Epilogue - A Biergarten Sendoff
Sunday, June 30 and Monday, July 1
With the drama surrounding Luke's forgotten keys sorted out, we bade farewell to Riva del Garda and started our drive north. It was a pleasant and sunny day, making for a scenic drive north on the A-22 autostrada towards the Brenner pass and the country of Austria.
We chose to cross Austria via a different route (than on our journey south five days before), choosing a route that traversed a scenic stretch of the Northern Limestone Alps, crossing into Germany near its highest point, the 2962m Zugspitze.
Once in Germany, high-speed autobahning brought us quickly back to Miriam's home town of Niederstotzingen, where we were welcomed for a friendly living room de-briefing. Miriam's parents then generously invited all of us out to a German beer-garden for dinner. After getting ourselves cleaned up (things had been so rushed back in Riva that we had not had a chance to take a shower after our hike), we drove to a nearby hamlet situated along the waters of the Danube river. There, under a leafy canopy of trees, we had hearty plates of standard biergarten fare (and beer too, of course).
We returned to Miriam's parents house for some final packing and to head off to bed.