We made it back to Ferrara Monday night around 8 PM without any problems. It was an amazing trip to 5 awesome cities with some of my closest friends in Ferrara. Here are my final thoughts on each city I hit in this last euro trip of my study abroad experience.
All in all I would say my favorite city was Krakow, Poland. This sounds strange but that’s because you probably haven’t been there. It was a very young lively city with tons of people out at all hours. The tour of Auschwitz and Birkenau was also influential in this decision. I am fascinated by this time in world history and I found this museum really powerful and interesting and think its an important stop for anyone who finds themselves in Krakow.
I would most like to live in Oslo, Norway. Okay, so I might need to be filthy rich to live here but its honestly one of the most beautiful places I’ve seen. It is on the water which is awesome, and has an incredibly active and fit population which is also awesome. The only downside was the sketchy side of it at night. I also think I would die during the winter here but I will just pretend that’s not an issue!
Stockholm, Sweden gets the most beautiful people award! Obviously most Scandinavian people are tall, blonde, and beautiful but you don’t really get a full understanding of that until you spend some time around these people. Everyone is incredibly skinny and tall and stylish so its hard to deny that generally speaking these are some of the best looking people around.
Brussels, Belgium gets the party award. I didn’t expect Brussels to be full of top places to go out. I didn’t realize that beer was a huge part of the city, nor did I realize it had a huge tourist population that creates a great night life. I would absolutely go back and prepare to go out more than I did this time.
Finally, Zadar gets the chill award. All I wanted to do in Croatia was sit on the water in the sun and hang out. That’s exactly what you do in Zadar. There are tourist sites to see that have historical significance but its not enough to spend more than a day or two. I wouldn’t necessarily go back to Zadar but I am more intrigued with the rest of Croatia and what other cities are like.
I cant believe I only have 2 weeks left in Ferrara with all the incredible people I’ve met here (both American and Italian). I never thought I would be this sad thinking about it because I figured that I would just want to get back to the convenience of American life by the end but its not like that at all. I’m going to live the last 2 weeks with no regrets because I know its now or never.
Shout out to Mom and Dad- THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR EVERYTHING!
Friday we got to Oslo very late since our Ryanair flight was a mess! It was an hour late departing Krakow so naturally once we got in the plane the flight attendants were rushing everyone into place so they could get us in the air as fast as possible. We didn’t land in Oslo until around 11:30 and then had to get the bus to the city. That is where the money spending began…. An hour later we arrived at the main bus station and then had to get to our hostel. Being the over prepared person I am I had mapped out the directions to the hostel so all it took was a little walking and some determination to get there. It was 2 AM by the time we arrived to our hostel after a little sketchy walk from the station. We had a room of 4 which was awesome since we were exhausted and didn’t want to have to worry about other roommates. It was a really comfy bed so we all crashed once we got ourselves situated. We woke up Saturday morning and Alyssa had one of her killer migraines. It caused us to have a slow start to the day but we went to the ATM (again) to get more cash since the 100 Euro we took out went to the hostel (75) and the bus (20). Since we knew this is one of the worlds most expensive places we went immediately to the grocery store to get our food for the day. I purchased a loaf of bread, some laughing cow cheese, apples and loads of water. I ended up spending 17 US dollars on just that! We brought our breakfast/lunch and dinner with us to get coffee. Once Alyssa was feeling better we started our walk of the city.
To our surprise it was the annual 10K race that weekend right in the center of city. It was one of the coolest things because they had live music and tons of booths with thousands of people walking around. Looking back on this though we realize our hostel was probably so expensive because of this race. Anyway we saw the palace, the harbor, the opera house and various other monuments in the city. It was a beautiful day so we took some time to lay in the sun at the opera house before heading back to the city to get Alyssa her tourist stuff! Once we walked back to the city we did some expensive tourist shopping and decided to head back to the hostel since we were broke once again. After a few games of gin and after finishing our bread and cheese we headed back out to get Alyssa her McDonalds. We didn’t realize it when we got there but the sun doesn’t set until around 10:30 at night since Oslo is so far north so when we went out we notice that normal sketchy night time things were happening even though it was still light out. We headed back to the hostel preparing ourselves for our 3AM wake up call.. AGAIN.
