europe travel blog

Published: 13 jun 2025

so i went to europe for the first time over the past 2 weeks with family. and probably the last time for me until i get some amount of job security. here are some impressions:

frankfurt

the most direct flights all end up in frankfurt, which also happens to be the financial center. however most german cities are individually just not that big. i guess as a tourist you always have to visit the old town first, but honestly besides the castles there wasn’t much else to do there. thus we went to the kleinmarkthalle which had a lot better food selection.

one of the biggest surprises for me honestly throughout this trip is that is that german food can be pretty good! you don’t really see much good representation for it in the US but portion sizes were surprisingly big and had much more meat than you’d find here. for lunch we ate at this place in kleinmarkthalle which basically had us mix and match 4 smaller plates. kind of felt like ordering tapas. being in frankfurt the specialties (from a cursory google search lmao) would be the apple wine and green sauce, both of which we tried. green sauce was surprisingly pretty flavorful given german food doesn’t really have a reputation for heavy seasoning.

for dinner we just took the S-bahn to the sachsenhausen neighborhood and went to the restaurant which seemed the liveliest. always a good idea! we visited a place called zum gemalten haus which seemed to be more of a traditional german restaurant. we all ordered different meats and there did not appear to be a wrong choice. despite having fewer spices and sauces than meat in other cuisines, the meat was extremely well-prepared and cooked just enough to be juicy. portion sizes were also quite large for the price. on a tangent i recall a restaurant i went to in capitol hill, seattle where i ordered a lamb chop and a majority of the mass was just bone. this was absolutely not the case here — very little bone and meat was very solid.

overall very good food, would return.

the autobahn

probably the main reason i wanted to visit germany was the autobahn, and i had the opportunity to drive it between cities on this trip as well. very fun experience and would recommend despite traffic and construction. i think the fastest i hit was around 185 kmh, which is 115 mph.

despite having “no speed limits” there were still quite a lot of rules that were honestly not that hard to follow and should probably be replicated here as well. you are expected to always stay to the rightmost lane you can. moreover, in any part of the highway with a speed limit those are enforced strictly. however they do give good time and distance to ramp down speed to the appropriate amount.

the part i found most impressive about this system was how adaptive the signage was. there were displays scattered frequently along the highway, especially near cities, that would adjust speed limits depending on the amount of traffic on the highway. as a result, when i was speeding i felt significantly more peace of mind doing so knowing they’d tell me well in advance if i needed to slow down. there’s also speed limits depending on road conditions, such as when dark or wet. honestly a lot of rules that would probably alleviate traffic somewhat if implemented in the US.

stuttgart

porsche and mercedes museums

mostly came here to see the car museums. yes i could get this information on wikipedia but no i insist upon seeing the cars with my own eyes. both mercedes and porsche have very comprehensive car galleries, but mercedes was more historical, while porsche had more technical details and demonstrations. this does make sense given the brand images merc and porsche have. i do have to give porsche more points for tearing down more of their modern cars — mercedes also did show their engines and had some technical demos but didn’t tear cars down in as much detail as porsche.

living in berkeley for a few years i saw a lot of old W123s and W126s in berkeley. seeing those in a museum was also quite funny.

bmw museum (munich)

the bmw museum in munich would also fit better here. bmw seemed to have a lot more information about their design choices and philosophy, and went further than i believe either porsche or mercedes did with their discussions on how certain engineering choices came to be. my favorite part was their chassis teardowns, from their oldest cars to modern ones like the E63 M6 and the i3. the car gallery was not as large as the ones at benz or porsche but they still had a lot of interesting concept cars that you wouldn’t be able to see elsewhere.

ludwigsburg

more old town stuff but there is a very nice garden east of the ludwigsburg castle. inside there is a mini-zoo with a wide variety of birds. this is probably the spot in ludwigsburg i’d want to return to the most. the castle itself is somewhat less interesting in comparison, especially because half of it is closed for renovation rn.

switzerland and liechtenstein.

over the next few days i drove into zurich and chilled there. unfortunately zurich wasn’t too noteworthy; probably would’ve been more fun to know someone in there while i was staying over those days. but unfortunately my social anxiety forbade me from talking to strangers or finding ppl on the spot to do anything with. however the water in zurich lake is really clean compared to the areas outside and the city has a lot of nice areas to hang out if you have friends and aren’t socially awkward

further took a train into lucerne, which was probably a better experience for solo/family travel. there’s a lot more to do in the way of hiking and you can see the alps a lot closer up. we didn’t have time for a full boat tour as i had to take a call at 7 so i unfortunately couldn’t take the cable car up to rigi, but i was still able to get a lot of steps in and nice views regardless. the lake was even clearer than zurich.

left switzerland by car going to liechtenstein. lots of finance bros there if you’re into that, but the city is quite small and boring. a decent lunch stop if you hate money, but i wouldn’t really know how to spend more than a day here. very beautiful views from the hills and nice architecture however.

innsbruck

i think my impression of these cities is influenced by whether i made any good or bad calls during trip planning, and i made a really good one for innsbruck. lived right inside of the old town, which could get me to the funicular up nordkette very quickly. unfortunately my parents are older so i couldn’t really go on a longer hike with them but i still did some pretty thorough exploration of the top. also unfortunately the weather wasn’t quite ideal for the best views, but cloudy days can still be a vibe in the mountains. as a result this is probably the area i’d want to return to the most out of the cities i’ve visited.

downhill there’s a lot of good food and shopping areas. unfortunately i love money a lot for someone who hates money so i didn’t really buy anything but the traditional area cuisine was also pretty good. also had an italian pizza for the first time here; i don’t think it’s better or worse than ny or chicago style but it’s definitely different. clears the pizza i usually eat but that’s fucking cheating

munich

made the mistake of visiting during sunday and whit monday. not much was open in the old town besides st. tourist trap’s cathedral. i thought more things would be open in viktualienmarkt because it was in a tourist area but only one place was open. however the good news is that munich has a lot of great green spaces, of which i spent the most time at olympia park near where the 1972 olympic stadium was. as a part of that i also did some light exploration of the olympiastadion train station, which was closed in 1988 and has served as a canvas for bored adolescents since. honestly enjoyed just walking around parks though — the other stuff can wait for next time.

i did have dinner at a pub near the main station and i don’t think i could have a beer in america again. the beer i ordered had a sweet taste and felt very easy to drink compared to some of the other beers i’ve had with a more bitter profile. was a wheat beer iirc — but i think i might’ve hit peak beer.

nuremberg

mostly just a pit stop since i had to return the car to frankfurt, but the amount of castles, churches, etc in the old town is noteworthy. honestly since this was the last stop i had i kinda got tired of all the german food and ordered a shawarma. it couldn’t clear my o my. a beer would’ve been nice

moreover visited the museum for the trials — again could’ve wikipedia’d but i wanted to see the courtroom since i was already here. quite informative as well regarding how proud the nazis were of the genocide they carried out. these people thought they’d win and made zero efforts to hide their traces. this court was a comforting reminder that no number of troops, weapons, laws, or murders can stop the eventual coming of justice. no matter the amount of people behind them or the amount of funding they get from their friends or the number of rights they suspend, all tyrants will see their day.

ingolstadt

i wanted to do an audi factory tour. when i looked into tickets online they were already sold out. however when i visited onsite it appeared one person had cancelled! that person was german. they wouldn’t let me go to the german tour even though i could probably make out the safety instructions possibly. very sad. they did let me walk around and even pop the hood of the demo RS3 though! was worth coming at least. i like the RS3. i’ll be back for that factory tour when i can afford one.