RV Rental Germany

Our Germany Motorhome Rental & Campervan Hire

Our Germany RV rental REVIEWS average 4.6 stars out of 5, based on 325 Germany motorhome rental and campervan hire customer reviews. We make RV rental in Germany easier and cheaper than ever.

MOTORVANA uses buying power to give you big RV rental savings. We facilitate the Germany RV rental and campervan hire process with ultra-responsive support and a true total motorhome rental cost. We give you peace of mind.

Motorvana RV rental Germany

BENEFITS of a Germany campervan hire or motorhome rental:

  • Camper van hire and motorhome rental in Germany are cheaper than elsewhere in Europe.
  • Germany is centrally located for a motorhome tour of Europe.
  • Germany lends its major international airports at Frankfurt (FRA), Munich (MUC) and Duesseldorf (DUS), along with Hamburg airport (HAM, actually a great place to start a tour of Scandinavia) and Berlin's Brandenburg (BER) and Tegel (TXL) airports.

Moreover, Germany boasts some of the best driving routes in Europe: the Romantic Road, Castle Route, German Wine Route, Fairy Tale Route, and Black Forest High Road.

Consider an RV rental in Frankfurt, Germany, for maximal choice of motorhomes and a location in the very center of Europe. Just to the south, Mannheim is another good starting point — you can quickly reach it from the Frankfurt airport via RV rental company shuttle or train (there's a train station directly inside the Frankfurt airport).

To the north, up the amazing Rhine River valley, the many "rent autocamper" depots, as the Germans say, near Duesseldorf are quite close by train to Amsterdam.

Hamburg is a great launching pad for your RV tour of Scandinavia.

Likewise a motorhome hire in Munich is optimal for tours of the Alps and Italy.

RV rental Germany! Yes, from Germany you can take your private auto caravan or camper van hire — a veritable holiday home on wheels — across Europe, to Scandinavia, the UK, Iberia, Eastern Europe, even Greece. Thousands of excellent RV campgrounds await.

MOTORVANA expertly represents top quality Germany RV rentals while transparently offering you the GUARANTEED BEST PRICE. These outstanding Germany camper van hire offers comprise different motorhomes, prices, seasons, depots, and accessories. Our online RV rental software lets you easily compare them all.

Germany RV hire SPECIALS: If you place your Germany motorhome rental order with Motorvana, our RV rental software will apply any relevant specials from the motorhome hire vendor as well as our own Motorvana QUANTUM online discount.

Book your RV rental early to secure best price and availability. Many clients book Germany RV hire months in advance.

All Germany RV rentals booked through Motorvana can be taken (by ferry or the Channel Tunnel) to/from the United Kingdom and Ireland. The RV's steering wheel will of course be on the left side of these Germany-based motorhomes. Though you can indeed legally drive such RVs and VW camper vans on the other side of the road, as it were, in the British Isles, the driver will typically not be able to see around immediately preceding vehicles well enough to overtake them and will therefore in this respect have to rely on the eyes of a passenger.

Our highly customized online motorhome and campervan hire reservation software will compute a total, all-inclusive price for any Germany RV rental parameters you select.

Note our DRM and McRent Germany camper rentals include unlimited kilometers, and the Rent Easy rentals include unlimited kms if the duration is 14 nights or more.

General DRM long-term motorhome rental discount: 5 percent if your effective rental duration exceeds 34 nights.

General McRent and Rent Easy long-term motorhome hire discounts: 3 percent if your effective rental duration is 21–30 nights long, 5 percent if it exceeds 30 nights.

Note too driving in Europe is suprisingly easy. The roads are great. The signage is great. The rules, familiar. And as Arthur Frommer once said, "No one has seen Europe who has not traveled in it by car [or by RV!]."

Moreover RV camping in Europe is a piece of cake, as well.

Apart from our unilateral Motorvana QUANTUM online discount and said tax-free deal, the prices and policies presented on the Motorvana website match the prices and policies of our suppliers. You aren't paying extra by going through Motorvana — in fact you're paying far less.

Motorvana: Free Your Travel

Cost Of Renting A RV In Germany

Motorvana RV rental germany

How much does it cost to rent an RV in Germany? Several variables determine the cost of a motorhome rental or campervan hire in Germany, including RV size, seasonality, and optional extras.

For exact total costs, please submit a SEARCH above. Our online order software will present all the RVs, whether motorhome, campervan or truck camper, ordered by price.

If you then click on the MORE INFO button below a RV image, all details about the RV, price, inclusions, depot location, and policies will be presented.

Various optional items are available for hire with a RV rental, and these greatly affect the total cost. These items (e.g. camping table and chairs, bedding, shuttle transfer) are presented during the ADD OPTIONS step of our online order process, along with selectable pick-up and return times.

