5/25 - 6/10/12 - M3 ED - Trip Report

[boi222]

Quick trip report of our two week trip to Europe:

We took delivery of a AW/FR M3 Coupe on May 30th 2012. It was an great trip and experience. The only thing i would have done differently would be to do less cities and do more countryside stuff.

I like to give a special thank you to David Aviles @ BMWDAVID.com, very easy and smooth transaction with a couple of emails and a phone call, i had my car ordered. It was a pleasure working with him, i met him during redelivery, and he is a even cooler guy in person. But I also like to thank Ryan too from Steve Thomas BMW, he was a great guy too, he answered my emails really quickly and even after i decided to go with David he still helped answered my questions. FYI, the reason i decided to go with David over Ryan was due to logitics, it was just easier to be able to just go and pickup my car without having to depend on courtesy delivery or paying for it to be trucked back. Bottomline, you can't go wrong with either of these guys.

Now for the review portion:

More Pics On Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/6268874...7630864096222/

Paris:
Overall, I think Paris was only ok. It was great for shopping, lots of high-end stores and prices for certain luxury items are much cheaper here. However, food here didnt quite impress me as much, I can get better food here in NYC. The streets were also very dirty and smelled, the subways are filty and along with all the pickpockers you have to watch out for ruined the experience for me. I think if I were to come back here again, I would stay in
the less tourist section, the second hotel I stayed in was more pleasant and clean and food quality was better.

Hotels:
Hotel Crayon - cute and artsy place, staff was nice and very helpful, great location but very touristy
Mercure Paris Gare Montparnasse - modern and nice, this place is located in a less tourist area. i enjoyed this area better, more calmn and close to many non tourist restaurants

Restaurant Recommendations:
2me ARRt: 49 rue Montmartre, Paris, France (French Food)
La Creperie de Josselin: 67, rue du Montparnasse, Paris, France (Crepes)
Higuma - 32 rue Sainte-Anne, 75001 Paris, France (Ramen place)

Munich:
The Welt and ED experience was awesome. I highly recommend anyone that can, to try ED at least once and preferably before they have kids. Munich itself was also the complete opposite of Paris, it was very clean, new and communication wasnt a issue like it was in Paris. I enjoyed Munich a lot.

Hotel: Motel One München-Sendl. Tor - great hotel and location close to the train station and Marten Platz and safe underground self-parking

Restaurant Recommendations:
Viktualienmarkt - i forgot the name of the restuarant, but there were a lot of nice places to eat here

Fussen:
Great place to explore, i spent two days here. I know most of you only spend 1 night, but i took the extra day to relax in the country side. going up to the castle was fun and the bridge by neuchaswentstein was cool. Food in Fussen was also very good

Hotel: Hotel Am Hopfensee - very nice hotel, self-parking outside was free and safe

Restaurant Recommendations:
Il Pescatore
Zum Franziskaner
Restaurant Aquila

Stelvio Pass:
I underestimated how diffcult going it up was going to be, it was kind of scary because of the two way traffic and tight spaces. However, i would definitely still recommend anyone that hasnt done it, to do it..the view from the top was very amazing and it feels like a good accomplishment once your on top

Restaurant Recommendations:
Do not have a recommendation for this, we ate at the pizzeria on the top. The food was not good at all, but the staff were very nice.

Venice:
Good place for some pictures and to say you been here, but other than that, nothing very memorable...this place is very touristy, food was only ok

Hotel: Best Western Bologna - they had safe outdoor gated self-parking.. hotel was a best western, nothing spectacular but not horrible either

Restaurant Recommendations:
none, all the ones we went to were very touristy

Florence:
One of my favorite places of the whole trip. The food here was amazing and the muesuems here were cool. shopping here was also fun.

Hotel: UNA Hotel Vittoria - awesome hotel. the best hotel of the whole trip. the place was modern and cool, staff also gave great recommendations for food and were very helpful, breakfast was yummy too. parking was underground and was self-parking too and was safe

Restaurant Recommendations:
All'Antico Ristoro Di Cambi - had the best steak ever
Il Santo Bevitore

Eze:
very cool place, definitely should go visit..i was only able to visit this for an hour, i wished i allocated more time to spend here to go to the top.

Restaurant Recommendations:
Did not eat here

Monaco:
i only stayed here for an hour or so also, but it was cool to see all the fancy cars and the yachts

Restaurant Recommendations:
Did not eat here

Nice:
Pebble beach was definitely something new for us, it was beautiful... very scenic place, great for pictures

Hotel: Hotel Beau Rivage - even though this was supposed to be 4 star hotel, i put this on

the same league as the Best Western...(not amazing, not bad either) i parked at self-parking public lot (Curvee?), spots here were tight and the parking garage stank and at night the people around the parking lot can be quite rowdy, but luckily i had no issues with the safety of my car during the 2nights we were here

Restaurant Recommendations:
I dont recall the name of the places we ate here