Good Morning Munich

Thursday, Sept. 15, 2022 • Day 1

Photos by Betsy

Our friend Emily jokes that we take the “covered wagon trip” to destinations, meaning that ours is often a long, tiring, and arduous path from place to place. She’s not wrong, and especially not for this journey. The alarm sounded at 3 a.m., and we were out the door and into an Uber around 4:30 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 13. Onto a Delta plane at 6 a.m. headed to LaGuardia, where we spent six hours waiting to board a flight to Montreal and then Munich. And, shockingly, the journey would have been worse had I not changed our tickets at the last minute.

We spent a lot of time in the Maple Leaf lounge, which is the private Air Canada lounge. Free food and drink and comfortable chairs. Not that we needed to sit; there would be plenty of that later. We did meet a very fun 18-month-old Libby while in the lounge. She charmed all the travelers.

The LaGuardia airport is gorgeous, which is amazing since just a couple of years ago it was often described as one of the worst airports in the world. Now, it’s clean, remodeled, and filled with light and great views. A fantastic water feature in Terminal B is beautiful and entertaining.

The Montreal airport was crowded and the Maple Leaf Lounge there had a long wait to get inside. We found a restaurant and had some salads and wine and then made it into the lounge for the last hour of our layover. We were excited to board our Lufthansa flight to Munich and get settled in our business class seats. Those seats are why our journeys are never a straight line from one place to the next. Booking free business class travel with points requires some sacrifice of time and convenience in favor of comfort and sleep.

As soon as we were settled, Betsy took her Ambien so she could sleep well, which is smart. I planned to take a melatonin but left it packed in my checked bag. Typically, I sleep just fine so it wasn’t a problem, except this time something unexpected happened. About an hour into the flight, Betsy was sound asleep and I was just falling asleep when one of the flight crew tapped me on the shoulder and asked me to move to a different seat. A medical emergency had occurred and a woman needed to be moved to business class to lie flat and receive an IV and other medical care and they wanted to move a doctor to a seat near her. The single seat across the aisle from me was open and they wanted to put the doctor in my seat. They asked me to move to the only other open business class seat, which was a single seat at the front of the plane. I was concerned about leaving Betsy to wake up and find a stranger sitting next to her, but moving was the right thing to do so I grabbed my things and moved as far away from Betsy as business class would allow. I didn’t sleep much after the move and I did miss being able to talk to Betsy when morning came. The flight crew kept trying to thank me with alcohol even at 6 a.m., which I politely refused.

Reunited after the flight, we made our way through customs, a long, hot line. Then into a taxi and to the Hotel Metropol, about a 40 minute drive from the airport. We arrived well before check-in but the hotel accommodated us and even upgraded our room to a suite, which was such a pleasant surprise.

It was time for a nap. We slept about two hours and then walked to the Old Town in Munich, about 20 minutes from the hotel. Munich is filled with people of all nationalities and the Old Town was crowded with tourists. Lots of high end shops line the streets of this section along with some historic buildings and beautiful churches.

We love visiting churches since they have the most beautiful architecture. St. Michael’s was particularly beautiful. It’s the largest Renassiance church north of the Alps.

We walked for awhile longer and came across the New Town Hall and we entered the courtyard. After 40 years of construction, it was completed 1905.

Frauenkirche (Cathedral of Our Lady) was impressive from the outside. The towers are 325 feet. Munich is one of the few Catholic cities in Germany. The church was completed in 1488 after just 20 years of construction work. It was mostly destroyed in WWII, but the towers survived and it was rebuilt.

Betsy saw the cuckoo clocks in a shop and remembered how her mother brought one back when she traveled to Switzerland. That clock still hangs in the cabin.

As we searched for a place to eat, the rain came in a torrent. We were soaked when we escaped into a little bar/restaurant. We decided to just eat a snack until the rain stopped and then find a better restaurant for dinner. We ordered a pretzel and cheese. It was the simplest thing to get on a menu we couldn’t read. We never ate again until breakfast this morning at the hotel.

Today we travel to Salzburg. Rain is in the forecast during our entire stay and also during our walking holiday in the lake region. Betsy says we can’t control the weather, but we can control our attitudes.

More scenes from our walk around Munich.