Saturday, Septeber 18
We arrived in Munich, Germany in the morning, after a layover in Charlotte, a 9 1/2 hour flight across the Atlantic in which neither of us slept much more than an hour, a very painful layover in Frankfurt, and a short flight to Munich (on which we did sleep. Unfortunately, the duration was only about 45 minutes, and I never wanted the flight to end).
I carefully planned out the details of our trip, and had arranged a shuttle to transport us from the airport to the hotel. However, our flight from Frankfurt was late, and after walking through the arrivals area, I realized that the driver must have given up on us. In retrospect, this wasn't a big deal, but after little sleep over the previous 30 hours, it was terribly upsetting. All my planning, for nothing! It was dramatic. Then we got in a cab and went to our hotel, and world order was restored.
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| The view from our rural hotel room |
Our arrival coincided with the first day of Oktoberfest, so hotel options were limited when we booked our rooms in May. We stayed in a Best Western (so European!) in a little town north of Munich called Neufahrn. I knew, based on the reviews that I read, that it would be out of the way, but I wasn't prepared for the view of fields out our window. We felt like we were in Kansas!
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| Biking through the English Garden |
Our first activity upon arrival in Munich was a tour with Mike's Bike Tours, which I had done on a previous trip to Munich. I highly recommend bike tours of cities when time is limited, because you see a lot in a short period, learn lots of fun facts, and the guides are generally a lot of fun. We started in the city center and made our way out to the English Garden for a stop at a beer garden.
We went to the Hofbrauhaus that night, because that's what Americans do in Munich.
We met our friends, Ken and Melinda, as well as some of their German friends (who promptly made fun of us for going to Hofbrauhaus the night before), at Austinger for a traditional Bavarian breakfast. We had no idea what Bavarians eat for breakfast, but Ken showed us the proper way to eat white sausage and mustard. It wasn't exactly a typical Steph breakfast, but it was pretty good.
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| Prost! |
We spent the afternoon at Oktoberfest. I wasn't expecting such a family-friendly atmosphere, but it was kind of like a state fair carnival (rides, games, and food stands) with beer tents (suprisingly, no beer served outside of the tents). All of the Germans were dressed in drindls and lederhosen. It's truly a cultural event.
On one side of the grounds, the beer tents were in a row, though they aren't exactly "tents": each one holds 5,000 people! We lucked out, and found a table in one of the tents that our entire group could sit at, so we got the true Oktoberfest experience.
Monday, September 20
We took a train from Munich to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, a ski town in the Alps. The village was beautiful -- exactly what you would expect of Germany. After a fabulous German lunch, we took a cable car to the top of the Zugspitze, the tallest peak in Germany. There was 360 degrees of mountain views from the peak, with Germany on the north side, and Austria to the south. While beautiful, we decided it was definitely a tourist trap. I won't mention how much it cost!
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| The streets of Partenkirchen |
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| At the top of Zugspitze |
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| German boys doing a jig |
We discovered the best entertainment in town was at our hotel restaurant, which had a band playing lively music, and of course, lots of beer being consumed. At one point, 2 little boys came out and performed a dance -- so cute!
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| The ski jump |
Tuesday, September 21
We set off on a hike first thing in the morning. The hike started at the Olympic Stadium, where the 1936 Winter Olympic games were held. The 2011 World Ski Championships will also be held there. Just outside of the stadium, we met a couple visitin from Ohio who had lived in Garmisch for 11 years and raised their kids there. We spent about 20 minutes chatting with them, and for one second, I considered the merits of raising a family in Bavaria. Don't worry, that passed.
We then hiked the Partnach Gorge, where a river has cut a narrow opening through the mountains over time. It was truly beautiful (and only cost about 3 Euros!). We hiked to the top of the mountain
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| Hiking the gorge |
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| Partnach Gorge |
We had to head back to Munich to catch our flight to Prague, and I couldn't help but wish we had planned to stay another night in the mountains, especially knowing we had 3 cities in front of us! We got to the airport plenty early, and I stupidly decided that we didn't need to check into our flight until later. When later came, we were told there was only one seat left on the plane, and our only hope of making the flight would be if one of 2 business class passengers missed the flight. And oh by the way, no one else flies to Prague from Munich, and this is the last flight of the day.
I think smoke started coming out of my ears at that point. Would we ever get to Prague?
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