Old Town Hall, Munich

Glockenspiel, Munich

Frauenkirche, Munich

St. Peter’s Church, Munich

Hofbräuhaus, Munich

Paulaner am Nockherberg, Festival of Strong Beer, Munich

Giant pretzel to go with a giant beer

Neuschwanstein Castle from our hotel room

Sneaky interior photo

‘As a guest in time and space, the soul longs for eternal dream’ says Ludwig II and his swans on the way to the spa

Mon 29 Feb – Wed 2 Mar 2016

With such a hectic month, we made a really quick decision to do one last little road trip and mini break before we make the long journey home in April. We were tossing up ideas as to where to go and decided on Munich. Natalie always wanted to go to the Christmas markets there but we didn’t get a chance this time around so we thought Munich in early spring might be nice too! As Til and Doro are from Germany they knew of a few things we needed to see. Til let us in on a secret that there was a festival of strong beer going on, like Octoberfest but a more of a local thing. Well that sealed the deal…

We left for Munich on Monday morning and arrived just after lunch. After circling a few blocks looking for our park and ride we got on the underground in search of our hostel. After stopping off at tourist information for directions we found it quiet near the main train station. It was our intention to join a free walking tour, as we only had the afternoon and evening in Munich, we thought that would be the best way to see all of the sights in one go. Unfortunately it was absolutely pouring the sea and we just couldn’t commit to three hours of walking about in the rain. Luckily we had printed off a self guided walking tour, so we headed to the main square for some quick sightseeing. We saw a few churches, the food market and the famous beer hall, Hofbräuhaus. Natalie had already discovered that her sneakers were leaking and was feeling a bit cold and wet so we stopped the tour there and went back to our hostel for dinner.

After a quick dry-off and some food we were ready to hit the little known beer festival, ‘Starkbierfest’. We took a tram to the the other side of the river to the Paulaner am Nockherberg ‘beer hall’ (actually a festival hall). We arrived with the party in full swing – a band playing and people dressed in lederhosen and traditional dresses standing on the tables singing and dancing! After a few minutes of figuring out how to order we managed to stop a waitress and Matt ordered a litre of their original ‘strong beer’. Strong beer doesn’t actually refer to the alcohol content but rather the concentration of dissolved solids: the starch, sugars, proteins and minerals or ‘Wort’. Paulaner’s ‘Salvator’ brew is 18% Wort which means if you bolied away the water and alcohol there would it would contain roughly the same amount of ‘stuff’ as 16 loaves of bread!! (And the alcohol percentage is a bit more too, around 7.5%). Anywho, enough of the technicalities…two litres of beer and a giant pretzel later we were ready for our beds (with one stein making it’s way into Natalie’s purse as a souvenir).

We didn’t get much sleep in our 8 bed dorm that night – not sure if it was the guy who snored all night, the 32 loaves of bread we drank or the excitement of the next day but we were up at 6:30am ready to hit the road for a day at a very special spa in southern Bavaria. As Matt has been driving all winter, Natalie thought this trip was a good idea to do some practicing. Perhaps an early morning, trying to leave a big city in a raging blizzard wasn’t the best time. She did manage to get us to our next destination, down a lonely country road full of snow, only 45 minutes later than we had hoped. We arrived in the little village of Hohenschwangau near Füssen in southwest Bavaria to check into our hotel for that night. The two main attraction there are the famous Neuschwanstein Castle, and for us, the Königliche Kristall Therme spa.

We got to the spa around 10:30am and bought a day ticket with the intentions of staying until they closed at 10pm. The top floor was the nude only sauna area with many different saunas and steam rooms as well as an indoor and outdoor pool and two hot tubs. They did 24 special armoa infusions in the saunas throughout the day. We managed 10 of them and discovered that you got little treats after every other one – for the ‘fruit bomb’ we got orange slices and for the ‘infusion of the day’ we got salted radishes and pretzels. We spent lots of time in the pools, had lovely coffees and dinner. After 7pm there was nude swimming on the lower floor so we tried the 12% salt water pool and had cocktails at the swim up bar. After a relaxing 12 hours at the spa we had a great nights sleep in our quiet hotel room.

We woke the next morning and had a nice buffet breakfast and then headed into the village to get our tickets to view the castle. We ‘followed the Chinese’ (as directed by the ticket officer) up to the top of a big hill to see the 19th century Romanesque Revival castle, Neuschwanstein, built by Ludwig II in the 1860s-80s and the inspiration for the Disneyland Castle. We spent all summer seeing the outside of magnificent buildings throughout Europe but never paid to go inside any of them so we thought this was our chance to see the inside of something! We had a 30 minute tour of the castle and then headed down to the lakeside for a little stroll. Natalie awoke to the brilliant idea of visiting the spa again so we headed back there for dinner and another 4 hours of saunas and swimming. Needless to say, we had a wonderful, surprise mini break.

March will be rather quiet at the B&B and we have lots of activities planned that we have been saving that need doing before we leave…

February 2016

February was a very busy month for us! Every school district in Switzerland had 1-2 weeks vacation during this month and it’s a tradition to go on a skiing holiday. Even if one is no longer in school, or have kids in school, it seems people still like to holiday at this time of year. The B&B was completely booked out for several weeks solid as well as the apartment and the other house we are cleaning. There were lots of snowy days as well which meant lots of shoveling too! But there were some nice afternoons that we spent on the terrace – drinking tea and reading. We also spent a lot of afternoons snuggling Moritz (the kitty).

We did manage to fit in three spa days and a hike to a little cafe on the middle of the mountain-side. This was really fun afternoon out because after we hiked up the mountain and had a little refreshment – delicious coffees, we borrowed toboggans and sledded most of the way back down to the town. Then we got a taste for tobogganing and decided to go to the ski resort in Naudres, Austria (just over the border and a 25 minute drive away) for a quick run down an 8km sledding track. We brought our own sleds from the B&B and took the gondola up 1000 vertical meters (or there about). Then a 30 minute ride down the slopes with beautiful alpine scenery all around. Not only was the run longer then the one near us but it was about 2/3 cheaper! We are planning to go back in March and do some night time tobogganing.