[VIJMAC]

Hi Friends,

I am back with a blog on my recent tour of 5 countries in Europe. Hope you will enjoy it.

This year in December, we are completing 25 years of our married life. Being a significant milestone, my wife and I wanted to make it a memorable one. Hence in the month of June itself, we started thinking of how we should celebrate it. Apart from having parties with friends and family, one thing that we quickly agreed upon was a vacation trip where we can spend quality time together.

When we started exploring various places, we soon realized that December would not be a right time to travel, for two reasons. One, it is a winter-time and travel would be difficult as many places of our interest would be closed. Second, it is a vacation time (Christmas & year-end holidays) and places would be crowded and expensive. We are a couple to whom the vacation means, exploring new places, going to places where the usual crowd does not go and trying to be adventurous. I do not remember any of our vacation trips, where we have stayed in one place for more than 2 days or relaxed in a resort room.

With that in background, we decided to start our anniversary celebration trip much in advance, well before the winter kicks-in. Looking at kids college exam & my office schedule, we decided to start our trip during the last week of September ‘24. Since wife’s birthday is also in the last week of September, it was the right thing to do and celebrate it during our trip. Wife started exploring place of our interest and came up with a bucket list. Similarly, I prepared my own wish-list and we started compiling them together. Though we differ a lot on many things, one thing where we concur closely is on our interest and choice of places for vacation.

The combined list of our choice of places was too long and would take months to cover. Hence we started knocking-off the places which we think are not practical or do not provide unique experience. As I mentioned before, our vacations do not involve relaxing places, which many people prefer to have. We wanted to have a good mix of fun, party, adventure, romance and a bit of relaxation. With that as a guiding principle, we finalized our itinerary that included a variety of places spanning across 5 countries in Europe, viz., Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland and Spain. Since traveling to all these places across 5 countries would be quite cumbersome and requires advance planning, I added my additional wish of “Driving across these countries”, which was straight away accepted by better half. To make it more interesting, we decided to explore an option of renting a “Sports Car”, rather than a regular car. With the places short-listed, we started the route plan for our trip. We found that flying to Germany would be best option w.r.t. flight and rental car options.

As we explored the Sports car rental options in EU, I was hoping that we could rent and drive a Porsche/Lambo/Ferrari, etc., for initial few days and rent regular car for rest of the days. However, the regular rental agencies like Hertz, Europcar, Enterprise & Sixt do not offer such cars. There were some local companies, who offer these cars, but the cost was exorbitant and all of them offer a limited liability insurance, which puts a big risk on me in case of any accidents. They also offer limited miles package, which did not meet my requirement. I also explored Porsche Drive Rental (direct rental from Porsche company), but that also had an “excess of €2500-5000”.

Since I would be driving in Europe for the first time, I didn’t want to take chances with these “limited liability” insurance options. Hence I started exploring the best sporty or luxury cars available from the regular rental companies. I found that Sixt was offering some decent cars with “unlimited mileage” and “full insurance” with no deductibles. I narrowed down on BMW Z4 M40 Roadster and booked it for the entire trip with the pick-up and drop at Munich airport. I got a confirmation from Sixt that it is a “Confirmed model” booking, which means they would give the same model and not any equivalent replacement. Now that the car is finalized we started carving out rest of the itinerary.

After a lot of deliberation, we finalized the itinerary and the below summary would give you a glimpse of how it looked like.

Relaxation on the beaches of a Balearic island > Romantic evenings and birthday celebration and DJ Parties in the “Party Capital” > Exploring a couple of fairytale towns in Austria and Switzerland > Driving through the epic passes on top of Austria, Italy and Switzerland Alps > Day-long trek in Dolomites in Italy > A life-time crazy adventure trek in Switzerland > ending with Oktoberfest (festival) in Munich, Germany.

