South about three hours on the autobahn to Reutte, Austria. Don is slowly getting accustomed to autobahn-style driving. The problem is not just the high speed traffic but the mix with the low speed traffic: trucks, etc.
We didn't know what to expect at the border crossing. What we encountered was - nothing. We couldn't tell when we crossed into Austria. We later learned a subtle way to tell though.
We found Hotel Das Beck in Reutte with only the usual amount of confusion (not much) and were now comfortable with stopping temporarily on the "sidewalk" while Marty went in to ask about parking. In this case there was a lot right in the back. As you can see in the middle picture, right below our balcony. If you ignored the parking lot, the view from our balcony was rather picturesque, with the grazing herd of sheep and mountains in the background.
Being still in the middle of the day when we arrived, we asked the concierge about a lunching place. She recommended a place ten-minutes-walk distant and gave us directions. Well - maybe ten German minuten. Anyhow after about twenty minutes of walking in the hot sun we finally found it, entered and asked about mittagessen. When we got a bit of a strange look from the hostess, Don thought it was his Deutsch that was the problem. But no, the hostess then said in quite acceptable English that she would have to ask the kitchen. That's when we looked at our watches and realized we may have crossed in the midday break interval which is common in European restaurants. And indeed we had. We were turned away with an apology. Needless to say we were not happy with our concierge. So, we hiked back and found a place near the hotel!
Strolling around found us some more charming sights. Here is a rather plain fountain in front of a house with elaborately painted decoration. This is not a tourist business, just a local suite of offices.
The next day was to be our tour of the famous castles, Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein. We were advised to buy the admission tickets early and as a combination, so drove the ten miles from Reutte to the ticket office (this is a world famous attraction here). Along the way we noticed that the filling stations were very crowded and wondered why. We were getting a little low but didn't want to fight the crowd. When we got back we asked the hotel concierge and she told us that gas in Austria was cheaper than in Germany because of lower taxes (of course) and the Germans would come over on weekends to fill up.
We filled up the next day with no problem and also bought our vignette, a windshield sticker that legalizes driving on the Austrian autobahn. The pictures below are at and around the castle area.
And finally a postcard view of an Alpine lake on our way from Reutte to Salzburg.
