Making Our Way Home

 

Our last activity overseas

It was sadly time to go home. Fortunately, the train strike that was announced today wouldn't commence until Jan 10! Yay for us! This meant we didn't have to execute plan B, taking on the farmer and their tractors on the road. It also meant we had time for one last adventure, combat karts. We drove for about 45 minutes out of the city for this experience of real lie MarioKart. All three children were clearly more fearless than I was, or played more Mariokart. I was lapped several times...thank goodness there were no other drivers other than our family on the track. The rest of the family enjoyed it immensely. I walked out with sore shoulders and a tense neck!

The combat kart track

You pick up "power ups" on the track to use against your opponents. 

In case we forgot who we were

After returning our car back at the Hilton, we collected our luggage and commenced our very long and convoluted way back to Australia. We trained the short distance to Munich Hbf, and wolfed down some Asian. I promise it was because there were no seats at all the other cafes and restaurants! 

We bought our intercity train tickets as soon as they were released online. This is generally the cheapest if you're organised. We got first class tickets it was only marginally more expensive than second class tickets. There's free wifi onboard, as well as power points (no USB outlets). The seats are reasonably comfortable with footrests. The overhead luggage compartment is large enough to hold large suitcases.

As I sit here on the high speed train hurtling our way towards Frankfurt airport, I'm hoping that the rest of our travels will go smoothly. Our first flight will be to Singapore where we will have a very long layover unfortunately. Beggars couldn't be choosers as these were the only points flights that were available for all of us. We do get to experience the Aerotel, although Lara was disappointed that it was not truly a capsule hotel. From there, it will be another 8 hours before we land in Sydney. See you soon folks! Or maybe not so soon...

Asian that was actually ok

The place was "pan-Asian" but as soon as I heard the Vietnamese I chose the pho. It was a wise move!

The station was packed!

The train taking us to Frankfurt Airport

Displays with helpful information

For those interested in the speed

Next stop

Spacious

In case you were wondering what the vehicle of torture looked like

Let It Snow

 

Lake Königssee

What do Australians with no snow and ice driving do when it snows? They drive for 2 hours on the wrong side of the road just to visit a lake. We briefly discussed alternative plans should the rail strike go ahead, but there wasn't much we could do until they announced the strike, and we were assured that 48 hours notice would be given by the rail workers union, so why not go on a road trip! We had a family vote the night before on the destination. Charming Bavarian villages was voted out almost immediately. It was a close one between Lake Königssee and Neuschwanstein Castle and the former won.

The change of pace was actually nice. The change in mode of transport was also nice. We were able to play our own music on a spotify family jam on the drive. The drive to Lake Königssee was scenic. German roads were in excellent condition and it was well signed. I won't bore you with the details of our Lake visit as it was mostly just enjoying nature and playing with snow. However, the restaurant where we took refuge from the cold served up the best German meal as voted by the children!

Fingers crossed for tomorrow that we can actually make it to Frankfurt for our flight home!

Checking out our hire car and jostling for seating position

Driving out of the city

Turning off into more rural areas

Those buildings are boat houses!

You can't see it but the water was very clear

The humble looking restaurant

Warm and cozy

with a pretty view

I may have become a beer drinker, especially as it was cheaper than coke here!

The servings were huge. Turkey, hash brown, and mushrooms

A better version of the roast pork that we had at Hofbräuhaus

Schloss & SS

 

Schloss Nymphenburg

Today we questioned the wisdom of leaving behind sunny Spain for miserable Munich. It was frigidly cold, and it was rainy. To make matters worse, our seemingly "safe" choice of being closer to our departing airport of Frankfurt may not be so "safe" after all. Rumours were rife of impending rail strikes from Jan 8 and that the farmers were also going to strike on the same day, taking to the roads on their tractors. Double whammy! Take me back to 18 degrees and blue skies! Out came our layers as we continued to tackle the sights of Munich. 

Utilising Munich's well connected public transport, we made our way to Nymphenburg Palace. It was a crash course for us on the House of Wittelsbach, the ruling family of Bavaria, of which we knew nothing about. King Ludwig II was born here, the king who was responsible for Neuschwanstein Castle (important because this was what inspired the Disney castle!), also known as Mad King Ludwig. The palace was built as a summer residence and we could see how all this would be more pleasant with sun...

This particular Hilton had a sitting area set aside for diamond members

Different country, different royal family to school up on!

Consensus was that the above portrait would be what a female Malcolm would look like

This was where Ludwig II was born. Also known as Mad King Ludwig

Do we look miserable?!

The next stop was a more sobering one, the second of Jonah's museum request, the NS-Dokumentationszentrum. It is a museum which focuses on the history and consequences of the National Socialist regime and the role of Munich in the Hitler Regime. The museum was housed in a building built on the site of the original "Brown House", the home of the Nazi Party centre of operations. The museum did a great job highlighting how the historical, social and economical factors made the rise of Hitler possible. We spent hours here and by the time we finished, the brain was definitely drained. We were also starving.

On our way back, we had to change modes of transport and we headed into the first warm, recognisable place that we knew would provide food quickly. Big Rosti was calling me. A burger with hash brown and cranberry sauce?! I'm sold. Apparently McShrimp was also a thing, although I probably wouldn't recommend it!

Spell that!

I could not resist this

Regular McNuggets on the left, McShrimp on the right!

Beer Anyone?

 

When in Munich...

