Hotels, B&Bs, Homestays, Pensions, Guest Houses and Other Temporary Abodes

For the past 2+  months since we left our home in North Carolina, we have been living out of a suitcase in a variety of different types of temporary abodes. Tomorrow, we move into a house that will be our home for the next 8 months (if all goes according to plan). No more lugging around a year's supply of clothes. Therefore, this seems like a good time to reflect on the advantages and disadvantages of the different types of temporary housing that we've utilized.

During our travels in Europe we stayed in hotels, guest houses, pensions, apartments, homestays, and one agriturismo.  These lodgings were located in England, France, Germany, Austria and Italy.  We spent the night (but did not always sleep through the night) in large cities, small villages and rural locations. Because we are on a budget, price was always a factor in our choice of where to stay.  Our choices are also limited by the fact that there are three of us. In contrast to the U.S., the typical European guest room does not accommodate three people so it was not always easy to find a location with one room for three people, or even two adjoining rooms.

In general, we did not stay in five-star hotels, although we did stay at one five-star hotel - the Graf Zeppelin in Stuttgart - but somebody else was paying for it. The Graf Zeppelin earned its five-star ranking, but that category of lodging was not realistic most of the time.  Here is what we learned from staying in various other types of accommodations:

1.  The best places - We can't agree on our favorite loding.  Bronwyn enjoyed the places where we had the most interaction with the owners, probably because she is the most fluent in other languages. Bronwyn also preferred urban locations. Joan (our daughter) preferred locations that had good internet access. I preferred the rural locations where it was easy to go hiking or cycling, or take a train to the nearest city.  As a bonus, in rural locations it was easy to find a place to park the car.

2.  Generalizations about different cultures - Customer service does not seem to be a high priority in France. German and Austrian lodgings were invariably clean, usually efficient and generally somewhat spartan. Italian lodgings had the friendliest owners and staff.  Although we stayed at several locations where they claimed that we were the first Americans to visit, a rural Austrian pension was the only place we stayed where nobody spoke any English. However, at all locations it worked best to make a sincere effort to speak the native tongue.

Homestay near London

3.  Homestays are the biggest crap shoot. We had the most awkward moments at homestays because the rules and space boundaries are unclear. However, we also got to know some very nice people who provided us with a glimpse of normal life in their country. To avoid disappointment, don't take anything for granted with a homestay. Assume that you will be given an extra room in the attic with no air conditioning, minimal ventilation and a shared bathroom that requires contortions to use. In general, we found that the homestay pictures were the most misleading. Home stays work best if you speak the same language as the hosts because it allows you to maximize the opportunities for discussion with a native and the resulting cultural exchange.  On the other hand, the homestays tended to be the least expensive and in some cases allowed us to fix some of our meals ourselves rather than going to a restaurant for every meal. One homestay owner also allowed us to use their bicycles.  Because most homestays are just a way for the owner to earn a little extra money, their primary focus is not helping guests and they might fail to understand what American guests consider normal.

Ca'Orologio Agritorismo in Baone, Italy

4.  An agriturismo can be great if don't  mind being in a rural location. We only stayed at one agriturismo (in Baone, Italy) on this trip, but Bronwyn and I thought it was fantastic.  The price was reasonable, they had bicycles that we could borrow, they allowed us to sample their own wines every evening, and they went out of their way to try to be helpful. They even had an above-ground pool for kids. Although it was hot, they tried to make our room as comfortable as possible by placing a portable AC unit in our room. On other trips, we have stayed at other agriturismo type places (in Australia and France) and we've always had a good experience. The only question is why we didn't stay at more agriturismo places on this trip.

