Munich

The Husband met me at the airport at the lovely hour at 6:30 am when my flight got in. We took the S-Bahn into central Munich. It's 18 Euros for an all day pass for all zones for 2 people.

Our hotel was right near the main train station, Hauptbahnhopf. We were staying right near the train station at Fleming's Hotel - Munich City. You do need to make sure you leave the train station through the right exit though or it's a long walk to the other side.

We found a great rate of $120/night for our hotel on expedia.com. The hotel's website was charging 142 Euros and I'm not sure if that included tax. Our room had free internet which is one of our favorite amenities.

Our room also had bizarro showers. And by bizarro I mean they are see-through and visible by anyone and everyone that is in the room. Not a good hotel choice unless you're travelling by yourself, with a significant other, or are just an exhibitionist.

Our hotel also had a fabulous breakfast that was included in the room rate. A whole bread selection, made to order eggs, several juices, cereal, yogurts, a cheese selection, and a meat selection. Maybe one of the best breakfasts I've seen but that could be because I got to eat wedges of brie cheese at 8 am.

There was a free tour available of Munich but it was only 8 am and the tour didn't start until 10:45 am. Another highly recommended tour is Mike's Bike Tour but we weren't sure how into physical activity I'd be after my overnight flight the night before. Instead we followed a walking tour I'd printed off of frommers.com.

The tour took us all over Alstadt, the Old City. We climbed the tower of Peterskirche which gives a view all the way to the Alps if the sky is clear. It wasn't clear enough for that but we got a great view of the city and a great workout walking up all 300 steps.

My favorite thing in Munich was located behind Peterskirche and is called Viktualienmarkt and is a giant market. We were there early in the morning while they were setting up. It was amazing. I have never seen so many great shops with cheese, vegetable stands, butchers, florists, and wine shops. I would go here every day if I lived in Munich. We would have loved to have bought some meat, cheese, and bread and made a lunch for ourselves at the picnic tables if it had been warmer. It was freezing out though even with our winter coats, gloves, and hats on so we planned on heading indoors for lunch.

After watching the Glockenspiel we headed inside for lunch for beers and food at Donisl which was also in Marienplatz. Donisl is Munich's oldest beer hall and we wanted to try the authentic Germany food. We tried and were not fans. I wasn't particularly looking forward to the food before we came but I thought I'd give it a try. The Husband had been eating German food all week on his business trip and wasn't a huge fan. The beer was good though.

We headed back to our hotel for a very long nap for myself. While I was napping The Husband was emailing a group of friends about the start of March Madness since our school was playing that night. They were arguing about who had the first beer of the day when one of guys said he'd had a beer at 12:30 at the Hofbrauhaus so he won. Turns out our friend Jay and his family were in Munich too!

We met Jay for drinks at his nearby hotel and had the pleasure of meeting his adorable new baby Lauren who is only 4 months old. We also discovered the wonderful restaurant Oleo Passo which is where we had drinks. I had a great prosciutto and breadstick appetizer there. Jay went off to put the baby to bed and we went out to dinner.

We chose an Italian restuarant, La Valle, since we'd had enough German food for the day. We shared a margherita pizza and a bowl of spaghetti carbonara before heading over to the Hofbrauhaus. It was good food and really the two of us think you can never go wrong with Italian food.

No visit to Munich is complete without a trip to the Hofbrauhaus. I've been to Cincinnati's version of the Hofbrauhaus many times. Cincinnati is Munich's sister city and has an extremely large German population and their Hofbrauhaus is a good time as well. The beer was delicious, the people at the large shared tables were friendly, and the music fun, and the atmosphere jovial.

It was a great time. When I was in college we thought it was cool to steal the beer steins from the Hofbrauhaus in Cincinnati. Since I'm a grown-up now I managed to restrain myself and my large purse didn't come home with any cool new glasses. The Hofbrauhaus closes down around midnight, as do all other beer halls, and the cool people of Munich head off to clubs where they stay out all night and return home with the sun. Since we're not cool and would prefer to spend the next day seeing some sights instead of nursing hangovers, we headed back to our hotel.