Leaving Oslo for Zadar, Croatia was extraordinarily hard because it was so early. We made it to the bus in time and fell asleep for the hour ride to the airport. We boarded the flight and prepared to finally be in a peaceful sunny relaxing place for the day until we had to head back to Ferrara. Once we got to Zadar we got the public bus to the main station then hopped a cab to the hostel since it was too damn hot to walk there since we had to wear all of our heaviest clothes so Ryanair would let us on!
We got to the hostel but couldn’t check in until later so we set out to see our last city of euro trip 2012. We found our way to the water and quickly found a spot to sit down and get some breakfast/lunch. After we ate we went to sit on the boardwalk and that’s when our group had its first division of plans. Amy and I decided to say on the boardwalk while Alyssa and Cara went to walk and see more. Amy and I ended up falling asleep for an hour or two with our feet dangling into the water. It was a nice surprise when I woke up to realize I got my first sunburn of the year! We woke up and headed to the hostel to check in where we met back up with Alyssa and Cara.
After relaxing for a bit we headed back out into the sun and found a park to play gin in until we decided to get dinner. We had a nice light dinner before heading back down the boardwalk to see the famous steps that sing. This sounds strange but the way the water hits the stone on the boardwalk create this crazy tone that sounds like someone humming. We took a few pictures as the sun went down and checked out the cool solar panels that light up crazy colors at night. We got gelato and walked the streets getting more tourist stuff and headed back to the hostel to shower and get ready for an 8 am departure for Italy!
Krakow in 3 words:
Historic
Young
Pierogis
We arrived in Krakow at 9pm Wednesday night and got the bus to the city. Once at the main bus station we were realizing how late is was and how turned around we actually were. After looking at our maps and the directions I had printed off we decided to hop a cab to the hostel. Only 20 zloty later … 4 dollars … We arrived at the Pink Panther hostel. We set up our beds in the 6 person dorm we booked and asked for a place to eat since it was nearly 12 at night and we hadn’t had dinner. We made our way to a 24 hour Pierogi place and each got our own plate of traditional Polish pierogis. I got traditional while the others got spinach stuffed or potato and cheese stuffed Pierogis. We got back and passed out anticipating a big Thursday.
When we woke up we booked ourselves a guided tour of Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps because we figured if we were going we needed to do it the information way. It only cost 20 euros so we figured it was worth our money to get the most out of this experience. We had a few hours to kill so we walked around the city got Starbucks and lunch to bring on the bus with us and headed to the tour place. We had a group of 25 half of them being from our hostel so it was a young crowd. We had an hour and a half ride to the camps and watched a video the whole time about the liberation of the camps and a brief overview of world war two. We got to Auschwitz and immediately met our tour guide who gave us headphones to hear all the things she had to say. We started at the gates to the camp. I didn’t realize it but the way the camp was set up looked very similar to a neighborhood. There were houses in a row on two blocks and each “house” was made of brick. This was not exactly what I expected because it was surprisingly nice looking. We headed to our first block, block 4. In this building there were photos and a brief history of the type of people and the years they were taken there. It was a nice refresher of the second world war because it had been a while since I studied this topic. Once we covered which years this happened we got into more detail about what these camps did exactly. We saw displays of hundreds of suitcases and thousands of shoes as well as a few tons of human hair. I had been the holocaust museum a few years before so all of this was sort of familiar but seeing these quantities and this much detail was crazy. We continued on a got to see the gas chamber, the crematorium and even block 11, which was the execution / “death” block. This ended the Auschwitz tour and was the beginning of the Birkenau tour. Now I didn’t realize that the prisoners at Auschwitz worked to build this camp, nor did I realize that Brikenau is actually what is depicted in most movies as Auschwitz. It’s the one with the train tracks that lead up to a big stone arch. Anyway, at this camp we got to see a train car that fit 100 Jews that transported them from far away places- like Rome and Brussels. We also saw the burned down gas chamber, stone bunk beds that fit 5 people in each and wash rooms. There was also a huge monument at this location that recognized everyone lost and all the terrible things that happened. After this 6 hour tour was over we got back on the bus and headed back to Krakow.