Before doing the flight and hotel bookings, I explored various credit card and forex card options. Most of the cards have a markup charge of 2 to 3.5%. Interestingly I found IDFC WOW card to be one of the best options. It is a credit card backed by a fixed deposit (i.e. your credit limit would be as much as the FD you keep, while you get a decent interest rate on FD) and has zero markup charges. I could use it for all online bookings and throughout my trip, including in cabs and small shops.
Having finalized the itinerary, I did all the flight and hotel bookings online. Lufthansa was the best option since my destination was Munich. The Bangalore to Munich flight was via Mumbai and I had a direct flight to Bangalore while retuning. Next few weeks involved a lot of shopping, both offline and online. While I had a drone with me, I felt I should have a GoPro for this trip and hence purchased one online. My other shopping items involved Trekking shoes, clothes, GoPro accessories, extra batteries and Micro SD card for drone, etc. Of course, my wifey was much more busy with her shopping.

After doing the BMW Z4 M40 booking, I was up for a shocking surprise. While going through the review of Z4 on YouTube, I understood that the boot space is very small because it is a roadster and a convertible. I realized that we could fit only one medium size suitcase (our usual airline 23kg size suitcase) in the boot. This made my wife and me nervous, as all our stuff would not fit into this limited space. We did further research (including calls to local BMW dealer asking for exact dimensions of the boot) and concluded that we can squeeze in a duffle bag in addition to the suitcase. We were very critical in the items we carry and could somehow fit in all stuff within these 2 bags.

As this trip was a special one, I thought of having a custom-made T-shirt that we would wear at the start of the trip. I designed a logo for our 25th anniversary celebration, using my power-point skills and got it printed on T-shirts in a nearby shop. That worked out pretty neat I guess!




Soon, the much-awaited day arrived and we started our journey, Bangalore > Mumbai > Munich, on 23/Sep.



DAY #1 : We’re going to Ibiza!

We reached Munich on 24/Sep morning and headed to Ibiza the same day afternoon via a short flight from Munich. We hired a small car (CITROEN C3, automatic) at the airport for our stay in Ibiza. That worked out quite cheap and convenient for us to commute within Ibiza. We stayed in a hotel called “Vibra Algarb”, a large hotel complex located right on the beach and 10 mins drive from the airport. There was an Indian restaurant “Rosa India” right opposite to the hotel, which was convenient to satisfy our desi taste buds. We took rest in the evening and were looking forward to the next day activity.




DAY #2 : Soak in the turquoise waters of Formentera

25/Sep: In the morning we finished breakfast in the hotel and headed to Formentera, a Balearic island that lies just south of Ibiza. It’s less than an hour journey by a ferry and soon we arrived in Formentera. We could have taken our car in the ferry to Formentera, but it required some pre-approvals to do so. Formentera is just 20kms long and 2 kms wide and hence we decided to hire a 2 wheeler and explore the island. Also, the weather was perfect for a 2 wheeler ride. We visited few beaches (Illetes and Migjorn to name few), spent our day hanging around the beach and at the restaurants on the beach side.





I will let the below video talk about the beauty of the beaches on this island.

https://youtu.be/aECUZFycmlk

We took a ferry back to Ibiza in the evening and witnessed a beautiful view of sunset from the ferry. There are ferries between Ibiza and Formentera every 15-20 minutes and one can buy open tickets (to and fro) which can be used any time within a year! There are quite a few hotels in Formentera if one decides to stay and spend more time there.




DAY #3 : It’s party time with world’s renowned DJ, “Martin Garrix”

26/Sep: Today the plan was to hire a boat “without a captain” and drive around Ibiza coast during the day time. Yes, we can rent a boat for half or full day (4hrs/8hrs) and drive it without a having a captain on board. However, this is applicable only for small boats with less than 15bhp power. Also, a license is not required for driving such boats. But today the lady luck was not on our side. All boat rentals were cancelled for the entire week due to the high tides.
Hence we decided to explore the Ibiza island and beaches during the day time. In the evening, we had booked tickets for DJ party with DJ Martin Garrix at Ushuaia hotel. Both my wife and I like DJ music and we were looking forward to this event, one of the highlight event in the party town of Ibiza.
During the day we visited few beaches in the northern part of Ibiza (San Antonio). The below video shows a glimpse of the turquoise waters of “Cala Salada”.

https://youtu.be/q_6uZ6vv2HI

By late afternoon we returned back to the hotel and got ready for the most awaited DJ party. The DJ party venue “Ushuaia” was walkable distance from our hotel and the timings were from 5pm to 11pm.

