Three years ago (holy crap, 3 years ago?!?!) when Honeybun was 2 ½ and Sugarplum was 5 months, we decided to take a trip to Germany and tour the Christmas Markets. My parents went along (our first with them and our first planned together, though we did see hubby’s parents during our visit to London earlier that year). We started in Munich where we rented a car and drove through Nurnberg, Leipzig, Berlin and ended in Hamburg where we flew back to Dublin for Christmas.
Hubby, the girls and I arrived in Munich 2 days ahead of my parents. We made the mistake of flying Ryanair into Memmingen which Ryanair cleverly brands as “Munich West” which, in truth, is over an hour outside of the Munich City Centre. We had reserved a minivan but, wouldn’t you know, they were fresh out and we ended up with a Ford Transporter, AKA a HUGE van, nothing mini about it! No biggie, we loaded our stuff in the van, installed the girls’ car seats, hopped in and headed down the Autobahn. And even though we were in an unnecessarily large van, hubby thought it was a sports car and we flew into the city (reaching 110 mph at one point) and then it got interesting
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We had booked a 3 bedroom apartment to share with my parents and found it easy enough with the help of our GPS but parking was another story. There was no on street parking by the hotel and the nearest parking garage we could find (still over a 10 minute walk) was too short for our van! After a lot of cursing, anger and calming, we circled back by the apartment and found an open parking spot on the street. We fed some Euros into the meter and headed into the apartment and frantically problem solved. We were unable to move the van that night and unable to read German, my savvy hubby went down and texted pictures of the parking signs to his German co-worker who told us we were fine to park overnight without having to constantly feed the meter.
The next morning we headed to Munich’s main airport to exchange the car and found the van covered in snow! We scraped the van, loaded the girls and headed out only to find out there were no minivans with snow tires. We were able to at least exchange for a smaller large van that would fit in the city garages and at almost 24 hours into our trip, we finally headed to our first stop.
We took the girls to Schloss Nymphenburg, about 15 minutes outside the City Centre and luckily easy enough to get to from the airport. We toured the main palace as well as the Marstallmuseum which is in the former stables and houses the Royal Carriages and Sleighs and Nymphenberg Porcelain. Since it was a snowy, winter day, there weren’t very man people visiting so we were on our own for much of the visit. While Honeybun seemed to enjoy the palace, she loved the carriages and sleighs! We spent so much time looking at them all, discussing everything from how people used to get around to the beautiful intricacies of the craftsmanship.
That night we headed to the Hofbrauhaus (probably the most famous Biergarten in Munich) for dinner. In the traditional way, the restaurant is expansive with long tables and is seat yourself. We wandered through looking for a free table but it was already packed so we realized we would have to sit with other people which didn’t bother us but we were worried about the girls being disruptive to others. Turns out we picked a table with a young couple from the UK and we had a really nice time visiting with them. Hubby had a pork knuckle for dinner and Honeybun and I shared a huge pretzel which also became a form of entertainment (it’s a hat, it’s a handbag, it’s a necklace!) and no one even balked at me breastfeeding Sugarplum while enjoying a liter of beer. We had an easy, relaxing night and as we said our good-byes to our table mates, they told us they had been debating children and wondering what they would have to give up but seeing us not changing our lifestyle and still raising happy, loving children made them rethink it.
The next day we picked up my parents at the airport and we drove (in a snowstorm) south of the city to Schloss Neuschwanstein. I had visited the castle in middle school and was excited to go back. After a little trouble finding the ticket depot (and debating with my dad over how far 100 meters is) we were presented with the options: walk up to the castle in the snow or take a horse drawn carriage, the other options were not running due to the snow. We chose the horses and that was an amazing experience in its own and Honeybun was delighted! The palace itself was not as fantastic as I remembered since it’s largely unfinished and you can only visit through a fairly short guided tour which was hard for the girls. We did, though, have a really nice lunch in a local restaurant after visiting the palace and took the carriage back down the hill.
The last day we were in Munich, we headed into Marienplatz, where the old Town Hall is located and did some putzing around the shops and Christmas market and looking at the store window displays before standing in the snow and large crowd to watch the Glockenspiel. Both girls were mesmerized by the Glockenspiel and even though it was a laid back morning, it was probably the most fun for the girls.
We hit the Hofbrauhaus again for lunch before heading to the Deutsch Museum. While I was the only one excited about the museum, I think I won everyone else over by the end of our visit. The museum houses a large Transport exhibit with a lot of airplane stuff (for hubby) as well as a materials and production exhibit (for my engineer father). The girls also really enjoyed the museum as it is very interactive as well as huge and nicely spread out so you aren’t on top of other people or fighting to see things.
The next day we hopped in the van and headed toward Nuremberg!