Once we got back we got dinner at an Italian place in the main square and then walked around and got dessert. We headed home at a responsible hour and woke up the next morning ready to see a bit more before we had to leave. We decided the next morning we wanted to see the Jewish quarters of the city and since Krakow is so affordable we decided to do another tour. We got in a golf cart and headed to the other side of town. We saw countless Synagogue and learned about the history of many and the significance of many other areas. Once the tour was over we found our way to a bagel place recommended by our hostel. Both Amy and Alyssa have craved bagels so it was crucial we found the restaurant. Once there we each got ourselves breakfast bagels or bagel sandwiches. We wandered back to town and to the hostel to get our bags to head to the airport for Oslo.
Stockholm in 3 words:
Shopping
Modern
Islands
We had a 6 am flight from Brussels so we got up at 3:15 took a taxi at 4 to the bus. Had an hour long bus in the freezing cold to the airport. Got 2 loaves of bread for breakfast since I cant afford airport food and got on the plane. I got away with hiding my huge Longchamp under my big ass sweater so once again Ryanair YOU SUCK and I win!
Got to Stockholm and took the bus to city and walked to hostel. Another 10 room dorm but to our surprise we only had like 3 other roomies. Went back on main walking street to get lunch. Sat at lunch place for many hours talking and then decided to do some shopping (not that I bought anything since its one of the worlds most expensive cities). Headed back to hostel and played gin in our room. Went to grocery store for dinner came back ate in the kitchen area while watching Pink music videos. Went back to our room and met our three HOT Italian roommates from Torino. They invites us out to drink after dinner but we sort of declined because we were waiting for our friend Cara since she was arriving soon. They came back from dinner and said they were going to the bars. We thought for 40 seconds after they left and started getting ready for a night at the bars. Sorry Cara were not picking you up at the bus stop! Went to local bar got beers and talked with these 3 roomies an their friend from high school who is in Erasmus (a study aboard program) in Stockholm. Left bar at 12:30 randomly ran into Cara on street on the way back to the hostel because she was on her way to meet us at the bar. Headed home and passed out. I apparently snored all night long in front of our roomies which is incredibly embarrassing but on the bright side in the morning we exchanged number and face book information and have actually kept talking since they left Stockholm! Mom/Dad- hopefully the one I met is a prince or something because my time is running out… I need to get engaged as soon as possible!
After we woke up Tuesday and had peanut butter sandwiches!!! Skippy creamy peanut butter sandwiches. Yummm We then headed out on our Stockholm adventure. First we had to hit the ATM and we just happened to ser Ricardo and Danilo from the night before. We started our walk toward the palace on a separate island from where we were staying. We hit it just right because the changing of the guard was happening and nearly 200 soldiers were out participating in this cool event. After that we headed to get coffee and ran into Davide… another one of the guys we hung out with the night before! We got coffee and decided to walk to the grocery store to get lunch and head to the water to eat. After we had hummus and pita on the water we walked to another island in the distance that had a McDonald where Alyssa could get her cone (it was her goal to hit a McDonalds in every country). After we walked down a main street and shopped then decided to head back to the main island the long way through a few other islands. We figured 30 minutes into the walk it was going to take a good 2 hours to walk back that way so we turned around and went back a similar way we came. Once we got back to town we got froyo and salads for dinner at the grocery store and headed back to the hostel to play gin rummy since we couldn’t afford to go out again.. not to mention our Italians had left so there was less of an incentive to go out.
Wednesday we finished the peanut butter in our hostel but decided to get muffins and coffee down the block since muffins were a craving Amy had been having. We did some tourist shopping for Alyssa and came back to the hostel to get out bags and head to the bus to the airport. On the way there we stopped in an American goodies store and got lots of American food and drinks. Naturally I only bought myself 6 packs of orbit gum while others bought hot sauce, Dr. Pepper and Reese’s peanut butter cups. With our new goodies in hand we headed to the bus and then the airport. We boarded our flight to Krakow and were on our way to the next leg of the trip!
