As we left our apartment on Saturday it was beginning to rain. We went to the train station to deal with an issue for our departure on Wednesday to Krakow when we discovered that trains can’t go there now because of track damage from the floods. 🤦🏼‍♀️ What is it with our train issues? Our only other option is to fly, so I got online and booked tickets. Unfortunately there are no direct flights to Krakow, so we have to change planes in Brussels and we have a long layover there. Our long train trip that we would have had was better than the much longer day we will have flying. Oh well, what else can we do?

After spending too much time at the train station we went to the Great Market Hall, where there are food vendors and other things you can buy. From there we went to St. Stephens Cathedral. They had a special event through the weekend so they weren’t charging admission. It is stunning inside, but they also had a lot of cameras, etc. for what I’m guessing is something happening Sunday. After that we went to the Parliament building, which is enormous. There was no way to fit it into a picture so I’ll take one from across the river today. We walked halfway across the Chain Bridge and saw the Shoes on the Danube. Explanations will be under the photos. We finished the day off with a nice Hungarian dinner of Chicken Paprikash. It was served with Hungarian dumplings, which are just like German spatzle. Delicious. I forgot to take a picture.

Friday was a very busy day. We started off with what I thought was a 1.5 hour walking tour called Welcome to Budapest Historic Center. It was very interesting and I learned a lot about the history of Budapest and the rest of the country. The guide also touched on some of the cultural heritage and language. As we walked, and walked, and walked I looked at the time and noticed how long we had been on the tour. It had been 1.5 hours and we were far from being done. Turns out it was a 2.5 hour tour. We had plans for the afternoon but our timing was flexible. After finishing off the walking tour we raced back to the apartment to grab what we needed for our next activity. We were going to the Széchenyi Bath. Thermal baths are a big part of the culture here so we wanted to check one out. We chose this bath because it’s the biggest and most popular. We took a metro train to the bath, and we were sitting by a couple from Cleveland. I mentioned we have a good friend from there and the woman asked me her name. She knew or knew of my friend and her family. It’s a small world. After enjoying the baths we returned to our apartment to shower and dress for a belated anniversary dinner. It was delicious. It had been a full day. As we were getting ready to leave the restaurant I got a message from an acquaintance who lives here telling me that he was at a wine bar down the street from our apartment and he was waiting for another acquaintance who had just arrived in town for a couple of weeks. I knew we would be seeing them, but I wasn’t expecting it today. Yes, let’s go! We had a nice visit with them and drank some delicious Hungarian wine. It was a really nice day.

Thursday was our first full day in Budapest. We walked down to the Danube, which had flooded last week due to the torrential rains they experienced in parts of central Europe. There was a lot of debris in the water, which was still running high. The cobblestone sidewalk that parallels the river was covered with silt. We went on a walking tour of the Jewish Quarter, which was very interesting. The tour didn’t allow any opportunity to go inside anywhere, so we got a quick bite to eat after the tour and went back to the Dohany Street Synagogue, the largest synagogue in Europe and the second largest in the world. It holds 3,000 people. It is a stunning building, designed by two non-Jewish men. In some ways it resembles a Catholic Church inside. By the time we took a one hour tour of the synagogue and then went through the museum we were tired. We ended up walking back to our apartment late in the afternoon and just hung out there for the evening. We must pace ourselves. Friday is a very busy day.

On Wednesday after 3 cancelled trains we finally made it to Budapest. We had to change in Salzburg and Vienna, and we caught the train in Vienna with literally seconds to spare because the train from Salzburg was late. We only made it because we only had to cross the train platform. And of course the train to Budapest was also late. This morning after arriving at the station in Munich I discovered the 3rd train trip was cancelled and the guy at the ticket office gave me a new itinerary. We literally had to run to the platform for the train and then discovered that although this train was going to Salzburg it was a different company so our ticket didn’t cover it. What does one do when you have a problem? Sometimes you just have to throw money at it. Of course we missed the train to Vienna, so we had to go to the ticket office in Salzburg. But alls well that ends well and we are in a new city in a country we have never been to. We will be here, staying in a cute apartment for a week and I look forward to exploring. But now it’s evening and while there is a load of laundry getting washed I’m going to work on what we want to see this week.