In many cases the RV rental company offers free miles / free kilometers and/or an inclusive package that bundles together a set of optional extras for one relatively low price. Again, don't worry about those packages. Just select à la carte the options you want and our software will apply an inclusive package if such is available and if such package indeed gives you a lower price than actually paying for the options à la carte.

Similarly, RV rental companies often offer specials that involve optional extras. Such specials can be complicated and hard for customers to understand. Again, our software is carefully programmed and maintained to automatically apply any specials that benefit you.

We think our software is unique in terms helping our customers optimize their RV rental and minimize their costs in these important respects. Our aim is to provide you with the best value and to increase our sales as a result.

For a variety of information and websites related to traveling Germany by RV, please visit our European RV Travel Resources page.

Motorvana Germany RV Rental Reviews

Pure Praise for Motorvana

This is a totally unsolicited note of pure praise for Motorvana from a retired local judge who admires competence and doesn't suffer fools graciously. If someone can please this cynical old coot, they probably can please anyone. My wife and I, in our 70's, recently returned from a ten week RV trip through Europe. Our RV rental was arranged through Motorvana, and picked up in Germany. Prior to this experience we had no prior dealings with or knowledge of Motorvana.   Read More …
Bob Fogelson, USA

Professional RV Rental Booking

We rented a motorhome through Motorvanaand i have to say that it was one of the most professional experiences I have had on a holiday booking. All the information prior to pickup was very comprehensive. The motorhome itself exceeded our expectations as it was brand new. So all in all I thoroughly recommend using this company (and as others have said they were also the best value). I agree with others comments about bedding and kitchen equipment but this was relatively minor and we were expecting it anyway from the reviews we had read.   Read More …
Andrew Edmondson, UK

Cheaper than Direct Hire

I have hired from both McRent and DRM directly in the past, and recently from McRent again, but through Motorvana. I have the highest regard for Motorvana and Doug Bredesen. Doug actually assisted me with a previous hire, even though I had dealt directly with the hire company for my booking and it was based on this, that I dealt through Motorvana for my most recent hire, and will continue to do so in future. Dealing with Motorvana also worked out cheaper than dealing directly with the rental companies.   Read More …
Mike Edwards, South Africa

Motorvana Favorite: RV Hire Frankfurt Germany

If there is one hub for RV rental and camper van hire in Germany — and in Europe as a whole — it is Frankfurt (Frankfurt am Main, to be precise). This section describes the many reasons why Frankfurt, Germany, is such a great place to begin a motorhome or camper van hire tour.

In Germany, one third of the land area is still covered with forest. It's not so much that every German city has a forest (a Stadtwald) but that every German forest has a city. Such relationship is especially true of Frankfurt am Main (Frankfurt on the Main River), where the Stadtwald, at 48 kilometers squared, is the largest intra-city forest in Germany. Frankfurt rises northward from its forest and astride the Main River, with a southern foot comprising the quaint applewine bars, pubs and shops of the Sachsenhausen neigborhood and the other the bristling, gleaming towers of Europe's modern financial capital.

The Frankfurt skyline stands in further contrast against the dark green Taunus mountains, which gently gird the northern side of the city. A maximum 878 meters high (2880 feet), the diminutive and inviting Taunus range served the Roman Empire very well. Today you can discover atop the main ridgeline of the Taunus the remnants of the Roman frontier wall that ran 613 kilometers from the Danube River to the Rhine River and thus formed the middle section of the northernmost boundary of the Roman Empire. Very close to the McRent RV rental station in the Frankfurt suburb Friedberg is "Saalburg", the most completely reconstructed of the many Roman forts that punctuated that frontier wall. Saalburg today houses an excellent museum of Roman military life there. A small portion of the frontier wall — wooden palisade, ditch and earthen bank — has been reconstructed where it passed 200 meters north of the fort. Saalburg is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Hiking trails abound in the Taunus. You can launch a trek from Saalburg or, say, from Kronberg, a beautiful little town 15 kilometers eastward at the terminus of Frankfurt's S4 metro line. Kronberg is graced with a small castle, a town square and excellent restaurants; our managing director Eric lived there in the late 1990s.

Many excellent RV campgrounds attend the Taunus, including Campingplatz Wisper Park, The Eppstein Project, and Naturpark & Camping Suleika (on the Rhine). In the Lahn River valley on the north side of the Taunus is Campingpark Braunfels. Braunfels is a jewel of a town on the Deutsche Fachwerkstrasse or German Timber-Frame Road, a driving route marked by fairtytale framework buildings. The town, which also boasts a terrific castle, hosts the Mittelalterliches Spektakulum (Medieval Spectacle), a very impressive festival that annually near the end of August attracts participants and tourists from all over Europe and is a true opportunity for time travel. Also close by Braunfels is the outstanding Campingplatz Odersbach.