Brussels in 3 words:
Indulgence
Beer Beer Beer Beer
Seafood
We arrived in Brussels around 8 pm on Saturday night after running into Matt and Kelley at the airport in Bologna before they headed off to Amsterdam. We took a bus to the city and with my great planning skills I looked up which metro line to get to the hostel. I knew the general direction of where the hostel was once we were out of the metro and we ended up finding it really easily! After Putting our things down we hauled ass to a dinner spot since we were starving! We all got burgers (I know I know its so American of us but it was the cheapest thing on the menu!) at a place called “Cheese Cake Cafe” and then headed to a bar recommended by my friend from Oregon who was in Brussels a few weeks before. It’s written up in the Guinness book of world records because it has 2004 beers on tap! We sat outside drinking various beers until around 12:30 and headed back to the hostel for our 8 am wake up in order to get the free breakfast provided by the hostel!
It was a struggle waking up and getting started but we took the metro to the opposite side of town to check out the flea market. They had all old antiques and vintage purses and glasses so we poked around for a little while before headed off to check out the sites. We couldn’t do that before Alyssa and Gianna got a waffle from the street! This is something Brussels is known for so it became Alyssa’s goal to have 3 waffles that day. Once they were filled up we headed to see a few churches, the parliament building, the peeing boy statue (famous thing in Brussels), the stock exchange building and a huge square. We walked back towards the hostel but had to stop at the 10th best bar in the world. It wasn’t too crowded since it was just past noon so the bartender came over and helped us out. He asked for our taste in beer and customized beers to our tastes. Naturally I got a fruit flavored beer… and LOVED it. Next we headed to a famous waffle place got classic waffles for cheap. Its funny how they define waffles because the classic waffle is just a simple unsweetened waffle with nothing on top. The tourist waffle is usually sugar coated and then the ultimate tourist waffle is covered in all kinds of crap like berries, ice cream, whip cream and chocolate sauce. Obviously we went for the ultimate tourist waffles with crap all over them (I just had strawberries on mine).
We went back to hostel played rummy 500 until around 6 then went to centro to go get dinner. We went to a touristy place but that’s only because they had incredible deals. We got a 3 course meal for 12 euros. Since I was in a French country I had to get mussels (shout out to mom and dad and Le Central in Denver). After Shrimp scampi, mussels, free wine, and another waffle we headed back to Delirium Café. There I also bought a fruity beer and we hung out drinking and meeting people for a few hours then headed home for an early wake up call to go to Stockholm.
Tomorrow I leave for the biggest trip of the semester so I have spent this week getting caught up on all things Ferrara. We had two group dinners this week as well as a cooking class and a tour of the magic history in Ferrara. There was a group of American study abroad representatives from universities all over the US that were touring our program so they attended these events with us and also toured our apartment and some host family houses while they were here.
The rest of the week was spent writing two papers, doing one presentation, doing one project and studying for my Italian final that I had today. I didn’t get everything done that I hoped but I will have one whole week to do one more paper and a project.
I am doing my best to forget about what I have left to do so I can enjoy my trip to 5 awesome unique different countries!
To recap really quickly before getting into spring break details I need to tell you that our group had our first police/hospital encounter the Saturday before leaving for spring break. It wasn’t me, which is all that matters but it’s a wild story for anyone who is curious! Basically I am nervous to show my face at our favorite club again, but I am also even more in love with Andrea AKA “Drew” …. That LMFAO dancer/chef guy I met a few months ago because he was a savior to us when dealing with the police!
My first spring break trip was a highly anticipated trip. It was Alyssa’s first time this semester outside the country… I beat her by going to Germany.. And it was our first outside the country trip as a group!
We flew out of Pisa on a direct flight to Budapest but before we went to the airport we made sure to stop in Pisa to get a quick shot with the leaning tower! After a good 10 minutes walking around we headed to the airport. Yet again, being and EU citizen proved beneficial when they didn’t check the weight of my luggage before I went through security.
We took our flight and landed in Budapest. I had looked it all up in advance and knew which bus to catch that takes us to the main train station and the metro from there that takes us to the nearest metro stop by our hostel. Once I got us there it was nearly midnight so we hopped in a cab and 3 minutes later were at the hostel. I’d like to consider myself a pretty self sufficient traveler because I didn’t need any help until we were nearly there.
