For once, we didn't book a flight before dawn. Instead, our trip out of DC was a red eye scheduled to head out at 10:40pm. We've realized having some day is great -- you can check off all the last minute tasks because everything is open. Having too much day, however, is trouble. We're both proactive people who were having a hard time sitting still as we rounded 7 o'clock. So much so that we decided to metro to Dulles airport (an hour and a half walking/metro/shuttle adventure rather than a more direct route) just to finally get going.
Once there, we breezed through security and settled in to wait at our gate. Chelsea nabbed us a Wendy's frosty to help wile away the time before we boarded. The flight was nice enough -- we managed to sleep through a decent portion of it and had an empty seat in our row which we capitalized on. We also watched JoJo Rabbit, which we have had on the watchlist for a while. Note that watching a Nazi movie, even if it's ironic, is still probably a bad call when on the way to Germany. We've had to forcibly stop each other from repeating some of the funnier scenes from the movie, including some aggressive Heil-ing.
We flew Air Portugal because of some serious deals they were offering on European flights through most of last year. The flights all come with layovers as Portugal seems to have stolen a page out of the Iceland playbook and is subsidizing flights with layovers to boost tourism. That being the case, our flight to Munich was interrupted by 4 hours in the Lisbon Airport. We will be spending 3 days on the way back, but on the front end of our trip, it's just pushing through.
The second flight was equally ignominious, although we traded a screaming baby on the first flight for a grumbling row neighbor and no airline-sponsored entertainment on the second. But it was quick and one-time and the final leg of a 18 hour journey, so we were grateful. Once we landed, we grabbed bags and with only minor moments of confusion, and managed to load onto the S-Bahn (metro) into the city. Since this isn't our first European rodeo and we knew we would be coming in hot, we booked a hotel extremely close to the hauptbahnhof (that's some German for you; we're all international like that). That part of the plan worked perfectly and once we we were off the train, it was less that 15 minutes until we were walking into the hotel lobby.
We dropped bags, ran back out for a quick bite at a decent kebab joint around the corner, and then settled in for the night at the estemable Kings Hotel, First Class. The bed, the walls, and the ceiling tiles were all covered in wood paneling, which actually felt very cozy after the long haul of travel, and we didn't have much trouble passing out.
The next morning, we wanted to see a bit of Munich before continuing on to the next leg of our journey down into the Tirolian Alps and towards the Saalbaach-Hinterglemm skicircus. It started with a stroll through Karlsplatz (not much to see) and on to Marienplatz, home of both the old and new rathaus(es) and at least one kirche (yup, more German for you; we're basically bilingual at this point). I'm always a fan of big spiky gothic architecture, so the plaza did not disappoint.
After some wandering through damp weather, we sat down for a traditional München breakfast: brezels, bier, and weissewurst. These little white sausages are boiled in a casing because they are crazy delicate. The texture is somewhere between a mousse and scrambled eggs, which was a little odd, but they were absolutely delicious paired with some sweet mustard. We drank slowly and killed some time over the leisurely breakfast so we could time our return journey through Marienplatz to catch the Glockenspiel tower.
The bells of Marienplatz toll at 11, 12, and 5pm for tourists. It consists of almost 15 minutes of glockenspieled tunes accompanied by dancing statuary in a scrubbed-green clocktower. The spinning figures could be straight off of a Disney animation frame, and the Glockenspiel part sounds like it's played by two slightly deaf instrumentalists who can't hear the other playing. The old machinery struggles through like a hundred-year-old music box. So, enjoyable once, probably wouldn't go again, four stars.
We caught our 1:30 train into Austria without issues, and made a 6-minute transfer in Wörgl (which is quite the picturesque blur). The regional express quickly acsended into foothills, hills, and then real Alps. Snow over craggy cliffsides like a well-worn blanket and unbroken meadows of white filled the train window. We started to get truly excited when we began to see ski lifts dotting the landscape. Later we realized that all of these connected up to the skicircus area (and we still had half an hour on the train!) Another 5-minute transfer in Zell Am See got us onto a local bus to make the commute into Saalbach, where we checked into our attic-like AirBnB, dubbed The Cave.
Tomorrow, we ski!
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