German & Austrian Alps holiday advice please

Freiburg is great – Canada trail! Big climb but worth it.

We always sleep on the seafront for the Dover ferry, always a few vans there, no dramas. Pretty sure it’s on Park4night

Some nice gravel / mellow xc riding around Niddegen.

If you dip into Austria, you might need a vignette. Not sure if it’s like the Swiss, where it’s only required for motorways

Austrian Vignette only needed for the Austrian Autobahnen.

We do need to find some walks and rides which are suitable for someone with lungs that don’t work – so uplift walks, flatter (but can be reasonably long) rides and her ebike etc

+1 for Innsbruck in that case, the Innradweg is easy going and spectacular.

Austria was the only place we cut short. Notably more expensive, and found many of the people extremely abrupt / unwelcoming

Agreed

Though we have found it better the last fifteen years…. Perhaps we’ve just been going to places with less locals…

I’m not sure that’s universally correct

We’ve met some miserable people but in general they’re all very welcoming especially if you can be arsed to learn a few words of German in advance. (Language Transfer is great for this). They know you’re a tourist

A German walking into any shop in Wycombe or Warrington or Walsall will get varying reception

Looks like it’s mostly been said but I’d repeat, just get the Hull ferry, it’s so much nicer than going to Calais if you’re from the North.

Rotterdam to Salzburg taking it easy is 11.5 hours every time.

Zell, Leogang etc is 1hr drive from Salzburg (always go via Lofer avoiding the autobahn)

Check out our little town (Maria Alm), pretty, nice walks, restaurants etc, 15 minutes from Leogang.

I’ll be there on and off from late August to October if you want to hook up for a ride.

Austria was the only place we cut short. Notably more expensive, and found many of the people extremely abrupt / unwelcoming

Agreed.

Years spent living on/near the Austrian border has confirmed this.

Just go to South Tyrol. Better coffee. Better food. Better prices. Nicer people.

Re: prices

I find Germany slightly cheaper than Austria. On average it’s still cheaper than here. Large beer €5, a pint in London is at least £7

You’re on holiday so don’t worry about it. Nobody goes on holiday to save money!!!!!!

if you can be arsed to learn a few words of German in advance. (Language Transfer is great for this). They know you’re a tourist

Thanks, I’ll let my pretty much trilingual kids know that, and my German wife of course 😉

Fair enough my German isn’t perfekt by any means, but I do generally win the YouTalkEnhlishAndIllSpeakGermanUntilOneOfUsConcedesAndSwitchesBackToOurMotherTongue encounters in Teuto countries if not in Franco ones. So I don’t think the issue is language

a couple of mates and myself drove to Austria several years ago for a hiking holiday, well quite a while now tbh in 2015. We stayed in St. Johan in Tirol, here…

https://www.kitzbueheler-alpen.com/en/stjo/st-johann-in-tirol.html

We took the Dover/Calais ferry and drove down through Germany via Holland. We had a night out in Cologne and a night out in Rosenheim on the way, great fun. The Autobahns Germany were very busy though, we got stuck in heavy traffic quite a lot if I recall, it was October.

The hiking where we were was great, supberb, and the beer, and the people were very friendly as well.

All depends if you count “Austrian” as German…. We had a few guided days MTB around Au in Bregenzerwald. There were some German couples in the group who turned to us at one point and asked if we could understand what the Austrian guide was saying as they were struggling and couldn’t imagine how we had a clue 🙂

In general the only slightly unfriendly people have been where I was naughtily riding a bit of singletrack in the back of beyond on a deserted Monday morning.

Despite being stopped by the German police on the autobahn, we weren’t pulled up on the emission sticker. It was the lack of driving licence that they didn’t like.

Belgium i.e. Ghent ones you can do online, at the time, but do need a copy of you v5. I sent them a picture of Mathieu van poel cos I didn’t have my v5 (can you see a theme here?) seemed to work.

… So take yer v5 , take yer licence and don’t listen to my advice.

Noted 😉

https://www.theaa.com/european-breakdown-cover/driving-in-europe/country-by-country

The language issues above are not that different to here. I’d imagine someone from deepest rural Devon would struggle to cope with a broad Geordie or Glaswegian accent … Belfast or Derry would be impenetrable for many.