Today is our last in Germany, for awhile anyway. Tomorrow we head to Budapest. I found out this morning that our direct train from Munich-Budapest was cancelled. Now we have to change trains 3 times. As long as we get there I won’t complain. Too much anyway. Today after spending time dealing with the train issue we went to Nymphenburg Palace. The grounds and palace were both beautiful. We ended the day with a tasty dinner at an Italian restaurant, as one does in Germany.😆

Mondays can be a challenge, as we discovered the hard way. Not having planned this portion of our trip due to changing our location at the last minute we were deciding what to do on the fly. We’ve seen some nice places and done fun things, so that’s all good. We decided to stay close to our hotel on Monday to explore the town of Dachau. In the morning we walked to a coffee shop and had small breakfast, then walked to the altstat (old town). What we discovered was that all the things worth doing (to us) were closed on Mondays. Now what? We’ve spent several days in Munich already and will spend Tuesday there, so we wanted to come up with something else. We ended up going to Nürnberg. It took a while by train and upon arrival we found a nice Indian place for lunch. As we looked at the things we could do in the city we discovered that most things were closed on Mondays or were closed for renovations. Great. We just wandered around until it was time to take the train back to Dachau. Note to self: things are closed on Mondays. 🤦🏼‍♀️

We did it! We went to Oktoberfest on Sunday, September 22nd. It was crowded, as I expected, but interesting in a cultural way. We got started later than we thought we would and it was 11:00 when we arrived. We hadn’t had anything to eat or drink so we quickly found a stand that had pastries and drinks. After that we started walking around. My observations are that it is like a State Fair with a lot of beer tents and beer gardens, the occasional place with wine, and food and drinks. There were a lot of rides. What surprised me the most was how many people were dressed in traditional clothes, lederhosen for the men and dirndls for the women. Even most of the kids were dressed traditionally. Although people come to Oktoberfest from all over the world it felt like a lot of locals and families were there. I’m glad we experienced it. We went in 2010, but literally for about 3 hours and we spent the majority of the time in one beer tent. This time we got a real feel for the event and activities.

Here it is, Saturday morning in Germany. We arrived Wednesday morning and it has been go go go ever since. We are staying in Dachau, a smaller town outside of Munich. Oktoberfest starts today and Munich lodging is overpriced. Since I made the reservation only 16 hours before we departed from home we took what we could get. The hotel is fine and only a 7 minute walk to the S bahn station allowing us easy transport to get around. On arrival day and the following day we explored Munich. On night 2 we went to the famous Hofbräuhaus for dinner. Wow! It was crazy crowded and very loud. The food was meh, but it is set up with long tables so it’s a nice opportunity to meet people. We spoke at length with two younger guys from the Czech Republic and a couple from Aachen, Germany. Yesterday we went to the charming town of Regensburg. We both really enjoyed it there. Today is a special day for us, but that will be left for another post.

P.S. It was the best decision to change our location at the last minute because I keep getting notifications about the many train issues because of the flooding, and now track repairs for our train from Salzburg to Vienna. Now we will take a longer train trip from Munich to Budapest.

Jim and I arrived in Munich on September 18th and today it’s October 13th. I guess I’m just a bit behind in chronicling our trip.

Let’s catch up.

Tuesday, September 17, 2024

After a very stressful and emotional month we are finally ready to take off on our long awaited trip. Unfortunately there is a lot of flooding in Austria, which was where we were to begin the trip, so yesterday afternoon I cancelled our reservations there and found a hotel in Dachau, just a 20 minute S bahn ride into Munich. We were planning to go to Oktoberfest on opening day, but now we have the possibility to go during the week when it’s not such a zoo.

Pro travel tip, always make reservations that can be cancelled because you never know what might come up. It pays to be flexible.

I would like to give a big thank you to Marie and Jim for taking us to the airport this morning!

Thursday, December 14 is our last in France, which makes me a little sad because I love it here. On the other hand I love Germany too, and we are going to do something really special tomorrow. Today I wandered around Strasbourg by myself because Marie wasn’t feeling well. I logged in over 20,700 steps and 8.6 miles. I was planning to take it easy today, but stuff happens. We take the train to Hinterzarten, Germany tomorrow. It’s a small town in the Black Forest. Time to get my stuff together to leave in the morning.