2013.07.29 – Berlin – Dresden (Germany)

We woke up before 9am this morning in order to have breakfast and catch our 12:46pm train to Dresden. We had coffee and pastries at a nearby cafe. The sky was covered this morning and a light rain was falling. We took advantage of our Eurail pass to get from our hotel to the Central train station. At the station, we noticed a train departure for Dresden on track 11 at 11:42 but we also noted another departure screen suggesting that our departure was from track 3 at 11:46. At the last moment, we heard an announcement indicating that the Dresden train was departing from track 11. With only 2 minutes left, we made a crazy dash from track 3 to track 11 – two floors away. We barely made it on board. We never knew Jenny could run this fast while towing a large suitcase behind her. We arrived at the Dresden train station, one hour and half later on. We had a short walk to our Ibis Lilliben hotel – the 3rd Ibis Hotel tower along our walkway. Jenny and Victoria were excited to see all the shopping stores around our hotel. While enjoying some tasty sausages on a bun, we agreed to split up again for a few hours. The laddies were eager to do some shopping while I rented a bicycle to explore the streets of Dresden for an hour. With the shopping crave satisfied, we headed out for supper at a popular German restaurant. The food was different and the service was slow but nonetheless we enjoyed our visit. When time came to leave this underground restaurant, we realized that the rain was pouring down. After encouraging Jenny, we ventured out in the rain and walked swiftly back to our hotel. We were disappointed that our hotel did not offer any free WiFi from our room.

2013.07.30 – Dresden (Germany)

This morning I woke up quite early and headed to the hotel lobby’s computers to make some hotel reservations for Munich. Back at the room, I fell asleep for a few more hours. Later, Jenny and I headed to Starbucks for some coffee and free WiFi to help with some travel planning. We went for a light breakfast at a near by coffee/bakery shop. We walked and visited the historical sites of Dresden. Back at the hotel, we had some sausages on a bun again. Jenny and Victoria went for some more shopping while I ventured out on a bicycle rented from our hotel. Surprisingly it was difficult to purchase water along the stores lining-up the pedestrian street in our hotel neighbourhood. In the evening, we stopped at a nearby Italian restaurant for our evening meal. I accidentally broke Jenny’s beer glass towards the end of our meal.

2013.07.31 – Dresden-Munich (Germany)

We left our Ibis hotel at around 8:30am to catch a first train of two which we needed to take to lead us to Munich. The train ride was in a 2nd class carriage was quite bumpy. We were all fairly tired due to our early wake-up and noisy neighbourhood. We took out second train connection in Nuremberg. The train reached speed of 180 km/h along the one hour ride. At the central train station, we smoothly connected with the S-Bahn headed towards our Hotel Villa Solln neighbourhood. We were thankful again for directions provided by a Google map previously saved on our Kindle. At the Solln S-Bahn station, we started a long walk with our luggages in hand in order to reach our hotel. It took us about 45 minutes to arrive there. We quickly discovered that this hotel location was not going to be easy for us to commute back-and-forth from the city centre. The hotel seemed to be used mostly by patrons with vehicles. For supper, we ventured in a mostly residential neighbourhood and after 40 minutes of walking, we finally found an Italian restaurant at a tennis court centre. We walked back to the hotel for another 20-25 minutes. While searching for budget-friendly accommodations in Fussen, our proposed base to visit a few famous castles, we opted to rather stay in Munich for another two nights. In light of this itinerary change, we booked rooms at the Novetel Munich City Center for a few more euros than what we were paying for our remote hotel. We attempted to book tickets for the King Castle visits, near Fussen, for Friday, August 2nd. The online reservations system was rather rudimentary and we were unclear as to whether the reservation requested went through.

2013.08.01 – Munich (Germany)

We had a slow wake-up this morning. We had breakfast at a bakery a few blocks away from our remote Hotel Villa Solln. Using our Eurail pass, we took a day trip to Nuremberg – a one hour train ride away. While in Nuremberg, we strolled the streets of the downtown and visited the Imperial Castle of Nuremberg over a few hours. Just before our return to Munich, we stopped at a restaurants for some local sausages. We rushed back to the train station, but we ended up missing our train by 10 seconds or so. Again, Victoria and I were amazed to see how fast Jenny could walk when she was trying to catch a train. Unfortunately her directions sometimes got her in trouble such as heading up an escalator when signage showed a straight arrow. Back in Munich’s city center, we strolled some of the busy upscale streets in search of a restaurant. We finally stopped at a Chinese restaurant (Mandarin) which turned out to be not as good as the one in Berlin. We headed back to our remote hotel using the S-Bahn. The walk to the hotel took 20-25 minutes. Clearly our latest walk reminded us that our hotel location was not convenient for us. Although we did receive confirmation for our King Castles tickets reservations, we noticed that the dates were incorrect. We sent out an email requesting a correction but we did not hear back from the ticket office.

2013.08.02 – Munich (Germany)

This morning we packed our bags early as we had a busy schedule today. We planned to visit King’s Castles in Fussen. At check-out time, we needed to challenge some of the extra cost on our hotel invoice. Jenny was finally successful. We took a taxi from the hotel to the closest S-Bahn station. Using our Eurail pass, we took the S-Bahn to our Novotel Hotel in the City center where we had reservations for the next two evenings. After leaving our bags at the reception, we headed back to the train station for a two hour train ride to Fussen. The train was overflowing with passengers/tourists. Luckily we had seats in the 2nd class train carriage. After arriving in Fussen, we quickly took the bus that brought us to the ticket center. We were still unclear as to whether our online ticket reservations would actually be approved. Using our Kindle DX to check our email, we were very relieved to read that we had obtained our reservation tickets for the current day. Our two castle visits were confirmed for 1:55pm and 3:55pm. Although the mountain scenery nearby was beautiful, we did not believe the 35 minutes tours of each castle were worth the stressful dealings with all the people. After some fairly steep walks throughout the afternoon, we were happy to rest on our return train ride to Munich. We had some local take out pizza which Jenny considered the best she had ever eaten. Jenny managed to do an extensive clothes washing even after our exhausting travel day.

2013.08.03 – Munich (Germany)

We woke up at 9:15am this morning to make sure we could catch the courtesy buffet breakfast at the hotel which ended at 10:30am. The breakfast was a very nice surprise as it was plentiful with friendly staff. We discovered that the S-Bahn station was closed on weekends until September. We end up taking the SEV city bus to the city center. Jenny and Victoria were again excited by all the clothes stores along our walk. We stopped for the noon carillon (glokenspiels) show at the residenz. Jenny and Victoria took 30 mins to do some shopping while I listen to an Ecuadorian musician group on the pedestrian street. We encountered a few musicians along the way, namely Ivan who played the accordion like no one we had seen or heard. The guy really got into his music to the point where Jenny initially thought he was a blind musician. We later took the tram to visit the past royal family’s summer palace. We spent a few hours visiting the museum and the many buildings in the vast garden/park. Before taking the tram back to the hotel, we had some ice cream. The tram ride was not very pleasant due to the excessive heat. At the hotel, we looked up some recommended restaurants for winner schnitzels. Unfortunately, the restaurant we had chosen was fully booked this Saturday evening. We resigned ourselves to visit the German restaurant across the street from of our hotel. At the restaurant, we became concerned by the fact that we appeared like the only patrons in the place. Nonetheless we appreciated the attention the old owner gave us. By the time we finished our meal, the outside patio had filled up. Back at the hotel, we went for a swim at the hotel pool.