ZeroHour

hello all!

I'll be visiting Berlin with a friend of mine at the end of July and will be staying there for 4 nights and driving or flying to Munich after. Two questions arose:

1. Are there lots of places around Berlin where we could travel by car as a day trip or 1/2 day trip?

2. I'm thinking of renting a car while there (something sporty and fast) - how long does it make sense to rent it for, a day or two? Any interesting/scenic destinations accessible by autobahn where some spirited driving is possible?

Thanks in advance, everybody! :-)

etch5895

Keep in mind that the autobahns around Berlin experience a lot of staus due to the size of the city plus road work. You may spend quite a bit of time stuck in traffic.

Somewhat nearby are the cities of Magdeburg, Leipzig, and Dresden. A little further out is the fascinating and pretty town of Weimar. You could also venture into Poland if your rental contract allows it, but I don't know what towns in the Polish border region are very interesting.

Fast driving is going to be hit or miss. You are hitting Germany during peak tourism season, which means lots of people like you wanting to hit the German roads, plus tour buses, plus countless trucks on the road (except for Sunday), plus many Germans are also on holiday during this timeframe.

ZeroHour

Hmmm .... sounds like that might not be the best idea then. Thanks for the suggestions - I'll take a look at the cities and see what can be done in a day. :-)

Aviatrix

From personal recent experience... if you want to drive fast on the Autobahn you should

- go somewhere remote and out of the way, like East Frisia (a long way from Berlin!), or

- travel in the middle of the night

While in theory there is no speed limit (except where otherwise indicated) in practice it's rarely possible to drive at anything much more than about 130 kph.

Bob'sYourUncle

If all you are looking for is a drive on the autobahn from Berlin, then a suggestion is to just head up the A11 towards Szcz...?/Stettin, Poland (unsure of the Polish spelling), and then farther on the A20.

Greifswald and Stralsund are about 2.5hrs from Berlin, both very pretty towns unscathed by the war (Stralsund is even on the UNESCO list).

ZeroHour

Thanks again, everybody! Greifswald and Stralsund sound like exactly what I need, I'll research them tonight, might make a great daytrip out of them.

I don't think I can drive to Poland as it seems like any exotic car rental company is vastly opposed to an idea, so it'll likely have to be within Germany.

nacho

Not in my opinion, I have been driving at least 200km/h from Flensburg to North of Hamburg (I drive this stretch on average once a month during weekend), or North of Berlin towards Rostock.

Of course you can't expect you can drive the whole way through from point A-B at 200km/h but there are certainly places where you can let your car fly.

DaniD

Be aware that in Berlin the Autobahn is an innercity road if it comes to speeding penalties. It can become quite expensive and painful easily!

jackal

Sorry to bump an old thread, but it addresses the exact question I have.

I'm renting a BMW M5 from Sixt later this week for one day with the express purpose of seeing how fast I can go without scaring the crud out of myself. (Taking the little Hyundai i20 I got from MUC last week up to 160kph just didn't quite get it out of my system.)

Problem is, I only get 150 km included in my one-day rental (without an exorbitant over-kilometer charge), so I need to make it count.

The drive towards Rostock (as far as I can go before turning back to keep it under or close to 150kph) is what I was initially considering, but this map (along with this legend) seems to indicate that's all been limited to 130kph now.

It seems my best bet might be to head north from the airport to the Berliner Ring and take it clockwise to Königs Wusterhausen and then up the A113 past Schönefeld back into town, as there appear to be (based on that map) some stretches of the ring road that are still unlimited.

Of course, traffic on the Berliner Ring is a concern (both for limiting speed as well as compromising safety--the drive today from Nuremburg to Berlin without trucks would have been perfect, but not with a 150-kilometer limit!), so I thought I'd check with folks here to see what they might suggest.

Thanks!

LondonElite

jackal - I would suggest you drive north, get off the Berliner Ring at the A20 and drive towards Stralsund/Rostock. This Autobahn is usually very quiet, and does not have many sections delimited to 120. I've done this drive a few times for meetings in Rostock. Now 150km limitation is never going to get you very far, but that's probably not this point if you want to see how fast you can push it. Also, the scenery is not spectacular (quite flat and fieldy) but there are some nice long bends in that road. You'll probably find that the M5 is electronically limited to 250 km/h (and any 6 cylinder BMW/Mercedes/Audi will get there or close enough). I tend to drive quite fast, and I disagree strongly with the earlier comment that you can't get above 130 km/h on most German Autobahns. Enjoy!

stepfel

Remember that A11 has a speed limit for most of it's length. The A20 part mentioned here is mostly no speed limit and rarely crowded, so a good spot to drive. Stralsund center is beautiful. You may also want to drive to Rügen over the huge bridge from Stralsund.

As for Rostock: The A24 to Hamburg/Rostock is also speed limited and usually pretty crowded. Also: speeding radars are common here. It gets a little better on the A19 after the split between the Hamburg and the Rostock route. However, I think Stralsund is the nicer town unless you are interested in teh Rostock harbor

Regards
Steffen

offerendum

That`s the Point, even if some cars (like Audi S) limited at 270 inoffically. But BMW is very strict so 250 is the border if it isn`t "open". Have to disagree too, even if I´m not so keen to drive very fast. But from time to time my limitation-chip has some work

LondonElite

I had an Audi R8 on that road once this summer when I had to go to Ruegen. That was fun until after the bridge. Then I couldn't even overtake the Trecker...

offerendum

**** happens

flyingfkb

Go to Leipzig. While the A9 has some construction sites there are some parts where you can get the sporty autobahn feeling.

Besides Leipzig is a great city.