During the summer season, world’s top DJs perform every week at various venues of Ibiza. At Ushuaia, each day of the week is blocked by one of the top DJs (the list includes David Guetta, Martin Garrix, Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, Calvin Harris, Black Coffee, ANTS, etc.).

Since summer is ending, ours was a week of “Closing Parties” and large crowds were expected this week. We reached the venue on time and by then the crowd had already started gathering. The first two hours of the event was an opening act hosted by a budding artist. The opening act was then followed by an amazing set by Martin Garrix. The other point worth mentioning is that we cannot carry any items (including water bottles) inside these party venues. The prices of the refreshments were quite exorbitant (starting at €17-20 for 300ml water) and once the party starts it is impossible go to these vending counters and bring anything to your place due to heavy crowd.

By 6pm, the venue was house-full, the party had caught up full momentum and whole crowd was dancing to the rhythm. Martin made an entry at 9pm and the energy level of the crowd suddenly went multifold. Let the below video explain the scene further.

https://youtu.be/adYnG5kT76U

It was our first participation in such a large event and we enjoyed the ambience, the music played and the quality of sound/lighting systems. By the time we reached the hotel, it was mid-night and DJ beats were still ringing in our ears.

DAY #4 : Wife’s birthday celebration and an additional dose of DJ PARTY!

The agenda for the day was to explore Ibiza town, do some shopping and celebrate wife’s birthday in the evening. However, when we reached the hotel lobby after breakfast, our agenda got amended with another exciting item. While we were enquiring at the hotel travel desk about the places to visit in Ibiza, he told us that there are few tickets available for “DJ David Guetta” party tonight. After the previous exciting night with Martin Garrix, we were up for more and nothing could have been better than DJ David Guetta. It was a perfect gift I could give to my wife on her birthday. Within seconds, we bought the tickets and were off to city tour with a big smile on our face.

Spent the day exploring the old city, shopping at hippie market and enjoyed the authentic Spanish Sangria. In the evening we had planned to go to San Antonio and have dinner at most popular beach-side restaurant called “Mumbo Café”, while watching the sun set. When we reached the restaurant, it was quite crowded and there was a long queue to enter the restaurant. Since we didn’t have prior booking the wait was long. Fortunately, one of the managers came to us and said that there is a table available for 2, but at extra cost. I found this a good deal as I could celebrate wife’s birthday in a restaurant of her wish.

The ambience at the restaurant was very good along with nice food, beverages and service. They also arranged a small cake (Cheesecake) for cutting. We enjoyed the evening while watching the sunset. Surely, that is one happening place in San Antoni!







By 8pm, we finished dinner and returned back to our hotel. We had an exciting DJ night awaiting us. The party timing was from 11pm till 5am and this time we decide to go late at around 1am, so that we can have some sleep at the hotel and be there at the venue just before DJ David Guetta enters the party.

The DJ party was at “Hi Ibiza”, which is right opposite to Ushuaia. We reached there by walk at 1am and as we entered the hall, it was completely packed with people swinging to the DJ tunes. The DJ’s platform at Ushuaia was elevated 30 feet so that everyone can have a good view. Hence we were able to enjoy Martin Garrix party from a distance. However, here the stage was at ground level and we could hardly see the DJ from even 30 feet distance. My wife wanted to have a close view of David Guetta and hence she pulled me in and started to squeeze through the crowd towards the stage, slowly and steadily. Within 20 minutes, we managed to reach the front of the hall and there were just 10 rows of people ahead of us and we could get a good view of the stage. DJ Guetta entered at around 2am and suddenly the sound levels and the energy doubled in the hall. We could literally feel the beats from the massive woofers in our stomach. After a few minutes, we saw that many people were going out to buy stuff and that created an opportunity for to squeeze further, as and when they left their space. In no time, we were able to reach the front row and it was an unbelievable experience to see David Guetta right in front of us, with just a DJ table separating us!