5.  Guest Houses and Pensions - The line between a guest house and a pension is blurry.  Many of the places we stayed claimed to be both.  In general, pensions were very economical and offered plans that allowed you to receive one, two or three meals as part of the room rate.  "Bed & Breakfast" is not a term that seems to be commonly used in Europe. However, at least one of the guest houses that we stayed at in Germany probably would be described by most Americans as either a B&B or a very small inn. They served a great breakfast and it was small enough that the owners spent a lot of time sitting and talking with us.  Unlike a homestay, the owners of guest houses and pensions were in the business of running lodging establishment and seemed to try to be as accommodating as possible.

6.  Hotels - Most hotels in Europe seem to actively advertise whether they are a three-star hotel, four-star hotel or a five-star hotel.  In our experience their advertising was accurate. Since three-star hotels are what fit our budget, we stayed at a couple of them.  In general, the rooms were very small, the bathrooms minuscule, the beds uncomfortable, air conditioning was not an option, and they were located in marginal areas, but the staff were very helpful.  One of our least favorite lodgings of the trip was a three-star hotel that sat over a strip club (the "Candy Bar") near the train station in Munich. The hotel was clean and the staff were very helpful, but the room was hot and the neighborhood was noisy. It did have the benefit of prompting some interesting discussions with our eleven-year-old daughter.

Paris apartment

7.  Apartment rentals - We rented an apartment in Paris for a month and an apartment near the French Alps for ten days. In both cases, the landlords went out of their way to be helpful to us, but it is our understanding that many people who rent apartments are not so lucky. Most of the people who had bad apartment rental experiences rented through an agency. After locating potential apartment on websites, we dealt directly with the owners, which probably helped. Both apartments were in great locations and charming, although the kitchens and plumbing seemed a little primitive at first.  If you want to do a lot of cooking, it is probably worth asking the landlord a lot of detailed questions about the kitchen. One of the apartments we rented did not have an oven and it was impossible for two people to work in either kitchen.  Dishwashers and washing machines are also something that does not seem to be standard. If you are going to be on the road for more than a week, it is really nice to have access to a washing machine from time to time.  We searched hard to find apartments that had a small (by American standards) washing machine for clothes.  Although one of the apartments also had a dryer, we found that it was easier to air dry our clothes than wait for a small non-vented European dryer to dry our clothes.

8.  Finding the perfect place - We used a variety of websites (bookings.com, airbnb.com, expedia.com, sabbaticalhomes.com, VRBO.com, vacationhomerentals.com, etc.) to find lodgings, but we never found the magic formula to consistently identify great places to spend the night. One suggestion is to use Google maps' streetview function to check out the neighborhood before making a commitment. Most of the time, we tried to stay at each location for at least three nights to avoid having to repack every day. The disadvantage of this approach is that when you end up at a place you don't like, you are stuck there for multiple days. One unexpected advantage of staying multiple nights is that sometimes a place that you didn't like at first grows on you ... but sometimes not.

In summary, over the past two months we never had a really bad lodging experience, but we had some awkward moments and we had a lot of interesting experiences. The best places had people who we will fondly remember for the rest of our lives.  My advice is that even if you can afford to stay in five-star hotels every night that you should try some different types of lodgings.  You will meet a lot more interesting people and have a lot more interesting experiences.

Headed to Angers today!

While most of our posts have been about things that we have recently done, this one is about the future.  The unknown.  The place that we will call "home" for the next eight months.

I have to admit that I am a little nervous.  We have put so much time and effort to getting to this point, and it is finally here.  Will we like Angers?  We have committed ourselves to a place that we have never been to before, in a foreign land, with 2/3 of our group not really speaking the native language.  And the other 1/3 of our group wishing she spoke better than she does!  I am starting to realize how insane this plan really is!!!

Will Joanie like school?  Will she make friends?  Will she come home crying the first day because she could not understand anything that was said to her?

While I enter into this next chapter with some trepidation, I know one thing for sure.  We will grow from this experience.  It may not be easy;  there may be tears;  there may be stressful moments.  Without all those things, one really does not grow.