Frankfurt has neither the swag of Berlin nor the Alpine romance of Munich, but it is beautifully integrated with nature and history — and its extremely multi-ethnic, multi-national demographic draws comparisons to Toronto, London and New York. Frankfurt owes its cosmopolitanism to its central location in Europe. Handling well over 1000 flights a day, the Frankfurt International Airport (FRA) is the busiest airport in Germany; and the city's main train station, a 12 kilometer metro ride from the airport, is likewise busy. See frankfurt.de/english for Frankfurt city info. See www.bahn.de for inter-city trains.

Waldcamping Frankfurt, minutes south of the airport and not far from the Stadtwald, welcomes motorhomes and is suprisingly peaceful and quiet.

Just south of Frankfurt are Mannheim and adjacent Heidelberg, which sits on the lovely Neckar River. Mannheim can be reached in one hour by train from the rail station directly inside the Frankfurt airport. You can drive your motorhome up Heidelberg's Bergstrasse (Mountain Road) to Schloss Heidelberg (Castle Heidelberg), one of Europe's most picturesque. Only 10 kilometers eastward on the Neckar is the deservedly popular Campingplatz an der Friedensbrücke, a perfect place from which to explore the Odenwald mountain range, bookend to the Taunus. Another excellent option nearby is Terrassencamping Schlierbach im Odenwald, near Lindenfels.

Farther to the south, Stuggart, Swabia (maybe our staff's favorite area of Germany, thanks largely to Spätzle), and the Black Forest await your holiday home on wheels.

On the far east side of Frankfurt is Campingplatz Mainkur, a quiet, secure, well manicured RV park situated on the banks of the Main River and featuring a playground. A little farther east, in Hanau, is the highly rated, lakeside Campingplatz Bärensee, with grassy pitches, a restaurant and nice beach for swimming. Not far away is Büdingen, known for its heavily fortified medieval town wall and half-timbered houses — and home to a Rent Easy RV rental depot.

A short drive southeast is Würzburg, northern terminus of the famed Romantic Road, which after a westerward jog through Wertheim (where there's another McRent RV rental depot), wiggles its way south through Bavaria, passing through medieval Rothenburg ob der Tauber ("the most German of all German towns") and ending at mad King Ludwig's famed Neuschwanstein Castle near Füssen and within sight of Austria.

Frankfurt is also gateway to the spectacular Rhine and Moselle River valleys. By way of the spa town Wiesbaden, just a half hour drive west of Frankfurt airport and the nearby DRM motorhome rental station at Kelsterbach, you enter upon one of the greatest scenic driving routes in the world. RV friendly campgrounds abound in Germany, especially along scenic rivers. At Rüdesheim, where the Rhine turns north, you can camp riverside in your motorhome at Campingplatz am Rhein. And just before Koblenz, where the Lahn River joins the Rhine, several excellent campgrounds on the banks of the Lahn welcome RVs and campervans. At Koblenz you must decide whether to carry on northward to Cologne and its magnificent cathedral or turn left and meander up the Moselle River to Trier, near the border with Luxembourg. You can't go wrong either way, with vineyards and castles invariantly straining your neck. The scale of the Rhine River valley is grander than that of the Moselle, but the extreme propinquity of river curves and attendant villages and castles that characterizes the Moselle render it our favorite. Don't miss Burg Eltz, one of Germany's best preserved fortresses, high above the Moselle about one quarter of the way to Trier. You can camp at Campingplatz zur Burg Eltz there on the Moselle. Farther on toward Trier, and just north of the Moselle, McRent has an RV hire depot at Wittlich, Germany.

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Motorvana Frankfurt RV Hire Reviews

Fantastic service and experience

We picked up our van in Frankfurt. We got detailed instructions about the van and its operations. The van was literally new and in pristine shape. They equipped us with 2 sets of bedding (we had ordered 1) and a kitchen kit, which we hadn't ordered, at no extra charge. Very pleasant surprise. We had a great 16 days trip around Europe and the van did fantastic. When returning the van they found some scratches in the space under the bed, probably caused by our suitcases not being secured well enough. They didn't charge us for this damage. Overall fantastic experience and we might very well do this again. Highly recommended!
Oskar Thorbjornsson, USA

So impressed!

