We spent the last day of the decade in a lower gear today. We slept in, ate some great German pastries, and walked around during a sunny and cold winter’s day.
We made it to St. Peter’s cathedral and got our exercise in.
They have a narrow staircase up to the tower on the 13th floor so we definitely got our heart rates up and our hamstrings warm.
We got to watch the Glockenspiel show at the top of the hour. It was good to see but not very exciting for this high energy and constantly starved of entertainment group. I mean its like watching a snow globe with music. We headed back down to the cathedral and lit a little candle for our precious cousin Levi who had surgery today (he made it out free and clear!). God continually blesses us.
The boys have never been up at midnight for New Year’s. So we booked one of the last open tables at our hotel’s bar that night for an all you can drink evening.
Amazingly we made it 3 hours sitting at the same table. The drinks helped but we also played card games and trivia.
As the night grew older we also made some friends with an Australian family sitting next to us. My kids in particular took a fancy to the two daughters and ended up doing some “floss” dancing with them around mid night. No kisses though that I saw!
We rang in the new decade with a toast and fireworks outside in the plaza. Apparently fireworks are illegal in Munich but we were surrounded by them last night.
Day 5 only really had about 1 hour of real activity and the rest was eating and drinking. And when you are on vacation isn’t that really enough? Please don’t tell the folks though at Orange Theory about this though 🤫 — this eating and being merry is costing me my 6 pack!
And quick social commentary. What is up with restaurants starting to use cave man talk when advertising their menu? 🤷Words in all caps like EAT. DRINK. SNACK. Seem to be everywhere now. Is this supposed to get me to spend more? Seems like some angry German is yelling at me and telling me in a Bavarian accent to gorge myself. “First you vill SNACK ja? See? And then you will DRINK, ja? Ja? You vill. Then I vill expect you to EAT and EAT. Ja? Make sense fat American? Gut!” My only response is “Ja mein commandant!”
Ok to explain the food of the day and how it is possible to gain 1-2 pounds a day. First the Hilton here offers an “all ya can eat” breakfast buffet complete with several sausages, egg choices, and tons of brot (bread) options.
Each day we have been eating 3 times more in the morning than we would normally eat. The gigantic sweaty meet on the spindle was not consumed but I thought worthy of posting. That is the meat used in gyros (doner kabobs in Germany).
We ate at a German restaurant in Schwangau and had lunch. My sweaty meat with what looks like cereal flakes on it was Zweibelrostbraten (beef supposedly) and the other picture is my son’s schnitzel. Both were greasy and void of flavor.
While most of our meals on this trip have been excellent this was subpar. However the desserts definitely quality as Mount Bellyache portions and effect. We devoured them.
My son Nathan is pictured with a beir giving us a toast but don’t worry kind reader he did not drink any of it!
In proper German fashion we went to Italian food for dinner and matched a ton of carbs and gluten to the enormous amounts of animal fats we consumed earlier in the day. The pizza and pasta were delicious. I kept telling myself about all the fad dieting I was going to do upon my return as I continued to finish off my son’s pizza. Sometimes dieting is best dreamed of while gorging oneself.
We took a double decker bus to Schwangau in order to see Schlosse Neuschwanstein.
This literally means Castle of New Swan Stone built over 20 years starting in the 1860s by King Ludwig II of Germany. You will notice it as the inspiration for the Cinderella/Disneyland castle.
Indeed Walt Disney once toured the castle and fell in love with which is why he used it as his design for the theme park and in his movies. Indeed one of the backdrops in the theater of the castle served as the backdrop for the opening scene of Bambi. We couldn’t take pictures in the castle but we got plenty outside.
It was a clear and beautiful day but man was it cold. Probably in the upper 20s. It takes about 20-30 minutes to walk up the steep road to the castle. There are bus and horse coach options but we needed to do something other than sit and stand so we did the easy hike up.
