München

 28 April

We arrived into Munich in heavy cloud and rain and a good few degrees colder than Spain.  How remarkable to travel 2.5 hours and be in a different country, different customs, food and weather!  The flight attendant welcomed us: "Have a nice, wet day in Munich".

After dropping off our luggage we set off to find the Hofbrauhaus.  It was drizzling lightly so  we thought we'd be fine walking even though Esther was keen to take the U bahn.  We took a few wrong turns - but made it.  They don't take bookings from plebs (although there were some reserved tables, so if you are special enough, it happens!) so you just have to wander through the huge building eyeing off people who look like they have just about finished their drinks then hover near them expectantly until they finally relinquish their seats and we could slide straight in!  It was very hot in the hall.  Dean says this is so they can sell more beer!!  Greg was hanging out for a sausage - he can eat a lot of German sausage for every meal when we are in Germany - and it was straight to the pork sausage for him.  Fiona and I shared two of the three vegetarian meals on offer - an asparagus salad (it's for sale everywhere, so its obviously in season!) and a cheesy noodle number which was very tasty and very cheesy!

Plus beer of course (coke for Dean and red wine for Fiona).  Dean and Esther taught us to sing along with the "Cheers'"song which is played regularly by the Oompah band.  When it plays you have to raise your drink, sway and sing along and then drink, of course!  Great fun.  What wasn't fun was exiting the beer hall (after generously giving our table to some hovering new comers!) to find it was raining really heavily.  Dean and Esther had bought their ponchos (smart move) and a small umbrella, which they offered to Fiona and I.  Fi said she'd be fine so Greg and I shared it (we still got wet but not as much as we would have done otherwise!).  Fi ended up sharing Esther's poncho, as she was getting drenched!  Back in the hotel, Greg had to be very judicious with the curtains to try to stop the street lights flooding into any gaps, and we fell asleep!

29 April

What a relief to wake up today to blue skies!  We had breakfast and decided to book into a bike tour to make the most of the impending fine weather.  We wandered back to Marienplatz marveling at how much more pleasant the city was in sunshine.  We  realised, from the growing crowd, that we'd be in time for the Glokenspiel at 11am.  I gave Greg my phone to video it so I could take photos on my camera.  Dean was videoing it too.  It was very funny to see both of them struggling with holding their arms up, it goes for about 12 minutes and is a real workout!!  

Tyler was our bike guide today.  When we started riding at 11.30 there were literally hundreds of people everywhere.  It was crazy.  He explained that it was the second sunny day they have had this year, and it was Saturday, and everyone was making the most of it!  It was a bit hairy driving through the traffic but he did his best to get us to safer areas and even sent us on a "walking field trip" to have a look at the church and some statues rather than riding there, as there were so many people.  Riding through the park was glorious.  The sun was shining, the fields were full of wild flowers, and there were people everywhere.  We only saw two naked people - he'd explained to us that the Munich saying was "Suns out buns out"!  We stopped for lunch  at the Chinese Tower Beer Garden in the middle of the park.  Tyler said it had been nearly four years since he'd seen it so busy.  There were people everywhere!  We stopped to watch the river "surfers"- along with hundreds of other spectators.  It's a single wave caused by water pressure and they have to jump onto their boards and surf backwards and forwards attempting tricks, so everyone ends up crashing out within a minute or so.  After our tour finished we thought we'd wander around the markets, but they were mainly food and very pricey too.  We set off back toward the hotel feeling quite overwhelmed by the intense mass of people.  I don't know when I last saw so many people in one place.  It was a relief to get back to the hotel for a brief rest!

That night we caught the train out to Pasing where Esther's cousin Lydia lives so Esther could catch up with her and we could escape the crowds in the city!  Lydia is not a blood relation - Esther's Dad's cousin's god mother married a widower with two girls, and Lydia was one of those girls!  Lydia bought her partner and two boys with her and they caught up with Esther and Dean.  Greg, Lucy, Fiona and I sat at an adjacent table.  We did a series of funny photos (well we thought they were funny!) - one where we posed as Dean, one where we posed as Peter, and one where we posed as Greg....!  

The 10 Euro chip platter turned out to be quite enormous, I'm glad we shared it - we couldn't even eat half of it though!

30 April

It was a lovely day again today!  We'd discussed our options yesterday and if we were 30 years younger, joining the beer halls for the May Day celebrations and jostling with thousands of others might have had some appeal... instead we opted to take the train (& bus, because some work is being done on the train line at Prien, our final destination) to  Chiemsee, the largest lake in Bavaria.  We got off the bus and started following everyone else round the corner and up the road... if it wasn't for the large amount of people we might have thought we had the wrong place, but after about 30 minutes of walking we made it to Chiemsee!  We bought our ferry ticket and went first to Fraueninsel, the women's island, which originally was home to a group of nuns. There are no cars or motorbikes, and you can stroll around the island in about half an hour.  We visited the church and the impressively maintained grave yard (Esther tells us all German grave yards are kept in this pristine way!).  There are quite a few artists living on the island selling a variety of things, plus apparently 6 families make their living from fishing.  The flowers everywhere looked beautiful.

Back on the ferry to the next island, the biggest, "men's" island, also the home of one of Ludwig II's  unfinished castles.  I was excited to see this one, as Ludwig had it made as an exact replica of Versailles.  

Our tour was not until 3.30pm so we went up to the Monastery, now run as a restaurant and guest house, for lunch.  The weather was mild enough for us to sit outside and enjoy lunch in the sunshine.  Then we set off to the castle - it was another 20 minutes walk away.  To turn the corner and see it was mind blowing.  Although its not as big as the real Versailles - Ludwig ran out of money, and then tragically died at the age of 40 (his death is still a mystery) - it is still stunning.  My only disappointment was that we couldn't take photos inside, even without a flash.  I really wanted too, and it was hard watching others sneak photos when our guide wasn't looking (especially in the very stunning hall of mirrors) but Australians are generally very compliant and follow the rules, so I didn't :-(  except I had snapped one pic as we entered the first hall (and was told off for it) so I've included that one! Interestingly a lot of the details were fake - all the marble on the walls for example was painted (very beautifully!), and the numerous gold things were just covered in gold leaf.  The over-all effect was fantastic, it really looked sumptuous and was a total homage to the Sun King, Louis XIV of France, who lived 200 years earlier.  The museum in the castle was included in our ticket and apparently told the entire life story of Ludwig, but it was all in German so we just enjoyed the pictures!  We took the ferry back to the mainland and opted to take the little train back to the bus stop, as we were feeling quite weary.  When we got to the bus stop there were buses there, but no drivers, and a big crowd of people waiting for the bus, including people with bikes and families with prams.  We waited quite impatiently for something to happen - the lack of information felt very un-German to us!  Eventually, a bus did arrive, and we fell on it along with everyone else and were very lucky to get on board.  The poor bike and pram people were told to wait for the next bus.  We drove the 30 minutes to the train station, Esther listening to the driver bemoaning what a nightmare the train station closure was,  how short of bus drivers they are, and how things will only get worse!  We were delighted to get to the train station and see the train waiting for us - it was getting quite cold by this time!  Back at the hotel, we had Lebanese from Sinbad's across the road.  No beer though - despite all the girly bars surrounding us this is quite a Muslim area of the city!