We were so impressed with the staff at the Frankfurt DRM. They were so friendly, helpful and imformative. They went out of their way to assist us. Being in a strange country, not sure of what to expect we were put at our ease and sent on our way with a lot more confidence! Thank you so much!!
Fiona Bugler, South Africa

Wunderbar

Motorvana in conjunction with McRent Germany have for five times now been our preferred motorhome rental companies for European vacations. The most recent European experience with these companies was as usual, exceptionally professional from booking to end of hire no doubt helped by Eric and Freik at Motorvana backed up by Joerge at McRent Frankfurt. If you can find a better motorhome rental company for European travel I would be surprised.
Graeme Phillips, Wollongong Australia

Motorvana Favorite: Camper Van Hire in Munich

For various reasons Munich, Germany, is an excellent starting point for an RV rental or camper van hire tour. Join us here for a unique tour de force (in an imaginary campervan or motorhome) around Munich and environs.

There is something sacred about Munich. The name means "by the monks" (and is thus equivalent to Des Moines and Le Moyne and probably Monaco). A black-robed monk graces the city's coat of arms. He represents the Benedictine or "Black Monks", who as early as the 10th century helped build a toll bridge and a customs house over the Isar River, most likely in the modern Munich neigborhood of Oberföhring, to control the salt trade — which had been passing between Salzburg and Swabia for, surely, millenia. The trails wild animals made — especially to natural salty mineral licks and watering holes — served as the hunting paths predators and early humans alike used for hunting. Many or most of these trails became general paths, and later roads, used by prehistoric, ancient and now modern humans. The Romans built a road between Salzburg, in what is now Austria, and the Swabian town of Augsburg. Founded by and named after Emperor Augustus in 15 BC, Augsburg is one of the oldest and most historically significant towns in Germany. Said road passed over the Isar south of Munich, near Baierbrunn, and is now an outstanding bicycle path (the Römerstraße Via Julia, or Via Julia Radweg). Monks had been at the heart of Munich for centuries before they helped build the bridge near Oberföhring. From the eigth century they lived around a pre-Merovingian church on a hill called Petersbergl, precisely where the famed St. Peter's Church is today in oldtown Munich, adjacent Marienplatz.

Munich was officially founded in 1158 owing to a power struggle between Henry the Lion, who was Duke of Saxony and of Bavaria, and Bishop Otto von Friesing. The powerful Henry, you see, wanted in on the salt trade. He therefore, in 1156, destroyed the Benedictines' bridge and customs house and built his own upriver near the church, most likely where the modern Ludwigsbrücke is located. On 14 June 1158, in Augsburg, arbiters settled the conflict by allowing Henry to keep the bridge and customs house on condition he pay a third of his income to Bishop Otto. That date is now considered the official founding day of Munich. At the end of the 12th century, a new church in the Bavarian Romanesque style replaced the old. Destroyed by fire in 1327, the church was rebuilt and finally consecrated in 1368 as the St. Peter's we see today.

The old Roman road from Salzburg passed tangent to the northern shore of Chiemsee (Chiem Lake), at modern day Seebrück, on the Alz River, about one third of the way to what is now Munich. Today the Chiemsee is the playground of Bavaria. But in the time of Augustus this place on the the lake was called Bedaium, for the only thing there was a Celtic sanctuary to a god called Bedaius. Today almost nothing is known about this deity, although we do know he was member of a trinity involving Arubianus (whom Romans equated with Jupiter) and Alounae (Nourisher/Mother). His name is perhaps our greatest clue: Bedaius = Beda-ius = Beda-god = Peta = Peter= Pater = Father = Vader = Rock = Salt. So, there seems to be an extremely deep connection between Beda/Bedaium and Peter/Petersbergl/Munich.

The name Chiem is sometimes said to mean "pine tree", from the Old High German (OHG) kien/chien. Yet the oldest form of the name, Chiminc, seems to stem from the village of Chieming, on the eastern shore of the lake, which name is from the personal name Chimo. The OHG chimo means "sprout", and is cognate with the Proto Indo European (PIE) gey-, gi-, "sprout, split, bloom". These words are closely related to the PIE root gheim, "winter" — probably source of the English rime, "needle frost, rime ice" (in contrast to regular frost, which is the feathery and sometimes thick "hoar" frost) via the proto-Germanic krhima — from which PIE root stem the English hiberate and the Greek kheima, "winter", along with Chimera, the lion–goat–dragon whom Bellerophon slays. This same Bellerophone captures the winged horse Pegasus. So, we have in the name Chiem the indication of a young hero of low station, equivalent to a pine seedling, thin like a needle, a young Green Man, Tree Man, Three Man, born or reborn in the cold of autumn or winter and destined to fight the dragon. In other words, we have St. George, whose name is closely related to the Sumerian root gi-, equivalent to ja, ya, ji, yi, ga, ge, je, jo, etc., which root means not only "young man" but also "small and thin like a reed" and "to reject, dislike; to return, come back, send; to answer, restore". The ge- prefix in German signifies commonality, collectiveness. Of course this prefix also signifies the Earth, as in geo and Gaia. Typically the name George is said to mean "earth-worker".