Next 3 hours were full of action and DJ Guetta entertained the crowd to the ultra max level . I could not have asked for any better way to celebrate wife’s birthday.

https://youtu.be/G8wfzNM49FY

DAY #5 : The next phase of our trip begins, in style

In the morning, we returned our rental car at the Ibiza airport and had some more Spanish Sangria before boarding the flight back to Munich. I was excited and really looking forward to the BMW Z4 that awaited for us at Munich. At the same time I was a bit nervous, as I would be driving in Europe for the first time (Driving in Ibiza was cool as it is a small place with not much traffic and roads have low speed limits).

When I reached the Sixt counter at Munich airport, I was up for a shock. The guy at the Sixt rental counter told me that the BMW Z4 M40 model is not available as it is damaged by the guy who rented it last and it needs repair. That was quite a bit of disappointment for me. He started offering me other models but were mainly sedans. Upon a lot of push and negotiation he agreed for an upgrade and here is what I got.






He offered me the only BMW 850i that he had in their collection, almost a brand new car with less than 10K kms on it. Initially I felt that would be too big to drive in narrow roads of EU, but since it is an 8 series convertible, I agreed to go with it. When I went to pick up the vehicle in the parking lot, I saw the damaged BMW Z4 parked next to the 850i. When I saw the boot of the Z4, I could make out that it would not have accommodated our entire luggage. In a way 850i was a blessing in disguise as it had better boot space and also had a narrow 2nd row seat where we can keep the luggage. As I started driving this beast out of the narrow parking lot, I hardly could judge the edges of the car. Luckily, the 360 degree cameras on the car came to the rescue and soon I felt comfortable with the corners. While I missed the small sporty Z4 model, the 850i was quite a responsive beast with 550+ torque.
Our destination for the night stay was hotel Hey Lou in Piding, which is a small town before the Austrian border. By the time the car pick drama ended at the airport, we were quite hungry and wanted have some good desi food. We found “Rama Restaurant”, an India restaurant about 15 kms from airport on our way to Piding. After finishing a good dinner there, we drove down on the autobahn towards Piding.

Since I was getting used to the traffic signs and the new vehicle, I did not speed much on the autobahn. Reached the hotel late night and hit the bed.

[VIJMAC]

DAY #6 : Wander in the fairytale towns, Cruising through the highest mountain pass in Austria.

The hotel room at Hey Lou was nice & cozy and they offered a decent breakfast in the morning. Our next stop was Hallstatt in Austria, the picturesque town on the lake side. After a short drive from the hotel we reached the Austria border and saw a small counter on the roadside with “Vignette” sign board. I went in there and bought the Austrian Vignette which is a sticker that you stick on your windshield, similar to Fastag. However you don’t need to recharge it, but pay one-time fees of €11.5 and can drive on any highway. After about 90 mins of drive we reached the beautiful town of Hallstatt. We parked our car in one of the 4 well-guided parking lots in town entrance and walked towards the town. Hallstatt is a small town, known for historic salt mines and is very beautiful. On that day, it was quite cloudy and rained a bit too. I am sure the views would have been beautiful multifold on a bright sunny day. Nevertheless we took a walk around the town, had a Cream roll and Apple cinnamon roll in a roadside shop which was crowded and seemed to be quite famous. Here’s my drone shot in a cloudy weather.

https://youtu.be/Z_z-7MeUZjw

Our next stop was a small town called Gosau, which was just 20 mins drive from Hallstatt. Gosau is a fairytale town in the middle of Alps mountains. When we visited this small town, there was a wedding going on and people from the whole town had gathered around the church wearing their traditional dress. That created some lively ambience in the town, which otherwise is a very quiet laid-back one. You can even hear the cowbells for far distance in the town.





One of the most popular tourist attraction nearby is the Gosausee, a stunning alpine lake surrounded by the majestic Dachstein Mountains. As we approached the parking lot near the lake we saw a huge crowd around and hence decided to skip it. We had a much exciting thing waiting for us ahead… i.e., driving through the Grossglockner High Alpine pass!