We got dinner for only 6,600 HUF - 23 euro total for us so it was delightful to find Budapest so cheap! Tuesday we woke up and started our day by heading to the “Buda” side of Budapest and spent most of our day at the royal palace and Matthias church. We got lunch and had a picnic sitting on the benches in one of the numerous parks. We then walked to the parliament building and back to our hostel to decompress before getting dinner. We ended up meeting one of our cool roommates and talking for hours before getting dinner and drinks. Wednesday we woke up and walked into the “Pest” side of the city. This side was incredibly similar to New York. This might blow your mind as you are reading this but it was very metropolitan with banks, shops, restaurants, malls, and office buildings.. not to mention the constant flow of people headed in every different direction. We headed to heroes square which is in one of the cities biggest parks, then went to Europe’s largest Turkish bath.
Okay, so I’ve had a Turish bath before and I’ve been to hot springs before but this “bath house” was an interesting combination between the two. We decided to not get massages (in order to save money) so instead we just pool hopped for the next hour or two. This bath had over 12/13 pools with varying temperatures so we made our way though some hot and some not to hot pools. It was hilarious because you could tell the tourists by the ones constantly changing pool and the locals- who sat in the same spot for hours playing water chess or water checkers with their buddies. After the bath house we headed across the park to the Budapest Zoo. Alyssa had never been to a zoo before so I felt obligated to pay the 1500 HUF (5 Euro) for endless hours of entertainment. After a few hours following her around and taking pictures of her with animals we headed back to the hostel to pack and get ready for our 3 AM wake up call for our flight to Barcelona.
We landed in Barca around 830 AM and got a bus to the city and the metro to our hostel which was conveniently located on Las Ramblas just tucked away in Placa Reial. The most ironic thing about all of this is that I was in that very placa 3 years before with my family when we went to visit Owen.
We met up with 5 of our friends and headed to St. Josephs Mercat… which has been my favorite place in this entire world since my last visit there. We got juices and sandwiches and headed down La Rambla toward the beach. After showing everyone the water and getting coffee and nutella crepes we headed back to the hostel to shower and get ready for Matt’s 21st birthday celebration at midnight. I made a friend in the hostel so we had recommendations for a Tapas bar which we headed to around 9 pm.
We enjoyed sangria and tapas before heading back to Placa Reial to drink at the fountain until we wanted to hit the bars and the club with our hostel at 1:45. We headed to a bar after an hour or two of hanging out outside and that’s when the heavy drinking began. Since it was Matts birthday we were bragging all night to the bartenders to see if we could get free drinks… guess who was right? We were! Drinks all night and I think I paid a total of 3 euros post dinner. Around 12:30, a whole 30 minutes post 21st birthday Matt was too smashed to be out in public so he headed back to the hostel with his girlfriend and two of our other friends. The remaining 6 of us hung out with our hostel roommates (3 Brazilian guys) before departing for Catwalk with our hostel. This is sort of unusual for a hostel but this is one of the biggest hostels in the city center of Barca so its an easy way for them to get hooked up at the clubs and an easy way to convince us that we need to stay at their hostel. I basically paid money to sleep, shower, eat, and get into clubs for free for the weekend. We stayed out dancing until around 4 before heading home. (I have some funny stories about when the Brazilians returned home but you’ll have to ask me to hear those stories).
We woke up the next morning and headed to my favorite market for breakfast then hopped onto the metro to La Segrada Familia. I had been here before with my family but it was cool to act like I knew everything about it around my friends.
We didn’t go in because it was 12 euros and we knew we would rather get lunch and drinks for 12 euro each than go into a church. We got lunch and then headed to a big park at the opposite side of town to get wine and sit in the sun. Once we got there we decidede to get in row boats for an hour and row around this great park but finally had to leave once it started to rain. It was perfect time for us to head back to town get chocolate con churros, take a nap and shower to get ready for the night. We met up for dinner way later this night- around 11- so we didn’t make the same mistake about going out too early. We got another recommendation from my Finnish friend in the hostel and went to a fancy spot really close to our hostel. We got a huge serving of Paella for the table and 4 pitches of sangria to share. We celebrated Matts real birthday dinner before getting coffee to prepare us for another night of dancing at the clubs.