In Munich's magnificent Alte Pinakothek museum hangs Albrecht Altdorfer's famous little painting "Saint George in the Forest". (Altdorfer hailed from Regensberg, Germany, but the Alps of southern Germany were his greatest muse and he thereby became leader of the Danube school of painters, pioneering landscape as an independent genre.) Here in this ironically small painting we see the perrenial philosophy referenced precisely in terms of White, Red and Black: The silver-armored knight St. George is seated on his white horse while prodding — but not killing — with lance a rather lowly red dragon of oddly human size, both figures all but overwhelmed in a deep, dark, primeval forest nevertheless opening in the distance onto a bright, golden landscape. Not only does the legend of St. George smack of Adam and Eve and the serpent; it also smacks of Bellerophon and the Chimera; of Perseus and Cetus and — chained to the rock/grotto/Pegasus Square — Andromeda, daughter of Ethiopia's Cassiopeia and Cepheus (which name derives from the Aramaic Qepha, "rock" and whose constellation floats above the Pegasus Square like a castle in the air, its point just touching the circumpolar precessional ellipse near Polaris); and it likewise yet even more poignantly calls to mind the nuclear family unit, the sacred family, as it were, La Sagrada Familia. Sir James George Frazer reports in his timeless Golden Bough that versions of the St. George-versus-the-dragon story "have been found from Japan and Annam in the East to Senegambia, Scandinavia, and Scotland in the West." The Feast of Saint George is celebrated by Palestinian Christians, whose patron saint is George, and by many Palestinian Muslims — especially in the areas around Bethlehem, where he is believed to have lived in his childhood. St. George and the Dragon are ubiquitous in Bethlehem, especially in and around the ancient Church of the Nativity. Christian houses in Bethlehem are identifiable by a stone-engraved picture of the saint (known as Mar Jiries, i.e. Mars Jiri/Juri/Uri etc., where Jiri is another version of the name George) in front of their homes. Muslims call him Al-Khidr — Arabic for "the Green One". Greek Orthodox Christians from Bethlehem march in procession to the nearby town of al-Khader to baptize newborns in the waters around the Monastery of St. George and to sacrifice sheep in ritual.

You can also find in the Alte Pinakothek Albrecht Dürer's "Four Holy Men", depicting on the left a red-robed Peter, along with John, and on the right a white-robed Paul, along with Mark: Red/Dionysian, White/Apollonian, to borrow terminology from Nietzsche and from Camille Paglia. (Dürer, by the way, hailed from Nuremberg, Germany.) Peter equates to the matured, wounded, fallen, reborn hero, the complex, complete hero, incarnation of the White god above and the Black god below. That Black god is god of the underworld, literally the Holy Ghost, the forefather, Father Dis, the ancestors, the earth itself, the rock, the tomb, the grotto, the spring, the cataract, the mill stone, the Pegasus Square. Julius Caesar, from his Conquest of Gaul: "The Celts all claim to be descended from the god of the underworld whom they call Father Dis." Father Dis equats to the Greek Hades, i.e. Ai–Deus, and the Roman Pluto; but they are the sons of the Titan Kronos/Saturn, as are Poseidon/Neptune. Neptune's wife is Salacia, goddess of salt water. The name Neptune is cognate with the English nepotism and nephew and stems from the PIE root nepot-, meaning "grandchild" and more generally "male descendant other than a son".

The name Pegasus comes from the Greek pege, meaning "spring (of water)". With a blow of his hoof, the winged horse Pegasus causes the epynomous Hippocrene spring to burst forth from Mount Helicon, home of the three muses. This springwater inspired poetic notions in the minds of those who drank it. Naturally some such springs, whether on the surface or accessed via a well, were salty, the welling water carrying in solution the rock-hard salt deposited underground. This is how salt was originally "mined", the water being heated in ceramic vessels, or left in the sunlight in shallow pans or ponds to evaporate and leave the salt behind. The salt was extremely valuable, like gold. It was used for animal and human consumption, for preserving fish and meat, and for antiseptic medicinal purposes. Animals have a natural affinity for mineral licks, where they consume salt and other essential minerals or clays that neutralize plant-based alkaloids. Prehistoric people developed spritual explanations for why animals consumed such rock and earth. In Norse mythology, before the creation of the world, the divine cow Audumbla licked the cosmic salt ice and thus gave form to Buri, ancestor of the gods and grandfather of Odin. On the first day as Audumbla licked, Buri's hair appeared from the ice, on the second day his head, and on the third his body. Mineral licks are found at the bases of hillsides and have a "face" on the hillside where animals come to lick the "living rock", consume the soil, and drink the water. These bases tend to be poorly drained and muddy. Anthropologists believe that in prehistory particular extended human families held exclusive rights to use particular mineral licks in a landscape, especially for hunting. Monks form an artificlal family, and they clearly had both a natural and spiritual affinity for such springs.