Grossglockner pass is a private road about 50 kms long and has 36 hairpin bends. We need to pay a toll at the entrance and has time restrictions for entry and exit. After paying the toll, I was ready with my beast to climb the mountain. I changed the drive mode to “Sports+” & manual mode and the BMW was roaring and pumping my adrenaline rush further. It was late afternoon and there was very less traffic on the pass. I enjoyed manoeuvring the car on those hairpin bends and in fact abused the car quite a bit. By the time I reached the top of the mountain the engine had heated up and I had to stop the vehicle for some time to cool-off, while we both enjoyed the beauty of the mountains and the sunset. It was getting late and we had to cross the pass before the closing time. Hence, I could not take out my drone for the shoot and had to be satisfied with my mobile pics only.

Here are some pics of the car on the mountain pass. Later in the blog, I will be posting a video that captures the car in detail and the GoPro shoot of the drive through the passes.




Our destination for the night stay was a hotel in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, about 3 hours drive. By the time we reached the hotel, restaurant was about to close. Since our booking had dinner included in it, the receptionist suggest us to have dinner first and then finish the check-in. Since we are vegetarian there was not much choice for us on the menu. The restaurant however offered us some custom-made options (a soup, a main course dish and a dessert) which was quite nice. Thinking of the next day’s exciting event, we were off to bed.

DAY #7 : Dolomites, Italy Calling…

Today the agenda was to visit Tre Cime de Lavaredo (meaning, The Three Peaks) in the dolomites mountains. The main attraction here is the hiking trail (about 10kms long) around these 3 mountains which takes about 4 hours to cover. Nearby there is a less-explored and beautiful place called “Cadini di Misurina view point”, which we wanted to visit first before hiking around the three peaks. The hike around the 3 peaks starts at a place a called Rifugio Auronzo and there are many ways to reach there: Driving your car, using public transport bus or hiking 20+kms from the town below. We of course chose to drive our car to save time and energy. Being a UNESCO world heritage site, it attracts a lot of crowd and there are limited parking spaces available at Rifugio Auronzo. Hence we finished our breakfast early and started from hotel by 07:30am. We reached the parking lot in 30 minutes and by then there were many cars already. From the parking area, most of the people were heading towards the 3 peaks hiking trail. We had to take a diversion and go in the opposite direction to reach Cadini di Misurina view point. The hike is about 1 hour one-way and of medium difficulty. The hiking route provides spectacular view of the 3 peaks on one side and huge mountains and cliffs on the other side. The temperature there was about 6-8°C, which was quite pleasant for such a hike.

The views are spectacular from the Cadini view point and one cannot describe them in words. Hence I deployed my drone to capture and tell you the story. Here it is:

https://youtu.be/IkRDGAfKpno

By the time we finished the Cadini view point hike and all the photo/drone shoots, we were quite tired and decided to skip the hike around the 3 peaks. In fact we had a very good view of the 3 peaks from the hiking trail we followed.

We had yet another hike on our agenda for the afternoon and hence we headed back towards the parking area. The other hike we wanted to do was at a place called “Seceda”, which is another spectacular mountain in Dolomites. We need to drive (about 2.5 hours) to a place called “Ortisei” and take a gondola to reach Seceda. We had seen a fascinating video of the ridgeline of Seceda on internet and we were excited to experience the hike there. However while we were on the way to Ortisei, the weather started getting cloudy. We opened the webcam of Seceda online, which provided a live streaming of the 360° views there. We were disheartened to see thick clouds there with very low visibility and hence we decided to cancel the Seceda visit. Please note that there are webcams with live streaming at most of the mountain hiking and tourist locations, which are very helpful in planning the visits.

Here is an internet picture of Seceda for your reference.


With a bit of disappointment, we drove west towards Switzerland border to unleash our next day’s excitement. For the night, we stayed in a hotel before entering into Switzerland.

DAY #8 : I love driving on the epic mountain passes of Alpine

For a person who loves driving so much, how can I be satisfied with just the Grossglockner pass?

Yes, there was more on the itinerary today. We had Stelvio pass in Italy (near Swiss border) and Furka, Grimsel and Susten passes in Switzerland, on our driving list.

