16 April 2008: We woke up in a parking lot in the tiny Italian town of Montagna, just outside the Alps, off the autostrada and up a hill. The town was very cute. It looked more Austrian than Italian. But seeing as we didn’t want to get in trouble for camping in a parking lot, we quickly got up and left. We were close to the Austrian border and I read in our book, European Camping, that in Austria, they don’t have toll booths for their highways, they require you to purchase a vignette (sticker for your windshield). We seemed to hit a toll booth every 10 minutes while in France, Spain, France again and Italy, and it can get a bit annoying (and expensive!). So, getting a vignette and no stopping sounded fine to us. But, the book said we’d have to purchase one valid for 2 weeks, but we only planned to cross right through to Germany. So, I was worried about the cost. When we found a gas station that sold them, they ended up only being 7-8 Euro, so that was not too bad for a less than 1 hour trip through Austria. The price for the distance was about the same as the other countries. The only thing I still don’t understand was that there were STILL a couple toll booths that charged us a couple Euro to go through. Oh well!
We arrived in Munich safely and with no issues but a little rain. We were, again like several times before, feeling like drowned rats when we arrived at the campground. We needed showers, clean laundry, to charge every rechargeable device we owned, to fill the water tank, wash dishes, empty the toilet, etc. But after recharging, I took Sean into the Marienplatz (center of town) to one of the only restaurants I know about, from being in Munich for work a couple times, The Ratskeller, located underground below the Neues Rathaus. There, we had some standard German fare for dinner. I getting kind of sick of pizza and pasta in Italy, and was ready for a change. I didn’t find much variety over there! Sean had what I call “Heart Attack Express”, which consisted of a pile of mashed potatoes and sauerkraut topped with various German sausages and a slice of bacon on top. Of course, he had a beer with it. I had roasted duck with organic roasted potatoes and vegetables and rotwein (red wine) to drink. (The duck was good, but not as good as St. Emilion or Barcelona.) After, we went back “home” (which we literally call it wherever we are) and crashed for the night.
The next day, we were still in “recharge” mode. We found a HUGE Biomarket that was the same size as a medium grocery store… (J)… stocked up to the point that we could barely close the fridge (including kombucha!) and lugged everything back home. After that, we headed back to Marienplatz, had a quick shopping spree at H&M and saw the famous Glockenspiel for a 5pm show. It’s quite long (approx 13 minutes, I think) and not really that fabulous, but at least Sean got to see it. After, we headed to the Hofbrauhaus, a famous beer hall that I heard about but have never been to, for a beer (of course), the HUGEST pretzel I’ve seen and some roasted suckling pig. I really can’t drink that much beer, so I had a Dunkels Radler, which was quite good. It was dunkels beer mixed with lemonade. They don’t serve this in smaller glasses, so I was forced to get one of those huge steins. And to Sean’s surprise, I was able to keep up with him. The pig was good but not great. I swear that the gravy that it swam in was exactly the same as what my duck was swimming in!
I was hoping I could find Mike’s Bike Tour company, who I took a tour with 3 years ago, with Kailani in belly. (Yes, everyone gave me weird looks when I asked for an alcohol-free beer at the time!) Luckily, it was right down the street from the Hofbrauhaus. So the next day, we headed back there and rented bikes for the afternoon. (I would have taken the tour again, seeing as I remember NOTHING about the previous one, but they only offered a full day one or a half day one late in the afternoon. Neither really worked for us.) We rode to the English Gardens, which is Munich’s equivalent to New York’s Central Park, and again had more beer for Sean, Radler for me and lunch. Sean had roasted chicken and I had currywurst, which I heard about on TV before. Currywurst is bratwurst with curry sauce, a very interesting mix. The curry didn’t really taste that “curry” to me though. It more tasted more like spicy BBQ sauce with a hint of curry. Neither of us felt like it went that well with the brat. But, I did try it with the chicken and it was pretty good. (As you might have clued in, I’m not really a big fan of German food. Sorry, no offense. At least, I tried!) After, we cruised through the park to find spot where people surf on the Isar river, longed to do what they are doing, and then cruised to another few spots that seemed like things you should see but knew nothing about. (Hence, why the tour would have been good.) We really enjoyed riding through the city on bikes and Kai did great riding on the back of Dad’s. Honestly, I wish we would have gotten bikes when we started out in Amsterdam as we have bike racks on the back of the vehicle. We rounded out the afternoon by finding a coffee shop that offered Wifi, returned our bikes and went home for an evening of Sean’s chicken adobo and rice. Kai ate like it like there was no tomorrow! We had a really fun day overall and were very grateful it didn’t rain.