One of the most famous legends involving salt is that of Lot's wife, who turns into salt when, against the explicit instruction of Yahweh, she looks backward to observe the conflagration of Sodom which she is fleeing. Her name is not provided in the Bible, but some Jewish traditions give it as "Ado", "Edith" or "Erith". The analogy to the myth of Eurydice and Orpheus is striking.

Orpheus was the son of Calliope, muse of eloquence and epic poetry and considered the greatest Muse of all. Orpheus had crewed on the famed, circular journey of Jason and the Argonauts. He and Eurydice married shortly after his return. She soon died by snake bite while fleeing the rapacious Aristaeus (as in aristocrat), a son of Apollo. Her Argonaut husband Orpheus ventured to the underworld to bring her back to life. Hades agreed to release her on condition Orpheus walk ahead of Eurydice and not look at her until the couple reach the earth's surface. Moments before achieving that goal, Orpheus inveterately turns to check on Eurydice — and she sinks back to the underworld forever. In a sense, she turns to stone, to salt. Robert Graves reports Eurydice was called Agriope in some accounts, meaning "wild face/eye/voice/snake". She is akin to Kali, Kolyo, Calypso, and, yes, Calli–Ope, and also to Medusa, whose gaze turned men to stone (or salt?). Clearly she's also akin to Persephone, whose name, says Graves, consists of phero + phonos, meaning "she who brings destruction". The Romans called her Proserpina, "fearful one", a name closely linked to the Etruscan phersu and to the Greek prosopon, both meaning "mask". Recall, too, natural mineral licks tend to feature a sort of chaotic face of salty rock at the base of a hillside. Could such face equate to Erith/Eurydice and to the victims of Medusa? Now, Eurydice was a particular kind of nymph: an Auloniad, from the Greek for "valley, ravine"; such nymphs were a subgenus of Dryads (oak tree nymphs) and were often found in river valleys and mountain pastures in the company of Pan, alias the Green Man. Here we have a notable coincidence, for recall the Celts closely associated their Bedaeus with their goddess Alounae, whose name is so very similar to Auloniad. As for the name Orpheus, scholars think it, like the English words orphan and heir and the German arbeit, "work", and the Old Church Slavonic rabu, "slave", stem from the PIE orbho-, meaning "bereft of father". So, here we again have the fatherless hero of low station; a lowly, young, lonely worker, a Ge–org, a young Be–deus, a young Peter, a Ju–Piter. His lover has become salt/stone. His father has become salt/stone. And he himself and all his people are destined to become salt/stone, "the salt of the earth".

The extreme importance of salt in the prehistoric and ancient world is itself preserved in a myriad of modern words. Nearly four pages of the Oxford English Dictionary are taken up by references to salt, more than any other comestible. Consider the following: save, salubrious, salary, salute, saliva, salient, sally, salvo, solemn, solid, soldier, soul, sea, and, yes, salmon, all from PIE root sol-, "whole, well-kept", which is intimately related to the PIE root sal-, "salt, grey, dirty, to leap". (The salt that sinks to the bottom of an evaporating pond is not the flakey white stuff that floats on top but the less pure, chunkier grey salt.) No coincidence the Roman goddess of welfare, health and prosperity was named Salus. The words silver and sylvan may be deeply connected to the PIE sol- and sal-. A Roman soldier's pay, consisting in part of salt, was known as solarium argentum, where solarium means literally "that which is exposed to the sun" or else "sundial" and argentum means "silver". An unsatisfactory soldier "was not worth his salt". The source of the word silver is a mystery but the proto-Germanic silabur and more deeply the Basque word zilharr are involved. Silver has long been known to be germicidal. A silver coin in milk adds several days to the milk's freshness. Sailors, and settlers in both Australia and America, dropped silver in their water casks to delay spoilage by as much as several months. Similarly, the origin of sylvan is unknown, but an immediate source is the Latin silva "wood, woodland, forest, orchard, grove".

