Ingolstadt!

Ingolstadt is in Bavaria and directly between Weimar and Munich. In order to get to Ingolstadt relatively early, we had to leave Weimar VERY early. The train departed at 7:19 AM and the ride was several hours long. Fortunately our train was brand new and very comfortable.

 I had planned on writing in my journal or reading during the train ride, but the ride was so scenic that I couldn’t help but stare out the window the whole time. The ride passed through what I can only guess is the foothills of the Alps, as well as some green rolling pastures.  After a rather enjoyable train ride we arrived in Ingolstadt and needed to figure out how to get to our Hotel to drop off the bags. I asked the lady at the Deutsche Bahn Reisebuero if we could buy a day pass for the bus and she said that they did not offer such a thing, and she directed me to tourist info. The lady at the tourist info was very friendly and helpful and she hooked us up with a weeklong bus pass for only 3.50 Euro – Awesome! So we took the bus to our hotel, dropped off our bags, grabbed some lunch and headed straight for the Audi forum.

The Audi manufacturing plant in Ingolstadt is huge (over 2 million m²) and there were four bus stops just for the plant itself. We got off at the Forum which is kind of the center of the Audi complex. We started our little excursion through the Audi Museum. The museum housed Audis (auto unions and DKWs) from the early history of the company all the way up until today, and it only cost 1 Euro for students! On the bottom floor there was a temporary exhibit displaying none other than a matte orange R8 GT- yes please! 

After spending an exorbitant amount of time just gawking I was reminded that there were more cars in the museum to see. So I promptly moved five feet to my right and stopped again to gawk at the fully carbon fiber R18 right next to the R8. The R18 weighs in at only 900 kg. There were cars from all though history and some of my favorites were the big boys from the 30’s.

  These giant cars had inline 8’s or v12’s for a smoother ride. They also had several cars and engines with cut aways so that you could see inside the block and transmission. 

There were also various little hands on stations to demonstrate some of the various technologies in the cars. One such station demonstrated how the steering wheel retracts in the instance of a head-on collision, and it showed footage of a crash test that synced up to the same position that you were at on the model.   

After the Museum we went up to the front desk to schedule a tour through the manufacturing plant, but we found out that the last tour had started tour hours ago and it was completely booked out. Worse yet they do not run any tours on the weekends, because the plant is not in operation then. We were kind of devastated when we were told this… But in a few weeks we will be heading to Munich and Ingolstadt is directly on the way to Munich. I know that some others had expressed interest in the Audi plant and I am hopeful that Dr. Cothran will let a group of us leave a couple hours early to tour the plant. (I have the number to book a tour now) Anyways, we went up to the Audi shop… which is a dangerous place for a fan of automobiles. After finishing up in the shop we went outside where they were setting up for a car show. They had some augmented reality telescopes that transposed little images and information over what you were looking at in order to give you a virtual tour of the plant. That was really cool! We watched some of the car show and one of the first cars was an R8. After finishing up at Audi we went to a café to watch eat dinner and watch the Deutschland versus Griechenland Fussball game. The game was a really good one, and Germany won 4-2.

We decided that Saturday would be a day for relaxation. The breakfast at the Hotel was excellent and after breakfast and a little homework we went for a wander around the city. The city is probably my favorite that I have been to so far on this trip. It’s similar in size to Dusseldorf, but much cleaner and more laid back. You can get pretty much anywhere by foot, and most of the streets are just for pedestrians. We ate lunch on the patio of a little Italian place, because the weather was so nice. I had my first Radler, which is half beer and half lemon-lime soda. Before you say gross…it was actually really good and also pretty refreshing. It tasted a lot like bud light lime. The city is full of beautiful Audis and I also saw a car that I have never heard of before.It was an Artega…Anyways, we walked down to the Donau river and found a little park to stroll through.

There was a little place where you could go to the river, and we went down to feed the ducks. We started feeding just a couple, and before we knew it we were feeding a whole flock!

We found a giant park area and noticed something set up at the back of it that said Audi and we went to go investigate. It was the Donau Classic! The Donau Classic is a car show for classic cars, and they were driving all of the participating cars through the park. We got there just as the event was starting so we found a nice spot in the shade to watch the cars drive by.

There were a lot of Porsches, Audis, VWs, BMWs and MGs, and also a handful of Bentleys, Maseratis, Lambos, and Ferarris. All in all there were over 200 cars in the show, and out of all of them only 4 were American! There were two mustangs, a challenger, and a very old model ford. What I found most interesting was the reaction to the American cars. The Germans went nuts for the Challenger and the mustangs. They went up behind it to see what it was, and went to talk to the driver and cheered. It was really a big deal to see an American muscle car I guess. Honestly I was much more interested in the white Maserati that was right behind it! I don’t think I’ve ever been to a car show where I knew so few of the cars that I saw.

After the cars had all passed by we re-commenced our wander through the city. We found a culture fest, and a store that sold dirndls. We also found a little store that brewed different types of Liquers and you could fill up bottles of your choosing. After a good couple hours of wandering it was about time for dinner and we stumbled upon a little beer garden on the outskirts of town. I ordered something random on the menu, and I’m not sure exactly what it was, but it was really good! I also order a Pantherweisse, which is an extra-dark Weiss beer, and I think that it was probably the best beer that I have had on the trip so far. It had that banana-esque flavor that a lot of wises beers have, but it was extremely smooth and just all around good. Charlotte seemed to agree that it was good, because she kept sneaking “tastes”. We finished up and got some dessert at a little café and called it a night. Our train back to Weimar was another early one. I’m back in Weimar again and avoiding doing homework again by writing in my journal. The house is still pretty empty, because most people are still not back from there exotic destinations.  All in all I’m glad to have made the trip to Ingolstadt and to have had some time to relax and enjoy myself.