Munich: More than Oktoberfest

I finally got to Munich after a very late train (and you'll learn more about what transpired from that in a later blog). I chose to get a hotel within 5 min walking distance to the Munich Hbf (main Munich train station) and would highly recommend the Metropol Hotel because 1. the rooms are totally cute; 2. They have balconies with a view of the city (where I am writing this); 3. They let me go into the bar after hours and get myself a beer (that I am now drinking on my balcony writing this)!

Walking around Munich I may have let out a couple of gasps because of how prominent and intense the architecture is. It’s almost like a punch in the face...and it makes you feel rather small...I wonder if that is the feeling it was meant to convey...

Karlstor - a medieval city gate

New Town Hall (Neues Rathas)-Gothic Revival architecture; home to city government

Marien platz (column with gold Mary on top) and the Glockenspiel - 2-3 times a day it starts playing music and 43 bells go off with 32 life-sized figures spinning all around telling a marriage story of a Duke from the 1500's, complete with a jousting tournament + the story of Schafflertanz - a dance that started in around 1517 during the plague to give hope to people...I can't make this stuff up.

I got a notice on my phone about my train reservation from Munich to Venice - it was all in German so I copied it into Google Translate and...still didn't understand what they were trying to convey. Something about delays, cancellations, might be done today or yesterday or tomorrow, and Austria was mentioned. Anyways, I went to the hotel front desk and the guy read it (he's German) and he didn't understand what they were saying. He suggested I talk to the Information Desk at the train station (so good thing it was close). 

I got there, told the woman that I received a notice, she looks at my itinerary, starts typing, and hands me a piece of paper, "do this instead". Ok. This itinerary had me leaving earlier and it has "Bus IC" as one of the items...I used common sense and thought this was probably a bus. The itinerary included two transfer points of 10 minutes each. One transferring from a train to a bus, and then back to a train from that bus. When asked if we can actually make that transfer the answer: "da, you will be fine." (I was not convinced).

So what happened with the train schedule? In Austria (and I know some of Italy as well) they had a ton of rain the week+ before I arrived and apparently the rain had washed out some of the train rails. Many of the train routes going from Germany down into Italy require you to go on the Austrian tracks. 

I go pack up and head back to the train station, find my platform, and watch the little reader board thing to make sure it still has my train info. Person after person walked up to the same platform with a very confused look on their face...I knew we were in this trip together. There were many Americans, Australians, and English-speaking Europeans waiting for this train and we all started trading notes. Some people had no idea why they were booked on an alternate route and some didn't realize we had to transfer on and off a bus so we were showing each other where we had to run to for the transfers.  

The train that we are all supposed to get on arrives and we depart on time. I'm chatting with a couple from Wisconsin when we hear this very stern Austrian voice come over the speaker basically saying German tickets were no good on this train. This is a problem because all of our tickets were booked through DB (the German railway system). So, we just wait to see if we get kicked off and when the ticket person came they scanned our tickets and went about their business. We still have no idea why he was saying that.

We get to the first transfer in Rosenheim, hop off the train, and easily find the busses (specially marked with a crossed out train emblem). There were more people than trains and I was happy to only have a backpack. We leave a couple minutes late headed towards Kufstein. And then traffic happened...I mean, if Seattle, New York, and Los Angeles were to have a traffic baby, this was it. This was the baby. Our "10 minute transfer" took about 40 minutes and we were all sitting there watching the clock tick wondering if the train might wait for us (I know, that's funny, right). 

Quick note: The Kufstein area is incredibly beautiful and I might have to add it to my bucket list...never cared if I went to Austria or not, but now I need to go back.

We get to Kufstein and confirm our train is gone but a tall, well dressed (mysterious - not really, but sounds good) Italian man tells me that they told him to get on this other train to Innsbruck because there are lot more train transfers from there. So we go. And I see all my new friends on that train again. I really enjoyed these people. The couple from Wisconsin were retired, their starter home is paid off, none of their kids live at home, they eat at home and use every single dime they have to travel around the world. The family from Australia had two young-ish girls with them and although we were all tired we just kept smiling and laughing - because we're in frickin' Germany and Austria heading over the Alps and the Dolomites into Italy with some incredible scenery. It's hard to be upset about that. 

We'll finish this story in the next blog for Venice...arrivederci!