Imagine the sense of Providence experienced by an inland prehistoric human in relation to a spring or well of saltwater; it was as if Andvari's gold or Finntan's knowledge were bubbling to the surface. Finntan lives in the Well of Knowledge, or the Well of Segais, "forest", also known as the Well of Nechtan, who is equivalent to Nuada, Neptune and Poseidon. Finntan becomes the Salmon of Knowledge by eating the knowledge-bearing nuts which fall from the nine sacred hazel trees above. Anyone who consumes this salmon would gain knowledge of all things. So, especially at a salty spring, we are at nothing less than the font in the primordial Garden. An ancient Roman baptismal ritual of sorts featured grains of salt placed on the lips of a baby precisely eight days old. Even today the Roman Catholic baptismal ceremony involves a bit of salt placed in the mouth of the child, this to impart wisdom and ensure purity.

The word salmon derives from the Latin salire, "to leap", from the aforenoted PIE root -sal. The famous spatial leaping by salmon — over rocky cataracts —is deeply connected to the salmon's equally characteristic temporal cyclicity, i.e. its temporal quantumness. And corollary of this quantumness in time, this seasonality, is a remarkable gathering of individuals, the seasonal gathering of the school/herd/tribe, a sort of New Year or mid-winter festival of celebration and sacrifice. We can see this complex meaning reflected in the English word hall and its French counterpart salle, from the Frankish sal, "dwelling, house, entrance hall", the Proto-Germanic sala, and the PIE sel-, "human settlement, village, dwelling". So too we have the word salon, stemming — along with the Old English sele, Old Norse salr, "hall", Old High German sal, "hall, house", and German Saal (as in Saalburg) — from the Proto-Germanic salaz, from the PIE sel-o-/sol-o-, "place, habitation, human settlement," with cognates in Lithuanian sala, "island, field surrounded by meadows, village" Old Church Slavonic selo, "field, courtyard, village", and perhaps Latin solum, "bottom, ground, foundation". Here we seem to be back at the Pegasus Square, a sort of foundation, house, container, ark, or sacred object (heirloom) of the hero. In this respect, note the English hall stems directly from Old English heall, "spacious roofed residence, house, or temple, or law-court" from Proto-Germanic hallo, "covered place, hall" source also of Old English hell, Gothic halja, "hell", from PIE root sel-,"to cover, conceal, save" — again, intimately related to the PIE sol-, "whole, well-kept".

Surely the now endangered giant salmon still populating the Danube and Inn made their way via the Alz to and from Chiemsee in prehistory. Today the lake is known for its "renke", member of the genus Coregonus, of the salmon family (Salmonidae); this delectable whitefish is to be found on most menus in the Chiemgau (Chiem Valley).

By the way, soaking nuts in saltwater is a timeless tradition, and for good reason. Soaking raw nuts and grains in warm saltwater simulates the germinating conditions these foods naturally wait for, causing the sprouting process to begin, which neutralizes the gut enzyme inhibitors in them. Soaking increases the potency of the vitamins, renders the proteins more digestible, and releases live enzymes. Soaked nuts and grains are partially cooked with low temperatures to remove the water. Salted, roasted nuts: a great way to carry and eventually consume a discrete amount protein and salt.

Whew! How's that for a tour de force!?! Considering the source, you should take all of it with a grain of salt.

Yet we aren't quite done.

For speaking of tours, Munich is a great place from which to launch a motorhome tour of Italy. The drive from Munich to Venice, crossing the Alps, takes only six hours. The famous and obvious antique wealth of Venice is attributable not so much to exotic spices as to salt, which Venetians exchanged in Constantinople for the spices of Asia. Another six hours south, down in Rome, on Michelangelo's ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, you can see the Pegasus Square in an ironic, supporting role as the rock/grotto in the "Creation of Eve" — precisely at the geometric center of the ceiling. That centering of female and rock represents the perennial notion that really there is no beginning and no end, no creation per se; there is only existence, and it is cyclically structured. This is the age-old secret that seems to be painted on that ceiling — in part and in whole. This is why Michelangelo painted Eve off center chronologically but on center geometrically. Everyone is looking so hard at the "Creation of Adam", at the mesmerizing gap between the fingertips of God and Adam; everyone is so focused on the concept of creation (or else evolution!), they don't realize it is not at the center. Rather, everything is at the center. The center is the quantum is the path, as every traveler should intuit if not know.

