Made it to Munich

We've just arrived from Cologne and the Micra actually survived another 600km, despite 2 hours of bumper to bumper transmission abuse on the motorway. It's fine when we're cruising along but coming to a stop is a nerve racking clunk and grind as it down shifts. Anyone's guess how many more of those it takes to kill it.

I've been dreaming of driving the autobahn longer than I've even been driving, and in none of those daydreams was I putting along in the slow lane at 100km/h in a car on its last breath. It was pretty intense timing when to pass a lorry without impeding a high end sports car doing 200. I guess I can't cross everything off my bucket list this time around. I'll be renting a Porsche on my next trip down the autobahn.

Cologne was not on our short list of must visits but it was conveniently located on our way and made sense to stop. I'm really glad we did. Our campground was only 7km and a short tram ride from the centre of the city, with it's amazing cathedral and numerous brewpubs. The Rhein river ran past our campground and through the city, and was just beautiful, countless sandy beaches and treed areas perfect for an evening beer and sunset.

I hadn't expected to skate much, but did bring my board and Cologne happened to have probably the best skate plaza I've ever seen right on the river which was a nice surprise and some well needed time on the board.

We met a couple of very entertaining Germans at our campground last night. They were in their 40s and celebrating their anniversary with a weekend in Cologne and a lot of wine. They insisted we drink with them and enjoy an evening of broken English, local knowledge and palm reading. It was memorable to say the least, but they were both great and it was awesome to socialise with some locals.

I picked a metro station arbitrarily outside of Munich to park the car and head into the city to our hostel which worked out great. Free parking right outside and avoided all traffic. Now we've got a couple days to see what Munich has to offer.

Oh, and if anyone isn't sick of our photos we've both been using instagram a bit if you're on there and wanna search our names.

-Justin