As usual, we finished a heavy breakfast in the hotel and zoomed towards the Stelvio pass with full excitement. The drive through the pass was fun as there was less traffic. However the road is quite narrow and takes good skill to navigate, especially when you come across a large vehicle in the opposite direction. There was road repair happening at few places and I came across 7-8 trucks and I had to come to stand-still on the road edge while the trucks passed me. Overall, you feel safe as the pass has a stone wall (about 2 ft high) all along the road edge. We reached the top of the mountain and stopped at a restaurant named “Tibet hut” for a break. The outside temperate there was about 3°C plus windy and we had to rush into the restaurant quickly.

The restaurant is built in a round shape on the edge of the cliff and provides a very good panoramic view of the pass. We had some hot chocolate drink and I went out for a drone shoot, while wifey had photo shoot of the pass from the restaurant window.

https://youtu.be/sWcvMOCC0sI

After we got satisfied with the views of the pass and the mountains around, we began our journey towards Furka pass in Switzerland. We saw several picturesque villages at the foothill all along the drive, each one looked self-sufficient with all amenities and a church which is prominently visible in each village.




The drive till Furka pass took us around 5 hours with a couple of breaks. When we reached the Furka pass, the weather was very cloudy and it started raining after some time. While BMW was in Sports+ mode, I had to really control my adrenaline rush and drive slowly on the pass. Soon we reached the iconic spot of the Furka pass, i.e., Hotel Belvedere, which is famous for featuring in James bond movie Goldfinger. While it was drizzling, we stopped for a while and had some photoshoot. Drone shooting was ruled out at all the Swiss passes due to the rain .



Continuation on Furka pass took us to the Grimsel pass. We had to take a diversion from our route to reach Susten pass. Drive through Grimsel and Susten passes was not that eventful due to the bad weather. We carefully drove through these passes, without getting adventurous, as it was getting dark also.

Our destination for the night was Lauterbrunnen in Switzerland, a beautiful and popular valley town near Interlaken, famous for its spectacular views of several cliffs, waterfalls and trekking routes. We checked into Hotel Schützen, which is at a beautiful location with one of the famous waterfalls (Staubbach Falls) just beside it. Here are some pics around the hotel at Lauterbrunnen.






As we hit the bed, we had butterflies in our stomach, thinking of the next day’s event, which was the highlight of our tour.

DAY #9 : Once in a Lifetime experience : Hanging at the edge of a cliff 1500 feet high!

Today was the D-day of our trip, a day we have been anxiously waiting for, with lots of excitement and nervousness at the same time.

As you would have noticed by now, we are not a couple who would look for relaxation during the vacation. We always want to create moments that would last long in our memories and we take a path less explored. While deciding the places to visit in Europe, we came across a blog, where a person had posted his picture of hanging at the cliff edge miles above the ground. When I showed it to my wife, her immediate reaction was, “LET’S DO THIS”. After further research we came to know about “Via Ferrata”, the guided trekking routes popular in alps mountains, where you trek along a difficult and dangerous path with iron ropes as the support. We did further research about the Via Ferrata route in Murren, saw several YouTube videos and decided that “We are going to do it”.

Some details about the Via Ferrata at Murren: This Via Ferrata starts at a place called Murren, a small village on top of the Lauterbrunnen valley and ends at a place called Gimmelwald. The trek duration is 3 to 4 hours and is rated as K3 (Difficulty level: 1 is lowest and 6 is highest). The trek is not very difficult since you go down-hill and descend about 300m in elevation), but the views are highly scary and definitely not for the weak hearted.

While Via Ferrata route is free for anyone to access, we need to have our own Via Ferrata kit or rent it at “InterSport”, a sports shop at Murren, very close to the starting point of the Via Ferrata. We had done the online booking for the Via Ferrata kit (which includes a helmet, harness, two carabiners and a lanyard) in advance. Also, since this was our first time, we had a booked a guide as well.

In the morning our Via Ferrata was supposed to start at 9am, but we received a call from our guide saying that it is cancelled due to bad weather and they don’t take chances in such rainy conditions. Hearing this our dreams were shattered. We both were visibly upset and started thinking of alternate places to visit. However, few minutes later he called back saying the weather in the afternoon is predicted to be good and they are thinking of adding another batch at 2pm where he can accommodate us. We were filled with joy and immediately accepted the offer.

