For our second full day in Munich we headed out of the city to the island of Chimsse to visit the replica of Versailles that King Ludvig II began to build during his reign. He never finished the palace – either the building or the grounds – but what remains is fascinating.

We took the train out to Prien am Chimsse which is a storybook kind of town. It is cute and I could have wandered the town for hours and been happy. But, alas, we took a just as cute train to the docks, then a boat over to the island.

Today was a little different on a few fronts. I let Bob take all of the pictures. I didn’t ask for the camera, I didn’t tell him what to take, and I didn’t supervise in any way (so out of character for me, I know). Second, we did a guided tour of the palace, in large part because that is the only way to see it. Thankfully they have tours in multiple languages, English being one.

This place was opulent. I can’t think of a better word to describe it. In the finished rooms (there are 20 finished of the 70 planned rooms) every wall surface and ceiling is painted, decorated and gilded. Every piece of furniture is embellished. It was gorgeous, but too much. By the time we hit the unfinished entry, I was so glad to see plain brick walls.

The island itself, and the views from it, are worth the trip alone. On the train rise to Prien a local gentlemen called it a piece of heaven in Bavaria. He was right. I would have loved to simply wander the island for a few hours, but I was worried about the train times, and Bob was a little under the weather, so we didn’t. Instead we headed back to Munich for dinner.

We found another beer garden for dinner, this one close to our hotel and outside the main tourist area. Augustine is the oldest brewery in Munich according to their information. Started in 1328, they have been brewing beer for a long time.

We were not expecting a large place, but this was huge. And it was exactly what you think of when you think about a beer garden. There were tons of people, lots of food, a band and beer. A lot of beer.

Given that Bob wasn’t feeling great and we had some plans for the morning, we made it an early night, did a very un-European thing and went back to the hotel to rest. Part if me wishes we had stayed and enjoyed the atmosphere, but most of me is really, really glad we left early.

When we look for places to travel, Bob and I have to figure out what we want to do, where we can afford to go, and how much energy we want to expend. Generally we get the what do we want to do question down then I plan the trip and Bob says ok or no before booking anything. This year, I let Bob pick the location so Munich, for better or worse, was his idea. He decided on Munich because it has castles/palaces, lots of history, some very neat churches and beer.

Our first full day in Munich we decided to spend the day at Schloss Nymphenburg- the summer palace of the Bavarian monarchs. Getting there gave us some practice with the transit system, which we managed just fine. We did pick the hottest day of the year to tour the palace – an eighteenth century non air-conditioned palace. It was still worth it.

The main reception room is incredible. It is so light, so airy and so bright that it is hard to believe it is only natural light.

The other room that stands out is the room of beauties. One of the kings had portraits of beautiful women painted. He chose women from all walks of life, from the daughter of a farmer, a shopkeeper’s daughter to the daughter of a duke. He had a specific idea of what a beautiful woman looked like and he made sure to capture it.

Outside the palace, the grounds were amazing.

But more than just the grounds, tucked away, was a small chapel building that had one of the most unique rooms I have ever seen.

Shells. The entire chapel area is created by shells. Everything is done in shells and the pictures really don’t do it justice. It was totally unexpected, totally different and absolutely breathtaking. Well worth seeing.

For dinner, we went a more traditional route and headed to a beer garden. The Pauliner Nachenburger is a large, 3000 seat beer garden near the city center. It has both serviced and self serviced areas as well as playgrounds for children. We choose the served area and started out a little … unsettled as the few servers seemed to not want more tables. Eventually we got a server who insisted I try to say everything in German, and he corrected my pronunciation until I got it right. Part of me hated this, but part of me loved it. And really, if I can handle an encounter with Fritz, I can try anything.

The food wasn’t fancy, but it was really well done. Bob liked his beer and I had both a great German wine and a prosecco with elderflower. I tried to be adventurous with my food and drink this trip and it paid off.

We arrived in Munich just fine after the long trip. The S-Bahn is easy to navigate and our hotel is close to the main train station in Munich. But, like most hotels, rooms are not ready early so we dropped our bags and began to explore Munich.

Thankfully Bob can read a map and navigate because my sense of direction is frequently off. We wandered down to the Marienplatz and got our bearings. We had just a few things that we wanted to do this first day – find the market, go up into St. Peter’s Church and maybe walk up to the English Garden. Of course we get to Germany at the start of a heatwave, but we go for it any way. The Viktualienmarkt is huge. There is every kind of vegetable, pastries, food and beer available. We wandered through (I was looking for a chocolate shop) but it was so crowded and hot that we didn’t stop anywhere. We might go back, but for this day, we decided just to look around.  From the market we went to the Marienplatz. Again, it was very crowded, but we were able to find something to snack on as we watched the people. We also saw the Glockenspiel.

This is a pretty impressive cuckoo clock. It is huge and there are two separate “shows” that play at certain times. We missed the eleven am show and it was too early for the five.  After snacking so we would make it to dinner, we headed to St. Peter’s Church. I wanted to start here because I wanted to get an over view of Munich.

The church itself is one of the oldest in Munich, originally built in the 1100s. It was almost destroyed in WW2, but it was rebuilt in the old style and is pretty impressive. We climbed the 306 steps to the top and took in the views of the city. I was prepared to be impressed by the views, but I think I was more impressed by the interior of the church.

This church is just beautiful. It is a different beauty than the Cathedral at Sienna, but very impressive still. I also loved the real wax candles.  We decided, despite the heat (it was about 93 degrees) to walk up to the English Gardens. This is essentially a huge city park with lots of shade and various activities. There was a cricket match going on, children playing in the play grounds, lots of people resting under the trees, some swimmers and something we didn’t expect to see – surfers.

Yes, in the middle of the river in Munich, Germany is a wave pool area for surfing. It was definitely a site. We also saw lots of teenagers floating or swimming down river, getting out near a tram stop and taking the tram back to where they could do it all again. We know they took the tram because that is what we used to head back to the hotel as we needed to rest and clean up before dinner. All in all. It was a great start to the trip.

We had a difficult time figuring out where we wanted to go this year. The Pacific Northwest held a high place in this list, as did Arizona and Boston. With the Euro-dollar exchange rate what it is right now, we decided on Europe. After thinking Italy, Austria, Ireland or the Scandinavian countries, we settled on Munich. I researched, planned and triple checked flights and connections to make sure it would all go smoothly. Best laid plans as they say.

Our flight out ended up delayed three hours – the amount of time I left between landing in Atlanta and taking off from Atlanta in case of a delay. The gate agents at a Delta were incredible. They tried booking us on a flight to a different city with a connection to Munich through Amsterdam. Couldn’t get on that flight. They tried an Atlanta flight that went through Amsterdam – no luck. We couldn’t make the connection to Paris, so back to the drawing board. We finally ended up with a flight to Frankfurt with a connection to Munich on Lufthansa. How they did this, I have no idea.

We made (just) the Frankfurt flight. The flight itself was uneventful and we had an easy time getting into Frankfurt. Almost every airport I’ve been in has passport control as the first thing you do. You go through passport control before you have any access to any other portion of the airport. Not Frankfurt. Frankfurt we figured out which terminal and gate had our connecting flight, then went through the airport to that area. We went through security (think American TSA screening) with no ID and no ticket. You just go through and while it is easier than the U.S. Airports, they are way more thorough – the number of bags they had people open (including both Bob and I) to check specific items, was amazing. Yet still faster and easier than most U.S. airports.  We made our connection into Munich, made our way to the hotel via the train system and headed out for our first taste of Germany. We said we were going to have a few adventures in German, but I wasn’t counting on the trip to get here being a part of that.