The tour was a quick 30 minutes which I am glad we did but will probably never do again. You get to see about 10 rooms which are pretty cool and beautiful but that is about it. The rest of the time you go up and down stairs and down long hall ways (they only completed 1/3rd of the castle before the King died). We stood in line for almost 2 hours to get our tickets.
HELPFUL PARENT TIP: Need to kill time during a long wait and can’t stand hearing your kids ask constant questions or fight with each other? Make them do exercises! We had each kid do 100 jumping jacks and 100 push ups (thanks again Orange Theory coaches). Not only did it tire the kids out but it provided a lot of entertainment for our fellow tourists.
We took the bus back to Munich. I highly recommend Flixbus. They were affordable and were the best direct option from Munich to the castle. For a small fee you can reserve your seat too which I found to be worth it because both buses were very crowded and the best seats fill up fast. We got to both the destination and Munich 15-20 minutes ahead of schedule. I love Germans! They are strict about being on time!
Tami and I ended the evening with a beverage each in the hotel bar that was comped by the good folks at Hilton. She had a Moscow Mule and I enjoyed a Asbach (German brandy) Manhattan. Prost!
I remember watching a movie when I was a kid called Defending Your Life with Meryl Streep and Albert Brooks. Albert Brooks annoys the hell out of me and the movie was probably a B minus at best. For those of you who do not know it centers around a man who dies, goes to a place called “Judgement City” (no not the affluent suburbs of west coast cities), and has to defend his life so that he can either move forward in the afterlife which I think means heaven or if he fails to go back down to earth to try it again. The key for someone to pass on is to show that they have been able to overcome fear and demonstrate courage in their life. I will leave it to you to find out what happens to Albert Brooks (besides his acting career).
Anyway if this were what really happens when you die then I definitely earned my ticket onward on Day 4. I am incredibly scared of heights even though I spend about 1/4th of my year in airplanes. Today we ventured to the Zugspitze mountain in Germany which is the highest point in the country. To get there you can either take a small train up OR take a ride in a 100 plus person cable car/floating death trap that climbs 10,000 feet in 10 minutes. I had done this once before about 10 years ago and remember spending the whole time sweating, grabbing ahold of the poled in the middle, and almost puking my bratwurst out.
They have made significant improvements (faster new cars and a lot larger) but it is still a scary ride. As you will see I was still white knuckled the whole way up as my children mocked me.
We made it up and our first stop was the bar where I downed a Weiss beir in about half the time the floating death trap makes its journey to the mountain top.
It was a beautiful day in Bavaria today. Sunny and cold. You can see in to several different countries from the peak including Austria, Italy, France, Switzerland, Germany (duh), and then a bunch of burg and stein countries that are barely bigger countries than San Francisco.
Being true Seahawks fans we wore our Seahawks jersey’s took off all of our coats and did a freezing picture at the top that we will try to submit to the Seahawks website for posting.
After spending about 90 minutes at the top and getting a snack we headed back down on the cable car (this time I was in the middle and spent the whole time talking to a couple from Ohio) and headed in to Garmisch-Partinkirchen.
We had a delicious Bavarian meal. I ordered the Schweinhaxe (pork knuckle) which is the sweaty meat you saw in the previous day. It is basically roasted pork with a skin that tasted like bacon. It was delicious. It came with a side of white cabbage salad (think coleslaw but with a vinegar base versus mayo) which was the best I think I have ever had.
The boys took a photo and got to see the restaurant their mom interned at before opening up a German restaurant back in the US.
We took a train ride back to Munich where we all feel alseep.
We had some snacks in the executive lounge and then watched 3 episodes of Unsolved Mysteries (the Robert Stack years) before going to sleep. Despite the years since these were filmed they still can be very scary. So as a good dad, we did our prayers and kissed my family goodnight as we all went to sleep scared shitless of murderers and aliens.
