Jen C

This morning we skipped breakfast, checked out of our hotel, and set out early for the drive to Regensburg. During the drive it started POURING rain outside, though luckily it was while we were safe and dry inside the car. It was about a 2 ½ hour drive to Regensburg from Salzburg and we stopped at Pentling (just outside of Regensburg) for gas and breakfast (apple strudel and bad coffee… yum!) before making our way to Europcar to drop off our beautiful (and very fun to drive) Mercedes. So sad to let it go…sigh. The car drop off location was easy to find and only took a few minutes to take care of. They called a taxi for us and then we were off to the city center to check into our hotel ( Eurostars ... read more

This morning we went back and had breakfast at the same place we’d eaten dinner at the night before, mostly because it was close to our hotel. Not the best choice, as their breakfast selection was kind of small. I ended up having the “student’s breakfast” which was two rolls with butter, jam and nutella. Not very exciting. After breakfast we walked across the nearest bridge and walked along the Salzach River toward the Aldstadt area. After making a few wrong turns we made our way to Mozartplatz to the information center to pick up our Salzburg Cards. If you go to Salzburg, these are definitely worth the money. They include admission to all the major attractions and also give you access to all public transportation. Salzburg is a very walkable city. Our walking tour started ... read more

It was raining when we left the hotel this morning, raining when we made the drive toward Neuschwanstein and raining when I made two wrong turns on a confusing roundabout (the right lane forced us to exit only after we realized we didn’t want the right lane… twice). When we arrived at the parking lot for Neuschwanstein, it had miraculously stopped raining and stayed that way during our entire visit. We picked up our reserved tickets (if you go, please take my advise and pre-reserve your tickets… we waited in line for 2 minutes whereas the people who just showed up were in line for probably an hour). After getting our tickets we walked over to the bus and bought roundtrip tickets (2,60 euro for the roundtrip) before having to wait about 20 minutes to catch ... read more

We got a free city pass by staying at InterCity Hotel so I decided against doing the Hop-on, Hop-off Bus Tour of Munich since most things are within walking distance or a short S- or U-bahn ride away. So this morning after breakfast, we headed out on our grand walking tour of Munich. Since I knew we’d be doing a lot of walking, we decided to take the S-bahn to Marienplatz to start our tour. We walked from the station to Frauenkirche, where our tour began. Currently being restored on the outside (a common theme in Europe), the church was completed in 1488 and its twin towers escaped any damage during World War II. It’s free to go inside and not the prettiest church in Munich, but worth a visit. From there we walked back to ... read more

We started out this morning with a slight glitch. I was mistakenly booked onto the wrong day trip and didn’t notice until it was too late to try and change it (there are benefits to waiting until you get to London to book these tours instead of booking them online through a third party…lesson learned). Instead of a “Stonehenge, Windsor Castle, and Bath” trip, we ended up on a “Stonehenge, Windsor Castle, and Oxford” trip, which probably wouldn’t have been so bad if we hadn’t already been to Oxford. I tried (and failed) to get onto the other tour instead, but it all worked out in the end and we had a nice day anyway, Oxford and all. One benefit of the tour we ended up on was that it was a smaller group (and a ... read more