teutonictrio

My wife is now ecsatic to try ED, and because of the long wait to have my 550i built, I have to probably place my order next week and plan to go out in late February or March (hopefully spring!). Where do I go to make reservations for hotels and the like? I'm surprised BMW is so hands-off on the whole thing, other than just offering a plug to Conde Nast planned tours. We'd like to go for a week, and spend most of the time in Germany (cities, villages, mountains, go to a classical music concert, visit one of the concentration camps, etc.) but perhaps head to Netherlands or Italy or somewhere relatively close by car. I'm a bit worried about getting around even though the car will have navigation - my Italian is pretty bad, and my wife's German is ok, but there are no signs in English around there!

Any help, guidance, or tips would be much appreciated!

mrbelk

I've gone on 2 ED trips and have planned the whole affair myself. There is a dedicated ED forum at www.bimmerfest.com/forums that has all the info on ED that you'd ever need. I also like to use a site called TripAdvisor (www.tripadvisor.com) to get user reviews of hotels. viamichelin.com is a good "MapQuest" sort of site for all of Europe. and I used in in my planning to get estimates of travel time and route choices during my planning. In my opinion, it is superior to mapquest.

FWIW, the easiest Concentration Camp to visit is Dachau, which is right on the outskirts of Munich. The "death camps" were mainly in Poland and Czechoslovakia (Auschwitz, Treblinka, etc.), but there is one (Buchenwald) that is closer to Berlin. For me, even though it was not a death camp, Dachau was a very moving place. There is a very well-done museum there, and they have one of the barracks reconstructed to show the living conditions and how they deteriorated as the "Final Solution" was implemented. Dachau was also the main training site for officers who were detailed with running the network of death camps and work camps.

NAV will be a godsend. Be aware that you will not get a disk at the ED center; you have to arrange to have the disk with you when you get there. In your ED packet, you will be given the opportunity to buy one direct from NAVTEQ, but on that bimmerfest.com ED board, the moderater, beewang, runs a rental service. He has copies for all the different NAV systems, but you have to get on his "schedule" so he doesn't rent one out when you need it.

Also, March in Europe, especially north of the Alps is still pretty much Winter.

It's an awesome experience. I don't plan to get a new BMW any other way.

-MrB

Peter530i

come see the Czech Republic.... we have the Terezin nazi camp. Very impressive and sad.
It is about 4 hrs max drive from Munchen.
Prague is also worth of seeing. Let me know

see the link

http://www.pamatnik-terezin.cz/showdoc.do;...8C575?docid=164