We arrived in Munich after our 11 hour flight from San Francisco. We did the whole trip with the people in economy class. At least we got Economy Plus seating but hey the tickets were free so I am not complaining. Peter and I were not able to sleep at all on the flight while Tami and Nathan got an hour nap in. We thought we were going to be so productive — books, journals, emails, games, and conversation. Nope, all we did was watch nothing but 11 straight hours of United Airline’s finest movie selections. How often can you watch Ghostbusters and Groundhog’s Day on a plane? Never enough! 🤪
After several subpar inflight meals and a lot of sugar, we stepped off the plane and on to Deutschland soil. The boy’s nanny from several years ago is German and lives in Munich. She met us at the airport and whisked us away to our first real meal since Thursday. We all enjoyed catching up, looking at old pictures, and eating Strammer Max for breakfast.
Did I mention it was cold in Munich? Despite his multiple layers Nathan looked colder than Frosty the Snowman. 🥶☃️
We checked in to our hotel — the Hilton Munich City. Normally Hilton and vacation do not go hand in hand but being a Diamond member I was relying more on the benefits of staying there versus the “vacation” feel. It is indeed a business hotel but they more than took care of us. They gave us an extra adjoining room for the kids for FREI (that’s free to you and me but I am trying to learn some German). We also got executive lounge access (free waters, beers, wines, and sodas) and free breakfast in the morning.
In order to get a good nights sleep we had to power through and only take a 90 minute nap. If you sleep for more you will not get more than a few hours of sleep that night. In typical German fashion I woke up, made everyone wake up with my extremely pleasant and cheery personality and we all took quick hot showers. We headed out and cross many a strauss and platz.
We headed to the old town and saw the world’s largest cuckoo clock — the Glockenspiel.
We passed by many a sweaty meats in the window (schweinehaxe/pork knuckle in the photo) and bier establishments.
We ate at a local German restaurant (what else do you think we would eat, French). Nate ordered the most adventurous meal of veal heart but he paired it with a vegetable ratatouille so that made it more acceptable.
Ms Tami enjoyed her wine and I rotated through the pils. The entertainment during the meal was the “How do we keep Peter awake” game. This involved, throwing water on him, pinching him, and politely critiquing his ability to stay awake.
We bravely headed out in to the snow (this part may be true or false) and walked uphill back to our hotel. We headed to bed at 9 sharp and finally put our poor pancreases to rest. 😴
We woke up to a carb filled Hampton inn breakfast. Honestly, the offering has improved significantly but as you can tell by the picture the options are carbs, gluten, and more carbs. They did have boiled eggs and a precooked omelette option. Yum!
We made it to the airport 3 hours early because daddy doesn’t like to miss flights or deal with unexpected changes. While shopping at duty free my youngest brought me to the cigar cabinet, man I love that kid. Sure enough they had a very reasonably priced BOX of Fuente Fuente Opus X #5. This has been one of my favorite brands since I was about 20 and rarely can you find it at retail (or in an airport!). So after sweating for 5 mins and weighing my choices I decided to purchase it as an early birthday present to be smoked in one of our camps.
If you do not have an American Express Platinum card and you travel a lot, you should definitely get one. We spent the rest of our wait in the lounge. I get two free guests and had to pay $50 for the 4th. It was worth it. We had an all you can eat buffet of protein and vegetables. No gluten on the buffet except the cookies. Not to mention free open bar. That $50 I mentioned? Easily went through that in the first few cocktails we ordered.
After feasting and using clean bathrooms we headed towards the gate and our 787 that was ready to roll to Bavaria.
Using points and savoring an international flight on points we settled in to our Economy Plus luxury and plugged in for 10 hours and 43 minutes of quality programming.
How many times can I watch die hard? How many times will they refill my whisky? How many times will Nathan actually be still on the flight? How many PG 13 movies will Peter watch? How many wines will Tami make it through? How much of the economy meals will we be able to stomach?
Richey's Travel Adventures 