July 8^th, 2012

Day 50: Munich, Germany

This morning, it was more than tough to get out of bed after a long night full of heavy beer. Eventually, Stephen and I were both up and showered and went downstairs in the hostel to take advantage of the free breakfast. Initially, we had wanted to go to Neuschwanstein castle today one our own (not with a paid tour), but in research found that it would be too expensive and take too much time that we had very little of!

Instead, I stumbled across Starnberger lake while I was doing research on Munich/looking at things to do, and we decided to go there instead. It is Munich’s biggest lake and all of the reviews that I read said that it was a great day away from the city with gorgeous scenery!

On my way out of the city, I grabbed a delicious Donor Kebab at the train station and Stephen and I were off. Twenty minutes later, it was as if we were in some sort of sea side utopic town. The lake was bright blue, surrounded by grassy knolls and fields, and had an incredible backdrop of the Alps. It doesn’t get much better than this!

We walked around for a while, past the beer gardens, gift shops, ice cream shops and mansions/houses, and then decided to take a short nap and relax at one of the ‘beaches.’ We definitely missed the memo about bringing a bathing suit for the occasion.

After we relaxed for a bit, we went to one of the beer gardens and had a beer by the lake. We ordered a Franciscan Weiss beer of sorts and enjoyed the view. Literally, paradise. As an alternative to a castle visit, I think a visit to a lake, outside of Munich and looking out to the Alps, was a good choice.

We got back on the train and headed back to our hostel after that. After a short rest, we headed to Vapiano (if you’ve been following, a sister to the restaurant I visited in Vienna) so I could show Stephen how amazing the food was! This time, I got an arrabiata pasta, which was the perfect amount of spice. Another fantastic meal!

We decided to get our last touristy job done and head to Hofbrauhaus after that. It’s the biggest tourist trap there is in Munich, but it is also the oldest beer garden in the world- we had to go! We each got a liter of beer there and relaxing the incredible atmosphere (people of all nationalities getting hammered and yelling about it…great). We headed home shortly after they closed and called it a night!

Favorite part of the day: Definitely Starnberger area- it’s nice to get off the beaten path of tourist attractions. Plus, it was incredible to see such a beautiful view- I literally forget I was in Germany!