I am not trying to be philosophical as I sit here at 7:00am, having slept very little after tossing and turning all night.  But whatever happens in the coming months, I need to remember one thing..... embrace everything.  

Joie de Vivre

Joie de vivre. The joy of life. The French coined the term so they ought to know something about it. Americans and others flock to Paris in search of joie de vivre, but most of them are probably disappointed. Instead of joie de vivre, most tourists merely find a bunch of sterile cathedrals and monuments. However, we've found joie de vivre in the vicinity of Pont-en-Royans - a small medieval village perched on the edge of a gorge near Grenoble in the foothills of the French Alps. 

Pont-en-Royans

"Street" leading to our apartment

It is not obvious that you would find joie de vivre here. Pont-en-Royans is a modest place with little evidence that it has ever enjoyed economic prosperity. Unlike most French towns and villages, the town has no large chateau, castle, cathedral, or other sign that it was once important or prosperous. Today, there are no construction cranes or other signs of an expanding economy. Some of the storefronts appear to have been vacant for the past 200 years. Apparently, there is not a positive correlation between material prosperity and joie de vivre.

Most of the homes in Pont-en-Royans seem to be one step up from a cave. The buildings are carved into the walls of the walls of the gorge. Sometimes the power goes out and sometimes the water supply stops. Because the streets are narrow and steep, it is a difficult walk to get to most of the houses. Life in this town is not easy, but the people here seem to have a zest for life.

Balcony of our apartment

Bedrock wall in our bathroom cave 

We are spending 10 days in Pont-en-Royans. The apartment that we rented is approximately 800 years old. The front side of our apartment is on the second floor (see picture with Bronwyn and Joan on the balcony) and the the naked bedrock of the gorge forms the rear wall of the apartment. The bathroom is basically a cave (see picture), and the plumbing appears to drain into the alley beside the apartment. We feel fortunate to have a bathroom with running water. Some of the apartments that overhang the gorge appear to have balconies with a circular hole under a room that looks like an outhouse instead of bathrooms with running water. I've also noticed the inhabitants of some of the houses come out to the street to get water from public water spigots.

You have to wonder what kind of person chooses to live in a place that seems permanently mired in the middle ages. Interestingly, many of the people we have met claim to have ended up in Pont-en-Royans by accident or marriage, ... and yet they have made the best of it. Almost everybody we have met seems to be passionate about the town, the region and their own particular niche. The owner of the small shop where we buy our groceries gave up his career in aviation to run a tiny grocery store. Each day he graciously shares his knowledge and enthusiasm for wine by helping us select the perfect five-Euro wine for each meal. A restaurant owner gave up a life of sailing and scuba diving to marry a resident of the village, but he greets each person who comes into the restaurant like a life-long friend. His food is fresh, beautiful and savory, and when he sat down with us to share his favorite champagne beer he made us feel at home.

The town even has a museum of water (Musee de L'Eau) where you can learn about threats to water and taste hundreds of different types of water. The woman who led our water tasting infected everybody with her love of water.

Palais Idéal

In a nearby town, you can visit le Palais Idéal du Facteur Cheval. It is the work of one mailman who was inspired by an unusual rock he saw while walking his postal route.  So naturally he spent the next 33 years (1879-1933) building his perfect palace. (You can see better pictures at http://www.facteurcheval.com/)

Band consisting of musicians playing a grand piano,
saxophone, alto sax, drum set, and bass
give a concert while suspended over a rocky gorge

Today, the same streak of passion, eccenticity, and ... joie de vivre that led to the construction of the Palais Idéal continues to be evident in the people of Pont-en-Royans. As an example, a saxophone player periodically serenades the town from the back seat of a motorcycle. Two nights ago a band, including one member of the band who was in a wheelchair, gave a concert while hanging over the gorge from a bridge. In the pictures you can see a grand piano, bass, upside down saxaphone player, drum set, and various others hanging from the bridge. At the end, the piano was lowered to a raft, the wheelchair with saxophone playing occupant, was placed on top of the piano, and they floated downstream while entertaining the crowd.