With a big smile on our face, we thought of exploring nearby places in the morning and then head out to Murren by 1pm. We had a walk around the beautiful small town of Lauterbrunnen, saw the Staubbach Falls from close distance and finished our photo & drone sessions. However, there was one thing that was bugging us all the time. While the guide had told us about the good weather by afternoon, we were not sure about his prediction. There were thick clouds and it was drizzling continuously. Around 1pm we started from our hotel and reached Murren by 1:30pm (taking a gondola to Grutschalp + train from there to Murren). When we reached Murren, we had very low visibility due to thick fog and could hardly see the valley below. In such a condition it was no fun doing the Via Ferrata, as you won’t be able to see the valley below and whole “fear” element would be missing.

But the next few minutes were miraculous. The foggy weather cleared off so fast and hats-off to the Swiss for such an accurate weather prediction. We rushed to the InterSports shop where our guide was waiting for us. After a brief session on safety and other instructions, we wore our gear and were ready for the Via Ferrata.



While I had taken multiple mounting accessories for my GoPro, I decided to shoot the trek by holding GoPro and Mobile in one hand (of course, I had safety harness for both of them) so that I can get a better view for the shoot. This worked out to be very tiring for me, as I had to do the whole Via Ferrata pretty much with one hand.

I cannot describe the Via Ferrata experience in words. Hence I will let the below videos do that, please see the videos in full screen to feel the experience. Segment #1 and segment #5 are the most scary and difficult ones. Please don't miss it!

https://youtu.be/JVCQk1DJebs

https://youtu.be/SNATmXWLSWM

The experience of the 4 hours trek is carved in our memory forever. This is the most adventurous thing we have done so far. We were so happy that we found this exciting trek and added it on our itinerary. We were also very happy that we could do this difficult trek at this age without any fear and tiredness.

We returned to hotel in the evening, had bath and took some rest. We went to dinner in a nearby restaurant and had a local beverage and Fondue, a local Swiss dish made of cheese and wine and eaten with bread & potato pieces.



After a tasty meal, we went to sleep with a great sense of accomplishment and satisfaction.

DAY #10 : We don’t feel like going back

With a heavy-heart we said good bye to Lauterbrunnen-Murren and started our drive towards Munich, Germany. It was an 8-hour drive with multiple stops for food and to view scenic spots. We drove past Interlaken and stopped on the way to see the turquoise Lake Brienz. The route to Munich took us through several underground tunnels and many of them were more than a kilometer long. The ADAS system on my BMW ensured a smooth and easy drive back to Munich. Of course, upon entering the German Autobahn, I could not control myself and drove up to a max of 230 kms/hour, which I think is quite safe to do on a BMW 8 series.

We stayed in a hotel in Munich city close to the Oktoberfest venue as Oktoberfest was on our agenda for the next day.

DAY #11 : One last celebration before we end this tour

The tiredness from our previous adventures was showing up today in the form of tight muscles. We got up with great reluctance and finished breakfast. Since wife wanted to do some shopping, which she deserved after these tiring days, we went to a nearby mall. Finished shopping, had some waffles & gelato and returned back to the hotel. After resting for sometime we went to Theresienwiese, the venue for Oktoberfest. It was quite crowded due the fact that the festival was ending that week. Enjoyed the energetic atmosphere, the music and mingling with friendly people around. After spending couple of hours, we went back to the hotel.


DAY #12 : All good things come to an end!

They say, all good things come to end, and so did our 25th anniversary tour.
We returned our car reluctantly at the airport (because wifey wanted to bring it to India along ) and boarded the Lufthansa Munich-Bangalore flight. Both of us could not sleep much, the great memories of the past 10 days kept us awake for most part of the flight.

Thus, we ended our vacation, with a hope and determination that next one should be a level up.

Bye for now!

[KarthikK]

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[SithDefender]

Originally Posted by VIJMAC

I designed a logo for our 25th anniversary celebration, using my power-point skills and got it printed on T-shirts in a nearby shop.

Fantastic travelogue - the t-shirts were a great idea !!

