July 9^th, 2012

Day 51: Munich, Germany & Rome, Italy

This morning we were up and out of the hostel by 10am for our checkout time. Our guide a few days ago gave us some suggestions to experience a true Bavarian breakfast, so once we locked our stuff up in the hostel, we made our way back to one of the stops on the tour, the Schneider Weisse brewery restaurant.

We ordered our breakfast and started on the pretzels that had been brought to the table (the extra large ones. I’m pretty sure they’re called bretzels here but I’m not entirely sure why). Breakfast consisted of 2 large white sausages, pretzels, and a pint of beer. My kind of plate to wake up to. The sausages were veal, and mixed with some herbs as well, and meant to be eaten with the whole grain sweet mustard that was at our table. Overall, it was absolutely delicious!

After we finished, we walked around the center area a bit more and stopped to see the glockenspiel performance at noon. This is the 2^nd most overrated tourist attraction (next to the clock in Prague). It was a bit more lively than the Prague performance, with jousting figures, dancing clowns, and celebrating party guests.

We ended up getting sucked into H&M where we both bought a little something to add to our miniscule wardrobe, and then headed back to the hostel to check on a few things before we got on our shuttle.

The shuttle was from Munich to Memmingen (Ryanair’s version of Munich) and took about an hour and a half. We breezed through security at the airport, got a few snacks and were on the flight! An hour and 10 minutes later, we were welcomed to Italy by 80 degree weather (at 7pm!). We boarded a shuttle to the city center which took about an hour and it dropped us off about a block away from our hostel so check in was a breeze!

We got settled in and decided to do some laundry and eat- our first real Italian meal was of course, pizza! There is a pizza shop down the street that was recommended to us by the hostel staff so Stephen and I split a pizza with mozzarella an prosciutto- SO good. I’m very happy with our first meal and would certainly go back to that pizza joint again if I have the chance!

After we took care of our laundry, we ventured out into the city to see the Trevi fountain and get some gelato. We also discovered that our hostel has a vending machine for beer and wine, so we got a few 1 serving bottles of wine to take with us (only 250ml, don’t worry mom)!

The fountain was gorgeous at night. I’m glad this is the time we chose to visit- it was busy but I can only imagine it’s ten times crazier during the day!

Piazza Della Republica

The Trevi fountain!

The crowd at the fountain

It was still really hot out, but I’m not complaining- I love the heat! So long as I don’t have trouble sleeping tonight…

Favorite part of the day: Bavarian breakfast! The sausages were great and definitely something I would have missed out on without the recommendation! I’m glad that we tried something new, and something so authentic!