In February of 2025, I flew by myself from DFW to Frankfurt, Germany, picked up my rental car and acted like I knew how to drive around in Germany. I had just flown DFW >> Frankfurt a few months before on my way to Helsinki so I know my way around that big airport. I drove on the Autobahn for two hours to the small town of Landstuhl, Germany. I stayed in Landstuhl for 4 days, drove back to Frankfurt and flew back to DFW.
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Germany was beautiful, but it was winter in Northern Europe, so it was very cold, very cloudy and very rainy. I had planned on visiting some castles on the Rhine River that were on the way between Frankfurt and Landstuhl. It was so cloudy that I did not realize until day 4 that there was a castle on the hill at the edge of town.
Landstuhl is small, and I stayed at the Goldinger Café Konditorei Hotel. This place was very nice and had 13 rooms (I was in Room 1), a bakery and a café. I would certainly recommend it to anybody who happens to stay in Landstuhl.
Notes on eating and drinking in small town Germany – do it before 8 pm. Everything closes very early there.
In Landstuhl, there were plenty of signs pointing out directions, great help if you speak German. Not much help for me.
Driving around Germany was ok in town, but I do not really know any of the rules for driving on the Autobahn – there are long stretches with no speed limit. But when there was a speed limit posted it was confusing because it was in kilometers/hour. The only speed limit signs that I saw on the highways (where there were speed limits posted) seemed pretty fast to me: 120 Km/hr (74 mph) and 130 km/hr (80 mph). Otherwise, you drive as fast as you are comfortable with, but stay in the right-hand lane, there is always somebody driving faster!
I had so little German beer and German food while I was on my trip to Germany that I met up with Kent, Paul and Clint when I got home to eat German food and beer in Plano. Paul looks like he already had one beer?