But not so fast. You have a monastery or two to visit outside Munich before you leave. Weihenstephan Abbey is just north of the Munich Airport (MUC). The brewery at the abbey can trace its roots to 768 thanks to a document from that year which refers to a nearby hop garden paying a tithe to the monastery. The brewery was licensed by the City of Freising in 1040, hence the founding date noted by the modern brewery. As such, the brewery lays solid claim to being the oldest working brewery in the world. South of Munich is the beautiful Andechs Abbey and its Klosterbrauerei Andechs, famous for its dark, strong bock beer. You can RV camp in the shadow of the abbey, at Wohnmobilstellplatz Andechs, or adjacent the marvelously swimmable beaches of Camping am Wörthsee or Campingplatz St. Alban am Ammersee, or at the super-cozy, clean and relaxed Campingplatz Wolfratshausen (a Motorvana favorite!)

Near the Oktoberfest grounds is Oktoberfest Camping. The best RV camping for easy access to central Munich is probably Campingplatz München Thalkirchen, on the Isar River just south of the city center. The best RV park near Augusburg might be Lech-Camping. And near Regensburg, we like Campingplatz Freizeitinsel and International Camping Naab-Pielenhofen. Our favorite campervan campground on Chiemsee is Seehäusl Campingplatz. But maybe the best RV camp near Chiemsee is Wohnmobilstellplatz Am Bauernhof Steiner. Just south of there, near the famous and infamous Berchtesgaden are Camping-Resort Allweglehen and Simonhof Campingplatz. In the Salzburg area of Austria one of the best RV campgrounds is Camp MondSeeLand. For a view of Salzburg and its castle, choose Salzburg Panorama-Camping-Stadtblick. Westward, near Garmisch-Partenkirchen are Alpen-Caravanpark Tennsee and Camping Resort Zugspitze. Closer to Oberammergau a good choice is Campingpark Oberammergau. You can visit our Austria RV Rental page to consider a motorhome or campervan hire in Linz or Vienna, Austria.

Motorvana: Free Your Travel

 

Motorvana Munich RV Hire Reviews

Great experience

My brother and I rented an RV for a two month vacation in Europe. The booking process was easy. Frederic, from Motorvana, was very helpful and always quick to respond to any questions or concerns I had. Meik from DRM Kelsterbach was great to work with. He and his staff walked us through the RV, its maintenance, and how to operate all of the features. They prepared us well for an enjoyable adventure. We had some issues along the way, but Meik was quick to respond to any questions we had and helped us contact the right people to resolve the problems with minor downtime. DRM Munich staff was very helpful and allowed us to camp on their site before heading out to our next destination. The return process was also very enjoyable. We had damaged the drivers mirror going through construction with heavy truck traffic, but Meik and DRM assured us that it was ok. They were incredibly fair about the charges and the repair cost was much less than I anticipated. I was very impressed when Meik found some minor damage on the right front of the RV that we did not know was there. He looked back through his records and confirmed that this was there prior to our rental! Amazing service, wonderful values and an overall awesome experience! Our vacation was made better knowing we had the constant backing of DRM to assist us with questions and problems. I highly recommend Motorvana and DRM for anyone considering RV rental in Germany.
Gayle H, USA

YOU can do this! No joke. Motorvana is the ONLY way to go.

I could (and might one day) write a book about how doable the european camping experience is. This summer is the second year in a row my wife and two teens will rent using Motorvana. I cannot say enough about how helpful in every aspect of planning and execution of our trip the Motorvana representatives have been. Personal service and expertise are commodities that are dispensed liberally at Motorvana. I read all of the Motorvana advise and tips, all of the reviews, and went to Europe for 16 days, and eight countries. My experience and the information you find on this website align almost perfectly. We also used the Car leasing service (because we flew into France and drove to Munich to pick up our RV it was cheaper to lease a car than to do 2 one way rentals. This service was much easier and more convenient than I expected. The beauty, ease of travel, abundance of campgrounds, and relative closeness of so many wonderful places and peoples cannot be exaggerated. I will write at length in another review about our experience. But, I have to finish some last minute prep for our trip this summer. So, for now, please believe me. Look no further. You do not need to. Just digest everything they have on this website. Consult their folks. Plan your trip. Go. It is easier than you can imagine. And cheaper. We ate at a restaurant and had coffee at a cafe almost everyday, and certainly paid for lots of museum and other admissions, including public transport into cities. But we were able to spend around or less than 200 us dollars per day. Not per person, for four people. This is including gas, camper rental, campground fees, and everything else.
Brian Mckinney, USA

Perfect

We have just completed our 2nd 7 week rental with Motorvana and can only rate them very highly as with DRM Munich. Our RV was brand new and 5 star in all aspects. Our 5000km trip through parts of Europe was stunning. We also bought two eBikes on Amazon to get around once parked which turned out to be invaluable and were fortunate enough to sell them the day we left. The combination of Motorvana and DRM assures you of a perfect booking and service experience.
Alan and Moira Orchard, South Africa