At the same time as the aerial concert, a mime and a tightrope walker performed overhead from a rope that dangled across the gorge. As soon as the aerial concert ended, another band started up in a small park while residents of all ages danced.

The people around here might seem a little eccentric, or even crazy, but they definitely have joie de vivre. Whatever they do, they seem to do it with passion and joy. I love it here. Forget about the fountain of youth, we all need to get infected with some of the joie de vivre that is in the water in Pont-en-Royans.

For my part, I am already dreaming up crazy schemes for what I will do when I return to the United States.  I might even pour some of the water from Pont-en-Royan into Charlotte's water supply. It has got to be better than drinking coal ash waste.

Northern Italy

After spending ten days in Bavaria and Austria, Italy is quite a shock. It is difficult to believe that Austria and Italy can be neighbors and yet be so different. Although the topography changes slowly, the architecture and the general ambiance change almost immediately when you cross the border. Can you imagine a welcome to Austria sign with miscellaneous stickers and graffiti on it, surrounded by weeds and rusted relics of an earlier era? Inconceivable! (It seems to be no accident that graffiti is an Italian word.) Driving habits also seem to change at the border. Although the signs in Italy looks the same as the signs in Austria, none of the signs (or markings on the pavement) seem to have any meaning to the Italian drivers. 

Nonetheless, northern Italy grows on you quickly, particularly the small towns. We stayed at the Ca'Orologio Agriturismo in Baone, Italy (southwest of Venice) for three nights and in a small inn in Vigevano, Italy (near Milan) for two nights. Although we visited some of the larger cities, it is the small towns that we will remember most fondly. A bell was almost always ringing in the distance, seemingly at random times, and wonderful smells wafted through the air. At first, the ringing of bells at odd times surprised us because in Austria all the bells seemed to ring at exactly the same time according to a master schedule (clock?), but in Italy every church bell seemed to be on a slightly different schedule.

The best part about the villages was that everybody seemed interested in helping and nobody seemed to be in a hurry. If we asked one person a question, usually others joined in the attempt to help us. Although I find it easier to speak German, I must confess that I love to listen to Italian. Even watching Italians speak can be entertaining. A helpful owner at a small cafe could not speak to us without gesticulating energetically, which resulted in the wine glass he was holding being launched into the air. While this might have embarrassed an Austrian, the cafe owner and his wife just laughed about it.

We particularly enjoyed a bicycle ride to a couple of nearby towns.  (Well, that might not have been exactly true for Joanie during the bike ride, but I hope that Joanie will remember the bicycle ride through the countryside fondly at some point in the future.)  This is not to say that everything went smoothly, or that there were no tense moments.

Yes, we got lost a couple of times. Yes, it was hot. Yes, the wifi was sporadic and slow. Yes, there were bugs biting us when we ate outside and when we tried to sleep with the windows open, Yes, the power was off when we woke up on the first morning, but somehow that was all part of the charm. Did I mention that the food was great and that everybody did the best to help us understand the menu?

What about the big cities? I must admit that my initial reaction to Venice was not entirely positive. We took the train into Venice and upon exiting the train station we were greeted by crowds of tourists and hordes of vendors hawking cheap souvenirs. (The vendors will not be satisfied until every tourist carries a selfie stick and has a bag of trinkets made in China.) Due to the strong dollar and strong pound, it seemed that English was more common in Venice than Italian. When Bronwyn (who loves Venice) asked me what I though of Venice as we battled our way through the t-shirt stands, pizza shops and selfie-stick vendors, I told her that my initial reaction was that Italians must view Venice as the Atlantic City of Italy. I don't think that is the response she was hoping for. However, my tune changed as the day progressed.

