Travel & parking through Black Forest/Bavaria

When you stay in a town in the Black Forest, they charge you a tourist tax (Kurtax). With the Kurtax you get a Konuskarte, which is valid for unlimited travel by regional trains and buses throughout the Black Forest. In 2008 I stayed in Bad Herrenalb. The first day, I went by bus to Baden-Baden. The next day I took the bus and train to Calw, a quaint town of Fachwerk buildings that was the home of Herrman Hesse. For all this travel I paid Nichts, nada, nothing. Renting a car in the Black Forest is throwing away money. What's driving like in Germany? Nothing special. A bit faster when you're not slowed to a crawl. I rode with my company's country manager from Offenburg to Zweibrücken, 320 km (200 mi) in 2 hours. It was bumper-to-bumper traffic at 100 mph. Really not much different than driving from Denver to Colorado Springs on a Sunday afternoon. (Yawn)

"What's driving like in Germany." My personal experience (YMMV) is that Germany is the easiest place in Europe to drive. Unlike Italy, Germany actually has road signs that tell you where things are!! However, if driving on the open road of the Autobahn (after you get past traffic and congestion), there are some safety-related differences between driving there and driving on expressways here in N. America. The last 2 pages of this report from Gemut.com http://www.gemut.com/Carrentalspecialreport7.pdf describes these differences. As Gemut says, the major danger to N. American drivers is the huge difference in speed between lanes on the Autobahn, compared to here. Best to stay in the right lane, except to pass, and to check the left lane very carefully before changing lanes. Pages 15 & 16 of the report go into important details on Autobahn driving.

Your autobahn experience driving in Germany will largely depend on how heavy traffic is. Around Frankfurt and extending south to the Stuttgart and Karlruhe areas, traffic is usually awful. Expect lots of back-ups and an insane amount of road construction that never seems to make any progress towards completion. Away from Munich in Bavaria, though, traffic isn't nearly as bad. Once you familiarize yourself with the different road signs, though, driving on secondary roads is pretty easy. I find that with the exception of finding houses on residential streets, I never need a GPS to find anything. In fact, I find it's easier to take a wrong turn with a GPS than by just following the road signs. The signs will point you in the direction of almost anything you want to find, from towns, businesses, museums, historical sites, hotels, restaurants, train stations, public parking (including telling you how many spaces are still available) churches, etc. And finally- unless there's a specific town you want to visit on the Romantic Road, there's no reason to drive it. It isn't any more scenic than any other secondary road in Bavaria. I have a similar opinion about the Black Forrest (you'll drive by the equally scenic but much less touristy Odenwald, Pfalzerwald, Schwabische Alb and Taunus mountains), but that's enough from me for now.