I spent my final days in Germany of this trip in Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony) and the city of Bremen (pronounced BRAY-min).

I’d eventually return my rental car in about a week to Denmark so it was time to swing north. My drive yesterday took me from Baden-Württemberg to the vineyard-covered valleys of the Rhineland. This is where Germany bordered France, Luxembourg and Belgium.

You can plan all you want but some things are out of your control. The weather is a good example. It was raining Friday morning and expected to continue all day (hey, it’s April). So I headed south for the Stuttgart suburb of Zuffenhausen and the Porsche Museum. …

Driving on the Autobahn is not for the faint of heart. Much of Germany’s federal highway system does not have an official speed limit. …

I stopped in Marburg for several days to use as a base to explore the German state of Hesse. Most Americans will remember that Hessian troops were surprised by George Washington and the Continental Army in 1776 at Trenton. …

If I dropped you in the middle of the towns I’ve visited in the past few days, say the Marktplatz, and I didn’t tell you beforehand what country you’d be in, I can almost guarantee you’d know immediately you were in Germany.

On my driving days between Airbnbs I’ll route through places I can stop and visit along the way. Between Lauenburg and my next place in Goslar, I came through Wolfsburg which is HQ for the Volkswagen Group.

I’m slowly working my way further south into Germany. My latest stop is in the Elbe river city of Lauenburg, just upstream from Hamburg. It’s the southern-most point in the state of Schleswig-Holstein.

Staying in the same place for several nights allows me to explore the surrounding area without packing up and moving so often. After hiking Lübeck yesterday, I headed east in the car today. …