 1 euro = 250 Ft, that means that money comes in high domination. They have 10000/5000/2000/1000/500/200 notes and the rest in coins. Carrying this many zeros in your wallet really make ordinary people like us a millionaire. But it is all over now. We are in Euro countries and no more headaches (i.e. beside the usual ones). The second milestone was that for the first time we drove 1006 km on one tank. Of course we just cruised around 100km/hour because Rudy was determined to reach this milestone.
The car GPS Navigation system is on again and we used it today to reach our destination. We just typed in the town we want to go to and it determines the route and calculates the distance and estimate time of arrival. The instructions given were precise and easy to follow. For Jamaliah this is a relief. Rudy can no longer blame her if we take a wrong turn.
Since we did not visit any castles, ruins or churches, we didn’t have many photos to post on the website. The landscape that we drove through is beautiful but very difficult to capture in pictures. Beautiful green forest scenery (especially for us who are used to seeing only sand and rocky hills). Fields of hays, maize, sunflowers and lot of trees with the Alps in the background. It’s awesome (17 years old again).
We are spending a night here in Schwagau, a town just a few kilometers away from the impressive Neuschwanstein Castle (which we can see from our hotel) and hoping to visit it tomorrow before driving towards our house in Zelhem. Can’t believe that our holiday is almost over. In a couple of days we will be in Holland. When we started the trip, 40 days travelling by car is such a long time but time flies. We had a fantastic time, seen so many things and experienced highs and lows. As a family we were together for 24 hrs a day. Soon we will all follow our normal live patterns again.