It was a bright and early start. 0620 pick up for our flight to Munich. This was the last of our flights where we had to stick to a 23 kg limit per bag and we scraped through with some fancy redistribution efforts. Security was busy but the lines flowed quickly. Other than some turbulence, our flight to Munich was uneventful. Luggage did take a while to come out.

We took the S-bahn direct from the airport to a station directly under our hotel. We chose the hotel primarily because of this, as well as the fact that there was a car rental company (Sixt) located on site. From the hotel, it was also only a very short and easy S-bahn ride to München Hbf where our train bound for Frankfurt at the end of our stay would depart from. Luckily for us, the hotel also happened to be a Hilton. Hurray!

For those family of 5s out there, it is a rare time to rejoice for there is a travel ticket here made for 5! The group ticket allows for up to 5 adult travellers. We bought a day ticket to cover our airport train as well as for our sightseeing for the rest of the day.

The plane to take us from Barcelona to Munich

Taking the S-bahn from the airport

Lots of space

Our Hilton room

Jonah had made a request to visit two museums (yes a child who loves museums!) and so we obliged. We decided to tackle one today and one tomorrow to spare our neurons too much activity.  First up was the Deutsches Museum, the museum for science and technology. It was very large and reasonably crowded as Jan 6 was a public holiday. The museum had great content which was vast and diverse but the experience was more akin to reading an encyclopaedia rather than fun and interactive but I survived! It was somewhat of a role reversal where the parent wanted to quit and the child to persist! It did help with my step count for the day which was important because the calories expended would need to be significant to account for the calories to be consumed.

We hopped on a bus towards Marienplatz, the main square in the old town of Munich. What better thing to do as tourist in the cold and rain then to have dinner at Hofbräuhaus. Yes it was touristy and yes you could probably get better food elsewhere but it was convenient, warm, and fun. How could you not be happy listening to the tuba belt out the bass notes on the oom pah pah tunes? The group next to us wearing their Lederhosen outfit completed the ambience. Plus the shared seating meant we got to converse with interesting table mates! First a family from the Ukraine, who tried so hard to communicate with us, then a couple from Sweden who had driven 15 hours with their 2 huskies Kaiser and Freya. The food itself was hearty, delicious and we completed our photo ops with 1L mugs of beer. Tick!

The picture they used to lure me in...the sneaky bastards!

Jonah seemed to know the significance of the various models in display but I had lost interest by then...

I stopped to take a rest at the "bridge" section, to watch a 6 minute snippet on home lol. All types of bridges you could possibly imagine was on display

The free seating area of Hofbräuhaus

Ok ok so I cheated. This was 1L of Radler, beer mixed with sprite or better known as a shandy

We were so happy to see the pretzel woman you'd think we'd not had bread before. There was much regret not ALSO purchasing the cheese pretzel

Sugar donut - Bavarian style

Looks a little gross but was tasty!

Part of the old town in the evening

Cactus

 

Cactus Garden at Montjuic

This is probably a good time to discuss the Barcelona public transport system. The city is well connected with metro and buses. The metro comes every 5 minutes or so and is easy to use. If you're a biggish group like us, you are able to purchase a "Group" ticket. You get 70 trips loaded on the card which you can use for everyone in the group. Just tap for each person to go through the gates to enter the metro. You can exit the gates without tapping off. Buying this card saved us a lot of time having to buy individual tickets. There are other types of tickets available, you just have to do the math to work out which would be the most economical option for your travelling party, length of stay, and intended usage.

After a family discussion, we decided to visit Montjuic today. The children didn't particularly want to do any historical "sights" and so we didn't want to pay for entry for something they weren't interested in...To get to Montjuic, by metro you'd go to Paral-lel station where the Montjuic funicular is. You DON'T go through the exit gates, which was a mistake we made. Instead look for the signs towards the funicular. The staff at the metro were kind enough to open the gate to let us all back in. Happy Days!

Montjuic Funicular

Once at the top there is a cable car which would take you right to the top where Montjuic Castle is. This is an additional cost and is not covered by the usual public transport ticket. Luckily for us, our destination was the cactus garden so no need for an expensive cable car ride. The cactus garden was rated as one of the top 10 gardens by the New York Times. Expectations were high but in the end, it was a little underwhelming. Perhaps it was the wrong time of year, or that we were already tired after a long meander through Montjuic Park with multiple stops at various play areas. 

We headed back towards our station as we had important business to attend to, namely the restocking of clean socks and underwear. We were all around 1-2 pairs short each to make it home without being smelly...and the thrifty husband has worked out that it was cheaper to buy what we needed than to pay for laundry. We also worked out that we could shop faster than we could organise for paid washing. We were also too lazy to DIY wash so we got to play Jack Reacher for a few days.

Sadly we had come to the end of our time in Barcelona. We farewelled Oma and Opa as we had an early morning flight to Germany tomorrow and as they head back towards Australia via Singapore. What better way to say goodbye then with a good Chinese meal! Thank you Oma and Opa for travelling with us and providing entertainment, treating us to yummy snacks and meals, and giving the best backseat advice on everything one can possible think of! It has been fun and hopefully there will be many more trips together in the future!

I'm not sure how this is fun when you are nearly tall enough for your feet to touch the bottom...

Sound amplified to be heard clearly at the other end

This was determined to be the best technique to achieve the best sound with minimal voice effort

At the other end

Let's stop again

They actually ran for the swings

There were interesting cacti and it was a serene place

Our very important purchase

The food was good and passed the Opa authenticity test