Trudy and Sophie awoke early in the morning to head down to Munich. Their friends were kind enough to give them a ride to the S-bahn station on their way to drop off the kids at school. Thankfully, this travel day went off without a hitch. Smooth train travel all the way to Munich.
On the way south, they had a quick stop for lunch in the small village where Trudy had lived before. It was a wonderful time to visit with friends there, even though it was a short visit.
Once arriving in Munich, the girls decided to take a taxi to their hotel. Trudy had looked into the various options of getting to their hotel, and the taxi cost the same as public transit, and it would get them to the door of the hotel as by this point the girls were tiring of dragging luggage all over the place! The taxi trip was not too eventful–except for one point where another car was blocking the road and their driver decided he needed to yell at the offending party (in German–things seem to sound much harsher in German, especially when said at a loud volume). Thankfully, they made it safely to the hotel, got checked in, and settled in for the night.
The next day, the girls headed out for their final sightseeing adventure. They started the day touring the former concentration camp of Dachau. This is a very sobering place to visit, and well worth the time to get there from Munich. What struck the girls especially was how vast the area was. School groups kept arriving throughout the morning, but the site never felt crowded. This made the reality of one element of what the prisoners there faced even more stunning–overcrowding. Very sobering to tour the site where so many people were tortured and so many others lost their lives.
That afternoon was filled with lighter sites. The girls made it in time to watch the famed Munich glockenspiel play. They enjoyed walking around the market place, and enjoyed some bratwurst for lunch. Munich has a number of impressive churches and cathedrals–particularly the Frauenkirche (was covered in scaffolding, but had some amazing stained glass) and Asamkirche (much of it is covered in gold).
The girls walked on a bit further and ended at the Residenz, the former palace of Bavaria. Sophie suggested taking the tour of the building, so the girls took the walking tour (audio guide) of the Residenzmuseum. Both learned some interesting history of the area as well as the Bavarian monarchs (and one of the rooms reminded Trudy of the ballroom in the Anastasia cartoon movie, but she refrained from dancing or singing “Once Upon a December”).
After all this walking, the girls were getting tired, but they had plans to meet a friend of Trudy’s for dinner at the Hofbrauhaus, so they started heading that way. Unfortunately, they got a bit turned around and couldn’t figure out where they were on their map. After asking a couple people for directions with no luck, Trudy spotted an officer issuing a parking ticket, so she asked him for directions. He was able to point them in the right direction, and the girls found they had been going the right way all along! They arrived a few minutes earlier than the planned meeting time, so Sophie relaxed outside Starbucks (and enjoyed their free wifi) while Trudy did some more gift shopping.
Trudy’s friend showed up promptly for dinner, and the girls enjoyed some classic German fare at the Hofbrauhaus (where their server looked remarkably like David Boreanaz from his Buffy days).
After a good, but exhausting, day, the girls headed back to the hotel where they packed up their belongings in preparation for an early start the next day.
For the final leg of the journey, the girls opted to take public transit to the airport. The bus left directly outside the hotel, and then they just had to switch to one train. This did take longer, but was significantly less expensive than a taxi. The train was very crowded, but they were both able to arrive in plenty of time to check in to their flights. It was a wonderful trip filled with many adventures and fond memories.
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