Despite the decaying buildings sinking into the mud, the crowds of tourists and the stench of filthy water, who can deny that Venice has a unique beauty and charm. I was impressed that the churches we visited seemed to combine the best of Byzantine and western European churches. The churches were creative in their design and magnificent in their decoration. After a 45 days in Europe, I have had my fill of Gothic churches with their predictable Roman layouts. The churches of Venice (and many other towns in northern Italy) were almost always a surprise. I found myself wanting to take a peak into every church door.

 

And then there is the water. I love water so how could I not like a city with streets of water. After we tired of walking around the narrow streets of Venice, we rode the Vaperettos (busses on water) from island to island, and then finally around the islands. The longer we rode through the bustling waterways, the more impressed I was with the city.

Our next big city was Verona.  I had no knowledge about Verona other than that Shakespeare wrote a play that mentioned Verona so Verona was a wonderful surprise. We found the cathedral in Verona to be particularly interesting both because of its beauty and its history. It has tile mosaics and artwork dating back to 380 A.D. The current cathedral, which was started in 1117 A.D., but renovated numerous times, is a unique combination of Romanesque and Gothic architecture. When standing in a chapel from the 4th century adjacent to the cathedral, you can look through the glass floor and view the tile floor and pillars of a church from an earlier era.

Our final couple of nights in Italy were spent in Vigevano, a small town southwest of Milano. Our initial impression of the town, and appearance from the street of the small inn where we had a reservation, was not positive. The town appeared to have once been a prosperous industrial town that had fallen onto hard times. The inn was on the noisy main thoroughfare. We considered finding another place (in a different town) to spend the night. In fact, we purposely drove past the inn a couple of times while we surveyed the situation and decided what to do. Eventually, we rang at the gate and were greeted warmly by the owners. They ushered us into the courtyard where we skeptically surveyed our room (actually two rooms, one with air conditioning and one without). The owner explained that the front part of the structure was his parents' home, and the back part of the structure had once been apartments for many families.  Our two rooms would have housed two families. 

Panoramic photo of Piazza Ducale (curvature due to panorama shot)

The longer we stayed in Vigevano the more we liked it. Vigevano had been an important fortress in the medieval eras and in the 20th century Vigevano was a center of shoe design and manufacturing. Vigevano has made the shoes for the Pope for centuries and Vigevano is the home of the stiletto heel. Needless to say, the town has a shoe museum (where we spent a rainy afternoon). Even today, Vigevano is the home of high end shoe designers and a place to get expensive hand made shoes. The other guest in the inn had traveled to Vigevano to try to find a shoe designer he liked and to try to get the designer to make him a pair of shoes. The designer worked out of a small, unimposing shop, in a dilapidated medieval arcade.

The first surprise of Vigevano was the town square - the Piazza Ducale (pictured above) and the medieval fortress and palace that guard the square. The piazza is exquisite. As the pictures will testify, we spent most of our time in Vigevano enjoying the restaurants, stores, and people around the Piazza. Joan particularly enjoyed the hot chocolate that was almost as thick as melted chocolate bars.

The second surprise of Vigevano is that we made it out of town without a pair of designer shoes hidden in Bronwyn's luggage. ... At least, I haven't discovered the shoes yet. Now, we are headed back to France via the Mount Blanc tunnel and the Alps.  We will miss Italy but look forward to being in a country where we can speak a little bit more of the language.

These Are A Few of My Favorite Things

It has been ten days since we left Paris, and we have covered a lot of kilometers in that time.

Here is a map of where we have been...and the stars indicate some of the highlights.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=zVBBuEQAclwg.kGYDyE1VvBMw&usp=sharing

We have enjoyed all of the places we have visited, but I think that it would be safe to say that Rick and I have a newfound love....Austria. (As for Joanie, as long as a place has chocolate ice cream, it gets a thumbs up).

Rick booked a room in a ski resort town about 30 minutes outside of Salzburg called Werfenwang.  From our guesthouse, we could watch parasailers floating down from the mountains in front of us.  While it was tempting to join them, we kept our feet on the ground!

