Another long day on the road… Through the Dolomites on a backroad route described in detail by the padrone di casa, avoiding all major population centers, truck routes, carabiniere checkpoints and most of the traffic to join the highway just before the Brenner pass, then north to Innsbruck and west through Austria and Switzerland past Zurich and Basel and finally north back to Strasbourg. I had emailed our car rental guy that we’d arrive at 5:45pm (his office closed at 6), and somehow we hit it just about on the dot. In the end it would have been faster and cheaper to go north from Innsbruck to Munich and the west via Stuttgart, but we only know that _now_. Tunnel tolls and windscreen _vignettes_ cost us probably €50 that day, and the going was slow for half the day as well. What we saw of Austria and Switzerland was fairly unimpressive that day; of course we didn’t see much of either country, but the view from the road wasn’t that great - going fast through Germany would have been better. What’s more, the Austrians drive like ninnies, strictly obeying all speed limits and actually attempting to _prevent_ you from passing, and the Swiss aren’t much better. We were happy to cross the final border into France and step on it.

We had another dinner a the same low-key local place where we had eaten the first night in Strasbourg and I spent the night and walked around a bit the next morning in a light rain before catching the train up to Frankfurt and then onto my plane home. I made the most of UA first classs again with a few glasses of wine and then 8 hours sleep before landing at good old SFO.