By the way, was there any reason to skip France ? It was literally between Spain & Germany/Austria/Italy right? Or have you been there earlier ?

[VIJMAC]

Originally Posted by SithDefender

Fantastic travelogue - the t-shirts were a great idea !!

Thanks SithDefender!
It was a last minute idea and worked out well.

By the way, was there any reason to skip France ? It was literally between Spain & Germany/Austria/Italy right? Or have you been there earlier ?

Yes, we have been to France few years back.
This time we wanted to stay away from large cities and explore nature and have some adventure.The Via ferrata was our once in a life time experience

[AudiFan]

Fabulous travelogue, wish we can do a fraction of what you did on your ADVENTOUR. Stay blessed, stay happy!!!. Cheers.

[VIJMAC]

Originally Posted by AudiFan

Fabulous travelogue, wish we can do a fraction of what you did on your ADVENTOUR. Stay blessed, stay happy!!!. Cheers.

Thanks AudiFan.
You used a right word, Adventour. That describes our trip well.

[1.2GT3GT]

Originally Posted by VIJMAC

He offered me the only BMW 850i that he had in their collection, almost a brand new car with less than 10K kms on it.

While I missed the small sporty Z4 model, the 850i was quite a responsive beast with 550+ torque.

Nice to read about your drive on those great roads. Do you have a log of how many kilometres you drove the 850i in total and how many litres of petrol you would have filled? Did you fill Super 95 or Super 98 petrol? Thank you.

[DevendraG]

You are an inspiration! The travel and travelogue are both amazing! I’m guessing you’ve had past experiences of driving in Europe.

Wish you both a Happy Anniversary in advance! Cheers, God bless

[VIJMAC]

Originally Posted by 1.2GT3GT

Nice to read about your drive on those great roads. Do you have a log of how many kilometres you drove the 850i in total and how many litres of petrol you would have filled? Did you fill Super 95 or Super 98 petrol? Thank you.

Yes. it was fun driving on these passes. Due to rain, Swiss passes were wet and I was sober in driving on these.

I drove about 1790 kms and filled 200 liters of Super 95.

Originally Posted by DevendraG

You are an inspiration! The travel and travelogue are both amazing! I’m guessing you’ve had past experiences of driving in Europe.

Wish you both a Happy Anniversary in advance! Cheers, God bless

Thanks Devendra!
Actually this was my first driving experience in Europe. While I had driven in USA about 15 years back, I never drove in EU countries. I was initially worried when I made a plan to drive through these countries. But since I was not going to any big cities, I got more confidence.

[vb-saan]

Awesome travelogue VIJMAC, thank you for sharing!

I visited Lauterbrunnen in July, and the place indeed is truly magical. And kudos for attempting the Via Ferrata

[1.2GT3GT]

Originally Posted by VIJMAC

Yes. it was fun driving on these passes. Due to rain, Swiss passes were wet and I was sober in driving on these.

I drove about 1790 kms and filled 200 liters of Super 95.

Thank you, appreciate your response. The fuel consumption seems to be quite reasonable for a 500+ HP V8 and that too such a heavy car as the 850i (and even heavier considering yours was a convertible).

[VIJMAC]

Originally Posted by 1.2GT3GT

Thank you, appreciate your response. The fuel consumption seems to be quite reasonable for a 500+ HP V8 and that too such a heavy car as the 850i (and even heavier considering yours was a convertible).

Yes, new BMWs are quite good on fuel efficiency. I drove in Sports+ mode only in 2 passes, rest I was on comfort mode. Hence got good mileage

[streetfighter]

Oh boy... what a travelogue... truly inspiring. Kudos to you for getting out of your comfort zone in foreign countries and being truly adventurous with the climbs and drives. Hats off

[VIJMAC]

Originally Posted by streetfighter

Oh boy... what a travelogue... truly inspiring. Kudos to you for getting out of your comfort zone in foreign countries and being truly adventurous with the climbs and drives. Hats off

Thanks streetfighter.
Our last adventure was 14 days-6000kms trip on a 15 year old Scorpio to MH and GJ during 2024 new year.
This tour was a notch above on adventure because of the Via Ferrata.