Day 30: 26 July 2010

Had to get off to an early start today since we still had a three hour drive to Germany from here.  Hotel Arte had a surprisingly great breakfast buffet complete with fresh whole grain bread, eggs, sausage, fruit, and buttery croissants.  Definitely a welcome change to the bread and crackers we’ve been having the last few days.  Checked out by 9am, grabbed some last minute souvenirs at Coop, then hit the road for Germany.  Unfortunately, Zurich has eluded us for the second time on a Swiss trip.  We decided that there’s not much there anyway, so if we get a cheap flight through Switzerland, that would be the time to come back.

It was another overcast day here in Switzerland.  Drove towards the flatter St. Gallen/Appenzell region on the way out and passed lots of very green farms and grazing cattle.  Briefly drove into Austria and crossed the Rhine before entering Deutchland.  Met up with family friends, Kat, Alex and baby Logan for lunch in Ulm.  Although it was a bit chilly and wet, the Zocholl’s showed us around Ulm, and brought us to a German microbrewery for lunch.  Tried some kind of German ravioli with potato salad (of course!), and Joe tried some type of egg/sausage lunch omelet. 

Afterwards, we drove to the Memmingen airport to start our journey home.  This was quite possibly the weirdest airport entrance we’ve ever been to as it was a former military base now converted to an airport for European budget carriers.  We literally drove through a neighborhood of former barracks before arriving at the terminal.  We had both been anxious about this Ryanair flight due to baggage limits.  Although we were able to book our tickets for 7.99E, Ryanair makes up the money on checked baggage and other fees.  We must have read the fare agreement a dozen times, and even checked our bags with our own luggage scale before getting to the airport.  Yet somehow, we still had overweight baggage because we thought we were allowed 20kg and the maximum was 15kg each instead.  We spent at least 15 stressful minutes rearranging our suitcases and putting on 5 layers of shirts each to get our bag weight down as much as possible.  Joe even wore two pairs of pants!  In the end, we had to pay for three extra kg each.  We can never seem to win when it comes to airlines.  Luggage issues aside, though, our flight was fine.  We arrived in Girona, and took the hour long bus ride to Barcelona, and caught a train to our hotel.  We even got some entertainment along the way since two very drunk/high women were escorted off our bus by the police for sexually harassing the driver and passengers.    

Today we came full circle arriving in Germany nearly a month from when we started our roadtrip.  Sad to leave our Mercedes and so many great places behind, but at the same time I think we’re both ready to go home, and we still have three days left in Barcelona and Dublin!  Not sure if it is the chaos of the multiple legs getting home, but regardless we’re both anxious to have some of the comforts of home back, relax a little, and of course see family and friends.