Our hostel hooked us up again and we went to another swanky spot higher up on Las Ramblas and got free taxi rides and free entrance. We ended up dancing until 4:30/5 and returned home to find 3 new roommates from Slovenia.
We crashed until 10 the next morning and got ready and checked out of the hostel. We went to the market again for hung over breakfast food and decided to walk up Las Ramblas toward the club from the night before to check out some more of Gaudi’s buildings.
We got lunch on the way because all of us were starving and we just so happened to run into a Tapas bar I went to with my family a few years before. We had some great times here but it was just too expensive to go back to with my friends so it was awesome that we just accidentally ran into it! We poked around for a few hours before catching a bus to the airport and getting our flight to Bologna. Once we got back to Italy we got Gelato because we were missing it so much then took the train back to Ferrara. Although we were exhausted 4 of our friends came back to our apartment and we just laughed about the weekend and the stupid shenanigans that happened.
One thing I have adapted to since being abroad is “going with the flow”. If you knew me well before I left you know that I tend to plan things out and when those things don’t work out I sort of lose my cool. Good news for you all, I am no longer like that! With that said, you might be wondering what the hell I have been doing with all my time here since I have only left the county once so far. In one of my very first blog posts I made a list of where we were going and when we were going there. That list hasn’t been accurate since basically the beginning of February. Money was a huge factor in this but also the fact that I have 2 classes on Fridays and 3 classes on Mondays kind of ruined our plans. Although I have only left the country once so far I have been to over 24 cities in Italy. This month though this will all change. The month of April is divided into two for us CIEE students. First is my spring break (which started today April 6th and goes until April 15th). Five days later on the 20th is our second spring break. Me and 3 other of my best girl friends are embarking on what we have dubbed our “Eurotrip”.
Here is what April will look like for me:
Monday april 9th we are headed to Pisa for the day before catching a flight to Budapest. We are spending 3 days in Budapest and on Thursday we are heading to Barcelona. Although I have been there before I am stoked to go back. We are meeting up with 10 other people from my program to celebrate a 21st birthday on Friday the 13th. We are all headed back to Ferrara on the 14th to gather ourselves for our last week of real classes.
On April 21st we leave for our Eurotrip which looks a little like this:
Brussels, Belgium for 3 days
Stockholm, Sweden 3 days
Krakow, Poland 2 days
Oslo, Norway 2 days
Zadar, Croatia 2 days
This list is VERY different from my initial list in many ways. I’m not doing the typical Prague, Amsterdam, Switzerland, Paris route because I wanted to be different. These are unique places that I wouldn’t ordinarily visit and I am stoked to have unique experiences in each of these places.
Once I am home from my Eurotrip I only have one week of classes left which is followed by another week of hanging out that might turn into a few more day trips. After all that its time to head back to London for a few days then back to the States!
I’ll do my best to keep up with this blog during this busy month!
I’ve always traveled alone, especially in the last few years with college. Friday however was a new experience. My day looked a little like this: I woke up at 6 and got ready for my 7:30 departure from the castle in downtown Ferrara. I found the bus stop, paid my 15 euro and got a direct ride to the Bologna airport. I arrived and went through security and waited for my 10 am flight to Brussels. Since there is a strict size and weight limit on carry on bags for Ryanair I weighed, reweighed and repacked more than 7 times before I left and had to wear two sweaters and my leather jacket just so I wouldn’t be over the weight limit. I had to pack my purse in my suitcase also since you’re only allowed one item but I hid my wallet under my armpit under my 3 jackets so I could have my chapstick, gum and iPod without needing to dig for it in my suitcase when on the plane! I’ve always been good at bending the rules and being abroad has made me even better! It was only an hour or so flight there and then I had 2 awkward hours to hang out before my next flight to Munich. I had to book all these flights separately so when I got off the planes I had to get on busses that take us to customs and then to the airport exit so basically I have to go through security and all that mess again just to get to my next flight. Once I landed in Munich I immediately found my shuttle that I booked online to the city center. My flight was suppose to arrive at 17:10 but since Ryanair is so awesome we were 45 whopping minutes early! So I got a sandwich and scoped the free brochures and waited. The shuttle was another hour and a half ride until I got to my hostel- estimated arrival time being 7pm. Do the math ladies and gentlemen ….. Thats a long day of travel.
