This sign denotes a small zoo. Who knew?

On weekends we’re not taking off on a trip (or recovering from the last one), Chet and I have a little thing we like to do.  I call it our Road Sign Adventures.

See, one of the trademarks of the German autobahn are brown tourist attraction signs by the exits.  The signs tell you what you might find if you opted to get off the highway at that particular Ausfahrt.  You’ll see signs for well-known places like the Mainz Dom (Cathedral), the Deutsche Weinstrasse and the Wuerzburg Residenz.  But you’ll also see signs for places that are not going to grace the pages of any travel guidebook.  Local castles, gardens, cheesy Dinosaur playgrounds and even 15th century stone cowsheds.  And when it comes to these little local attractions, half the time you really have no idea what on earth it could be.  The picture and the name just make absolutely no kind of sense.

And the way that Chet and I look at it, these mystery signs are just an adventure just waiting to be discovered.

So on those quiet weekends, we pick an autobahn, pick a direction, pick a time limit (usually around 30-45 minutes thanks to Chet’s trigger bladder) and hit the road.  When we see a sign that intrigues, we exit and check it out.

I’ll admit, most of the time, the stuff we see is nothing to write home about.  And that’s if we find it at all—once you exit the autobahn, there’s really no telling how well-marked the route may be.  Occasionally, we find an incredible spot that we will return to again and again.  Sometimes we get so lost that we end up at a totally different sight.  But even with a middling hit rate, our Road Sign Adventures are a fantastic way to see the countryside, meet the locals and allow Chet to taste the french fries in every Gasthaus in the country.  We highly recommend it to anyone looking to have a little bit of local adventure in a limited amount of time.

May 17th, 2009 | by Kayt Sukel 3 comments