Our Final Destination

5/10/18

We got up at around 6:45 to get ready for our train back to Munich, our final stop on this adventure. We caught an IC train which had decent food but (sadly) no Wi-Fi. We stored our luggage in two lockers at Munich Hbf. We found our way out of the reallllly big station and got tickets for the Grey Line: Hop On/Hop Off bus tour. We got off at Marienplatz. We walked around and saw all the clocks. It was like Brenton’s lounge room with all the clocks going off. Marienplatz has the famous chimes with Rathaus mit Glockenspiel at the town hall. We had morning tea at a chocolate shop called Chocolateria Beluga. Then we walked back for a while before catching the tour bus back to Munich Hbf. We got lost (thanks Mum and Dad) until I found our locker in record time. Mum had our locker numbers stored in her phone as well as the directions to our locker, but it went flat. We were going to head out to Hilton Munich Airport for our last night in Europe, but we couldn’t find the right platform. The directions weren’t much help either, we were having trouble with the advice given to us at the station. We eventually caught the right train (first time) which took a long time to get to our destination. It wasn’t an express train either. There were crowds of people packing the stations and the streets of Munich, many men wearing Lederhosen and many women wearing Dirndln, both for Oktoberfest. We had dinner at one of the restaurants at the hotel, getting ready for our huge flights tomorrow.

Our Days in Salzburg

3/10/18

We left early from Frankfurt. Mum's always paranoid about the main train station. She seems to be scared of it. We started with an Ice train to Munich. It was very comfortable and very fast. After that 3 1/2-hour trip, we caught a Railjet train to Salzburg. It was about 1 1/2 hours, but it wasn't as comfortable, was really crowded and the Wi-Fi kept cutting out. We found getting to our accommodation easy because it was just across the road from the station and the Housemeister, Milanka, met us with the key. The accommodation is an Airbnb that you get to by riding a very cramped lift with an unusual door. Just like the lift, the shower is so cramped you can't even swing a mouse. When you sit on the toilet, your knees are pressing against the washing machine. We went for a walk, but it was wet, cold, and not very nice. I found a genuine Austrian restaurant called Die Weisse. I had Hungarian goulash, and Mum and Dad had roast pork with potatoes and sauerkraut.

4/10/18

We woke up to a much better day. Blue skies, warmer weather. We walked to Mirabell Palace and bought tickets for the Hop On/Hop Off bus which took us on a tour of Salzburg. We stopped and took photos near the lake where The Sound of Music was filmed. Then we stopped at Schloss Hellbrenn and walked around for a while. We caught the Hop On/Hop Off bus for the rest of the tour. Then we stopped at a cafe for lunch where I had a ham and cheese sarnie. We got on a smaller bus that went up narrow streets and alleys in the Old Town. We got off halfway and had a look around. There were many soccer "Hooligans" (as Mum called them) celebrating in the main square while being watched over by the Polizei. We did a bit of souvenir shopping before going back on the bus. That night, we got on the train to Salzburg Mülln-Altstadt, or at least we planned to. We went the wrong way firstly (thank you Mum and Dad, their sense of direction isn't improving) so we had to catch another train going the opposite way. Eventually we got to Augustinerbräu - Kloster Mülln. It´s like a big beer hall in a former monastery. We seemed to be amusing to the Austrian couple taking residence at our table. Their English was about as good as our German. 

Not the Worst Wurst

1/10/18

We went back into Old Town to have a look without the Sunday crowds. We saw someone pretending to be a gold statue and we went to Einstein Kaffee (in the hopes that it’d make us smarter). I had a fabulous chocolate brownie, and Mum and Dad sponge cake. We also found that the best European coffee was in Germany. We strolled around a couple shops and had a look around the city centre. For dinner, we went to Bombay Lounge where I had butter chicken (what else?) and a mango lassi (again, what else?), and Mum and Dad took a crack at the buffet.

2/10/18

We caught a slow train from Frankfurt to Würzburg. It was a little drizzly there so the market wasn’t too busy. We had lunch at a traditional German cafe called Sternbäck. Mum had currywurst with chips, Dad had 3 wursts with sauerkraut, and I had weißwurst with a breakfast pretzel. What I didn’t know when ordering was that my meal came with a very large glass of beer. Luckily, Dad was with us. I had a taste, though, but it wasn’t my taste.

We found our way to Würzburg Residenz. It was built very ornately from 1720 to 1744 for the Prince-bishops of Würtzburg. During 1945, the WW2 Allies bombed the palace. The Germans were prepared, however, and had taken all the furniture away. The bombing created a fire on the roof, but it didn’t damage the incredibly decorative ceilings. The mirror room was destroyed, though, but restoration was completed in 1987. It’s very over-the-top with painted mirrors on the walls and the ceiling. Above the staircase is the largest unsupported ceiling in the world. There were doubts that it’d last, but it lasted through the bombing raids.

We stopped for a café break for probably the best cappuccino on the trip. Then we got the 6:30 pm train back to Frankfurt. We got back at 8:30 (the driver was a bit behind at times, but they made it up)