Will didn’t getting there until Saturday- so I had to stay the night alone in a hostel! I called my mom and then got a chance to Skype Mackenzie and Hannah so I wasn’t too alone Friday night!
When Will got to Munich we immediately started talking about what we were planning on doing for the next few days. We left the station to start our walking tour to find some food! We ran into a cool church and then found a restaurant for some traditional German food. I got pork sausage with sauerkraut and bread and of course a half liter of their home brew. We headed from there to the hostel for Will to check in. That’s when my body decided to reject the first German meal I had. We hung around for 45 for my stomach ache to subside then we started walking the city!
We saw all it has to offer from the swanky square with all the Prada Gucci and Burberry stores to the historical landmarks. I even had the chance to stop at my first Starbucks in 4 months. Let me tell you… Chamomile tea has never tasted so good. It was only 2.30 euro too- cheaper than the Starbucks in Breckinridge! From there we headed to the train station to buy our tickets for our Sunday trip to two castles 2 hours via trains outside Munich. From the station we headed to the all famous Hofbräuhaus beer hall. This place was incredible. Two stories of lined up tables full of beer, German sausages and pretzels. We made our way upstairs to find a seat for two and ordered our meal. Since my stomach was still wack I settled for a salad and big ass pretzel and a half liter of their beer. There was live music from men dressed in Oktoberfest outfits and women in the traditional Bavarian attire. By the time we finished our meal it was nearly 11:30 and will had only slept 5 hours the last two nights so we headed to the hostel for an early day the next day.
Sunday we took a 8:50 AM train to Fussen a town in the very southern end of Germany. Here there are two castles built by Ludwig II in the late 1800’s. We had the chance to get a guided tour of one of these incredible castles (Neuschwanstein Castle) for only 12 euros each. We spent the afternoon walking around and taking pictures before we took a 4 pm train back to the city. When we got back to the city we walked our way to the English gardens. I probably have the translation wrong but it’s a park in the center of the city that is actually bigger than central park in NY! We walked for 30 minutes to a Chinese structure (Chinesischer) that was the site for one of the bigger beer gardens. We spent a whopping 15 euro on pretzels and beer - and for Will a huge sausage with potato salad. By the time we were done in the garden the sun was going down and once we figured out the tram system it was nearly 10pm.
Monday we had a tour of the Audi a4 plant planned but after checking out train prices we noticed it would be nearly a 50 euro adventure. We decided that this money could have been spent in better ways so we headed to the BMW factory instead. Unfortunately the production plant tours were booked so we only got to check out their 4 story show room. I am partial to Audi but I will give BMW some credit for having some cool stuff.
After checking this out we headed over to the Olympic park. Munich had the Olympics in 1972 so when I got a chance to see the swimming pool, the basketball court and the track and field and soccer stadium. There was some construction going on but needless to say it was awesome. We hiked up a huge hill and got to see a beautiful view of every side of the city.
We couldn’t stop there so we headed back to the city center- got beers and pretzels at the famous market (Viktuelienmmark) and headed toward a little park we found. We hung out in the sun, people watched and chatted. Once the sun went down we went to the grocery store and got supplies for our dinner we were going to make. Our hostel had a guest kitchen so we got chicken, broccoli, potatoes and beer and wine. Back at the hostel we were two of twelve in the kitchen making our dinner. We had the chance to enjoy our meal with some Spanish men, French and Canadian women. It was a decent meal with great company. I headed to bed early for my 6:45 am wake up call for my 15 hour travel day.
All in all the weekend in Munich was incredible. The city is beautiful with loads of history and some of the best pretzels and beer I have ever had. I wasn’t able to drive an Audi on the autobahn though (which is on my bucket list) so that just means I will be coming back soon!