The weather could not have been better....warm days and cool nights.
We dined al fresco on fresh caught mountain trout and refreshing Austrian beer.

Our first morning in Austria we spent at the Hohenwerfen Castle, a medieval fortress in the nearby town of Werfen.  It amazed us to think that such a building could be erected back in the 11th century on a 500 foot rock!  We enjoyed an impressive falcon show, in addition to touring the impressive fortress.

The next day, we headed to Salzburg to take a Sound of Music tour.  Yes, I know it sounds a bit hokey, but we love that movie (I think that Joanie has seen it about 8 times!)  There was a family from California on the tour with us, and Joanie and two of the daughters became fast friends.  Weirdly enough, Joanie and the eldest daughter share the same birthday.....so they thought that was pretty cool.  The tour was actually very interesting and took us to many identifiable spots in the movie.  We also got to the beautiful Salzkammergut region on the tour, which I would return to in a heartbeat.  Beautiful lakes, splendid mountains, apple strudel with beer....delightful!

Our last morning in the area, we went to a fantastic ice cave called Eisriesenwelt.  It is a natural limestone cave located in Werfen.  It is quite a trek to get to the cave....but well worth it.  

What is crazy is that it was 85 degrees outside, but the cave is below freezing.  As soon as they open the doors to the cave, we were hit with a wall of freezing air that we had to plow through.  The tour took us on a one kilometer journey of the cave (the actual cave goes back 42 kilometers).  No photos were allowed inside the cave, but I have added some photos that I found on the internet, so you can see how unusual it is.  Needless to say, we were glad to have our rain jackets and long pants on...even if we thought we were hot on the way up!

From Werfen, we headed on to our next destination....Wagrain.  When I made the reservations, I did not realize that it was only 30 minutes down the road....whoops!  Oh well, it was a nice hotel in another ski resort town.  We got in a good hike and took in some great scenery.

The reason we went to Wagrain was to get closer to the Glossglockner High Alpine Road.  This is a fabulous 48 kilometer road that goes through the Hohe Tauern National Park.  The Grossglockner peak is the highest in Austria and has a wonderful glacier to which we hiked.  All I can say is, I am glad that Rick drove!

When we arrived at the Kaiser-Franz-Josefs-Höhe Visitor's Center, we hiked to the Pasterze glacier, the longest glacier in the eastern Alps.  If you have the chance to do this drive, you will not regret it!

Driving and Parking in Germany (and Austria)

Before we came to Europe, I had been worried about driving in France because Joan's French tutor made it sound really complicated and then loaned me the manual from a French driving class which left me completely confused and intimidated. From what I could decipher from the driving manual, the French have a complicated system of rules that apply when they don't feel like putting up a sign, which is most of the time.  For example, rather than using yield signs, you just have to know that in general the person entering the intersection from the right has the right of way, except of course when the road that you are on has a special blaze indicating that it has the right of way. Traffic circles, of course, have different rules as do various other types of intersections.  (The French also have a lot of rules about wearing safety vests and erecting safety triangles when your French car breaks down, which judging by the amount of time devoted to safety vests and safety triangles is roughly 33% of the time.)

I felt confident that the Germans would have cars that didn't break down 33% of the time so we decided to pick up a vehicle in Stuttgart (see picture).

We asked for a big hood ornament, but it wouldn't fit.

Hopefully, this would make the whole section of the French driving manual relating to safety vests and placement of safety triangles unnecessary. I also assumed that driving in Germany would be a little bit more orderly than France.

