Day 3: THE BIG DAY! Part 1
We took the Hop On/Hop Off Greyline bus to the Welt this morning. It was great as we got on at 9:00 am and arrived at the Welt at 10:45 am. The bus has a tour guide and we drove by many interesting sites and the guide explained the history of what we were seeing at each of the stops.
If you don't have a lot of time in Munich, this kills two birds with one stone, transportation to the Welt and a guided tour along the way. If you have an extra day, you can go back and visit the places you found interesting. We didn't have time as we were leaving out as soon as we picked up the car.
Our first look!
Guido, our delivery specialist met us around 10:50 am and we descended the stairs for the big moment. Our baby was at the bottom of the stairs and she was a beaut.
Delivery Area.
We spent quite a while with the Guido, mostly asking questions about the Infotainment system.
Backup, side & top view camera instruction.
Seat operation.
iDrive.
Mrs. EXPLAT took her victory lap and then we parked out front to get our engraved keychain and purchase some items.
Hint: If they don't tell you, the orange dot they place on your plastic BMW card is what alerts the gift shop to give you the free keychain and engraving along with the 10 euro credit. So you can do this before your delivery, once you have the card. You receive the card after completing the paperwork. We did our paperwork the day before which I highly recommend.
Parking outside the Welt
Our travel agent friend, and several people we met in Munich all told us to go to Tegernsee. After the third person, we decided to take a detour and drive through the Tegernsee Lake area on the way to the Castles. It was worth the drive as the lake is surrounded by mountains on three sides. Next ED, we'll spend a night or two here.
Tegernsee Lake and the boat landing.
We didn't eat here but later on, the cafe below in Rottach-Egern on the Tegernsee was recommended to us. This is right across the street from the boat landing and the Schloss-Cafe pictured above. Have lunch here and then eat dinner at the Hotel Muller in Höhenschwangau which was also recommended to us after we got back. There's always next time!
The recommended restaurant. It was mentioned that in February, there were German dinners eating outside in the snow!
Rottach-Egern, one of the villages on the Tegernsee.
View across the lake in the Tegernsee.
From here, we proceeded to the twisties near the Walchensee, another large lake on the way to the castles.
A town near the Walchensee on the way to the Castles.
View from inside the car, on the way to the Castles.
Our original dinner plan
(loose plan, based on it was around dinner time) was to eat at LUCE D'ORO, the one star *Michelin Restaurant in the Schloss Elmau hotel. Looking at their website now, it says guests who are not staying with them need to have advance reservations.
The hotel driving up from the road.
However, on this particular weekend, the place was over-run with Audi's and the very cordial staff mentioned that this weekend, the entire hotel and all restaurants were booked for a corporate event. Nothing like crashing an Audi party in our brand new BMW 640i Gran Coupe! It was pretty fun in itself as the guests standing outside of the hotel front door were all giving us the stare down as in how dare you be here in your BMW!
We drove up and the circular driveway had all of these Audi's parked around.
Wish I had taken a photo of all of the Audi's but we were tired and hungry.
The staff were super nice and next ED, we'll try and stay here for a night or two.
We stopped off in Bad Tölz for Dinner per recommendation from the Schloss Elmau hotel and ended up arriving in Höhenschwangau around 10:00 pm. It is a little tourist village between the castles where the ticketing center is located. It was peaceful and quiet. As recommended, next time we'll eat at the Hotel Muller next door.