We arrived in Munich safely and with no issues but a little rain. We were, again like several times before, feeling like drowned rats when we arrived at the campground. We needed showers, clean laundry, to charge every rechargeable device we owned, to fill the water tank, wash dishes, empty the toilet, etc. But after recharging, I took Sean into the Marienplatz (center of town) to one of the only restaurants I know about, from being in Munich for work a couple times, The Ratskeller, located underground below the Neues Rathaus. There, we had some standard German fare for dinner. I getting kind of sick of pizza and pasta in Italy, and was ready for a change. I didn’t find much variety over there! Sean had what I call “Heart Attack Express”, which consisted of a pile of mashed potatoes and sauerkraut topped with various German sausages and a slice of bacon on top. Of course, he had a beer with it. I had roasted duck with organic roasted potatoes and vegetables and rotwein (red wine) to drink. (The duck was good, but not as good as St. Emilion or Barcelona.) After, we went back “home” (which we literally call it wherever we are) and crashed for the night.
The next day, we were still in “recharge” mode. We found a HUGE Biomarket that was the same size as a medium grocery store… (J)… stocked up to the point that we could barely close the fridge (including kombucha!) and lugged everything back home. After that, we headed back to Marienplatz, had a quick shopping spree at H&M and saw the famous Glockenspiel for a 5pm show. It’s quite long (approx 13 minutes, I think) and not really that fabulous, but at least Sean got to see it. After, we headed to the Hofbrauhaus, a famous beer hall that I heard about but have never been to, for a beer (of course), the HUGEST pretzel I’ve seen and some roasted suckling pig. I really can’t drink that much beer, so I had a Dunkels Radler, which was quite good. It was dunkels beer mixed with lemonade. They don’t serve this in smaller glasses, so I was forced to get one of those huge steins. And to Sean’s surprise, I was able to keep up with him. The pig was good but not great. I swear that the gravy that it swam in was exactly the same as what my duck was swimming in!
I was hoping I could find Mike’s Bike Tour company, who I took a tour with 3 years ago, with Kailani in belly. (Yes, everyone gave me weird looks when I asked for an alcohol-free beer at the time!) Luckily, it was right down the street from the Hofbrauhaus. So the next day, we headed back there and rented bikes for the afternoon. (I would have taken the tour again, seeing as I remember NOTHING about the previous one, but they only offered a full day one or a half day one late in the afternoon. Neither really worked for us.) We rode to the English Gardens, which is Munich’s equivalent to New York’s Central Park, and again had more beer for Sean, Radler for me and lunch. Sean had roasted chicken and I had currywurst, which I heard about on TV before. Currywurst is bratwurst with curry sauce, a very interesting mix. The curry didn’t really taste that “curry” to me though. It more tasted more like spicy BBQ sauce with a hint of curry. Neither of us felt like it went that well with the brat. But, I did try it with the chicken and it was pretty good. (As you might have clued in, I’m not really a big fan of German food. Sorry, no offense. At least, I tried!) After, we cruised through the park to find spot where people surf on the Isar river, longed to do what they are doing, and then cruised to another few spots that seemed like things you should see but knew nothing about. (Hence, why the tour would have been good.) We really enjoyed riding through the city on bikes and Kai did great riding on the back of Dad’s. Honestly, I wish we would have gotten bikes when we started out in Amsterdam as we have bike racks on the back of the vehicle. We rounded out the afternoon by finding a coffee shop that offered Wifi, returned our bikes and went home for an evening of Sean’s chicken adobo and rice. Kai ate like it like there was no tomorrow! We had a really fun day overall and were very grateful it didn’t rain.
1 comment:
Ian and I took a "Mike's Bikes" tour when we were in Munich and it was fun...but I don't remember much...other than the big hill we had to climb on "cruiser" bikes. And I'm not much a fan of German food either. ;)
~ Christina
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