München München more

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Upon our arrival at Munich Central Station, still being quite dark outside (very early Tuesday morning), we thought it better to get a taxi to our hotel. However, the honest driver we spoke to simply pointed down the street and said "one minute". He was right!! Short walk to Hotel Italia, which turned out to be located in the red light district...they didn't advertise that fact on the Booking.com website!!! Dropped our bags there (couldn't check in until 1pm) and went for a wander. There had been an exhibition on with works from the famous anatomist (Gunther von Hagens), but it had finished over a week ago. Of course we didn't work this out until we were standing outside the building, wondering why it was all closed up. BMW World was just around the corner, so we went to check that out instead. Lots of pretty, shiny cars and bikes that we will never afford!!
Later that evening we found a restaurant serving traditional Bavarian / Franconian food - both of us had flame grilled bratwurst and pork fillet, with a zingy potato salad on the side. Yummy!!
We were in bed by 8:30pm, watching Family Guy and South Park (in German - we couldn't find one English speaking channel). Suddenly a big 'CABARET' sign, attached to our building, lit up and a red glow filled our fourth floor room... what could we do but laugh?! It was the red light district after all! We hadn't seen any particularly seedy characters in the area though - maybe because it was only a Tuesday night? Anyway all good - there were soooo many hotels on our street and ours was very secure, so we felt perfectly safe.
Slept in, despite our early night and just made it to breakfast. Then off on a mission to get the rest of our laundry done, still stinking from the boat trip. We found a lovely, big, open-air market with all sorts of goodies for sale. In the late afternoon, we went and joined a Brewery and Beer tour - I drank (and finished) my first ever pint of beer!!! Our tour guide Paul (dressed appropriately in lederhosen and knitted leg warmers with matching cardigan) was hard to understand at times. It was easy to tell that he enjoys his job...frequently stopping to sip his pint between tales about the beginnings of beer in Munich 😊 😊
Onto at a microbrewery called Paulaner Bräuhaus - beer from there can only be purchased or consumed on that particular premises...it cannot be bought anywhere else in Munich (according to our tour guide anyway). We sampled another lager and a Bavarian style antipasto platter - didn't get time to finish our pint this time (and wasn't going down as nice as the Augustiner beer from the first place). Last stop was the world famous Hofbräuhaus! Paul showed us the walls of locked steins where the regulars keep their own personal beverage vessel - apparently you need to visit about three times per week to earn a cage. We found a couple of tables and ordered some food - Georgia and I were over the beer at this stage, but the others treated themselves to a 1L stein each. This is the smallest amount you can buy for most beers, except for the wheat beer, which can be bought in half litre glasses. Met some nice people - our group was entirely Aussies and Americans. We enjoyed some quality conversation about politics and other stuff, comparing the differences between our two nations. Eventually we realised how late it was (after 10pm) and made our way back to the hotel - straight to bed. We had an early train to catch, but slept in an hour longer than planned!! Thankfully there was another option to get us to Dresden on a slightly later train. So we rushed through breakfast, packed our stuff, checked out and power walked to the station. Big thank you to Dad and Min for our first class Eurail passes!!! We didn't have to worry about buying a ticket - just jump on and note the date of travel on our passes...so easy!! Then we simply sat in comfort (for 5.5 hours) all the way to Dresden!! 😊 😊

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