It turns out that driving in Germany is not as easy as it looks. Driving in Germany requires the reflexes and skill of a Formula One driver. On the Autobahn, some cars are moving at speeds in excess of 260 km/h (160 mph) and others (usually a Ford Festiva towing a trailer) are going 80 km/h. Staying out of the way of the fast cars and avoiding rear-ending the slow cars can be challenging. Motorcycles like to hide in your blind spot until they zip between the cars at a high rate of speed.  There is little room for error because most of the time there are guardrails rather than breakdown lanes inches from the side of your car. In the ancient towns and villages, the roads get narrower and things get more interesting. Street signs are often difficult to find and Germans seem to like to change the name of streets multiple times.  The numbering system in German villages seems to be haphazard. It is easy to make a wrong turn. When that happens, you may find yourself having to back up in the dark along a very narrow street with stones sticking out of the walls in odd places.  (To add to the challenge we've blocked the view out of the back window with suitcases.)

It would require pages to explain what this combination of signs means.

Although driving is challenging, it is easier than parking in Germany.  To park, you have to first be an expert in hieroglyphics (to figure out the symbols on the signs) and you must also be a code breaker to figure out the meaning of the various sign combinations. Parking signs almost always come in groups of five or more (see picture). For the most part, we've decided that it is safest to park in parking garages because we simply can't figure out the parking signs before traffic forces us to move on. On the rare occasion when there is a legal parking place, you must have a Ph.D. in advanced physics and geometry to be able to fit your car into an impossibly small space with the wheels touching the curb so that passing traffic does not knock off your drivers side rear view mirror.

Although parking signs can be confusing, deciphering German highway signs while moving at a high rate of speed is often impossible.  It turns out that the Germans are a little bit obsessive compulsive about signs.  I have never seen such a bewildering array of road signs.  They seem to enjoy changing the speed limit every 500 meters, and burying critical information in a forest of signs. I am sure that the motto of the German highway department is to never use one sign when there are 50 unused signs in storage.  To make things more challenging, on the highways, German road signs are usually partially obstructed by a long line of semi-trailer trucks in the right lane. As a result, we are often puzzled about the speed limit and why some cars are speeding past us while other cars seem to be observing a 100 km/h speed limit.

Many of you are probably reading this and smugly thinking that you fully understand international signs.  For all of you smug sign experts, I am presenting the following test.  All you have to do is to correctly explain the meaning of all of the signs below and I will gladly bow to you.  To make the test more realistic, I've tried to make the graphics as small as possible and include a whole bunch of signs together.  For maximum realism, print out the signs, put all of the printed signs on the same telephone pole and drive by the pole at 150 km/h with a black Porsche overtaking you at 250 kph and a line of semi-trailer trucks in the right lane partially blocking the signs.

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Answers:

1 - I refer to this as the "no-no" sign, but it actually means "end of parking restrictions indicated by previous signs" but default no-parking rules on highways still apply.

2 - End of no parking zone. This basically means the same thing as the previous sign.

3 - This sign actually makes sense.  It means "dead end road, except for pedestrians and bicycles."  Because the meaning of the sign is obvious, they like to hide this sign behind bushes or trees.

4 - This is an "end of priority road sign."  Does that clarify things for you?  It means that although you probably didn't know it, you had been driving on a road that had priority over intersecting roads so you didn't have to yield to people entering from the right.  Now you do have to yield to cars entering from the right ... most of the time.

5 - You have the priority right of way at the next intersection only.  (Pray that the people coming into the intersection from the other direction know that they are supposed to yield.)  Often, the people on the crossroad don't seem to realize that you have the priority, particularly people entering from the right.

6 - The next intersection is uncontrolled (no signals or signs).  Call your insurance agent and raise your policy limits.

7 - This sign is common on mountain roads and in small towns with narrow streets.  We encountered this sign when going through the one-lane gate of a medieval city. It tells you to expect two-way traffic even though the road doesn't look wide enough for one car.  You should yield to oncoming traffic.  When seeing this sign, it is often best to sound your horn before proceeding because traffic coming from the opposite direction is usually proceeding at a high rate of speed (knowing that they have the right of way) and they will not be visible until the last moment.

8 - End of 60 km/h speed limit.  Usually, they don't bother posting a sign with the new speed limit so default speed limits apply. Unfortunately, we are often uncertain about which default speed limit applies.  It is our understanding that the default speed limit on sections of the Autobahn that have speed limits is 130 km/h, but that the default limit on highways in urban areas may be 100 km/h.  The default speed limit on rural two-lane roads seems to be 80 km/h and the default speed limit in towns is generally 50 km/h.  At least this is what a tour guide told us.

9 - Recommended speed of 100 km/h assuming good weather, and no traffic. Recommended speed signs seem to be used on sections of the Autobahn that have no speed limit.  In our experience this means that 50% of the vehicles will now attempt to reach their terminal velocity and that other vehicles will cower in the right hand lane driving the recommended speed.  Exceeding the recommended speed means that you may be liable for any accident even if it is not your fault.  If you try to drive at a speed between 100 km/h and 260 km/h you will find yourself accelerating hard to get into the left lane and then braking hard when you return to the right lane in order to get out of the way of high speed Porsches and BMWs.

10 - End of minimum speed of 80 km/h.  Although it would be very helpful to have a minimum speed to reduce the disparity in speeds, the concept of minimum speeds seems to be ignored by tiny cars pulling huge caravans (travel trailers) that struggle to make it to the top of every hill.

11 - End of all restrictions, except that all of the default restrictions apply (default speed limits, etc.). If you don't know the default speed limits for different types of roads, too bad, you will just have to guess because this is the one time that the Germans won't post a sign. I expect that traffic tickets are already beginning to pile up in our mailbox from the automatic speed cameras that seem to be everywhere.

12 - This sign seems to indicate that cars are allowed on this road, but it has the opposite meaning.  It means that motor vehicles are prohibited, except for motorcycles and mopeds.  Why is there not a slash through the drawing of a car?  That would seem more logical.  I can't explain it except that the sign with a car with a slash through it was already used (see #16).

13 - Traffic restriction zone for air pollution.  Depending on the location, you have to have either a green, red or yellow sticker to enter the area.  We have a green sticker which I think allows us to go anywhere.  I hope that is true because we had no idea what the sign meant when we passed it.

14 - End of zone where traffic calming rules apply.  What are the traffic calming rules?  I don't know.

15 - Vehicle turnout ahead. This looks like it might be a good place to stop and figure out where you are on a map.  However, unlike the U.S., you can only stop in the event of an emergency or a breakdown.  Of course, if your vehicle breaks down, you probably won't be able to make it to a pull out because they are very rare.  On the rest of the highway, a breakdown lane is usually non-existent.

16 - When we first saw this sign we though it meant that cars were not allowed on the road, and we looked for a place to get off the road. However, it actually means "end of expressway."

17 - What do you do when you approach an intersection with a green light and a stop sign next to each other, and a traffic camera watching to see if you know what to do?  The guys monitoring the traffic cameras probably had big laugh when they saw me enter the intersection.  I tried to satisfy both signs by stopping quickly and then continuing. I now know that when the light is operating, the light takes priority over the sign, but when the traffic light is turned off, the sign controls.

Ist alles klar?

If you understand German road signs you are now ready for Austria.  Same deal except that the hills are much bigger and the roads have more curves.  Next week, we take on the challenge of driving in Italy. Stay tuned.

Postscript Austria:  I found the sign trailer below beside the road. It confirms my suspicions that teams prowl the roads at night looking for a places to erect new signs and to install new speed bumps.

Postscript Italy:  Same signs but as far as we can determine the signs have no meaning whatsoever to Italian drivers.  In addition, the lane markers seem to be merely advisory.  In fact, it seems to be a sign of a skilled driver to insert your car between two other cars that happen to be driving down the middle of the indicated lanes of traffic. It also appears that somebody must be giving out awards to encourage people to park creatively. Cars parked by foreigners stand out because on a one-way street they are generally the only cars parked facing in the direction of traffic.