Osterferien is two weeks long. Rather than traveling, we enjoyed hosting my sisters the first week and then on Easter Sunday, I picked up a rental car from the airport. We took day trips, always returning home to the apartment in the evening. Rather than writing a lot, I'm going to post mostly pictures with captions. Enjoy! We did!
RG, my younger sister, and her daughter, GK, were here until Saturday, April 20th. My older sister, AG, arrived with her 2 daughters on Maundy Thursday, April 18th. They overlapped for two nights and 1.5 days. It was so much fun! And the weather took a turn towards summer.
Monday, April 15th
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| Chilling pool-side at the Michaelibad. Went for a run in the a.m. then we all took the U-Bahn to this indoor-outdoor pool complex. |
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| Watching the surfers in the Eisbachwelle at the edge of the Englischer Garten. |
After eating lunch back at the apartment, we packed a picnic supper and
took the
U-Bahn into the city center, and walked to the
Englischer
Garten to show them the
Eisbachwelle, walk through the park, and have
Bratwurst (to supplement the packed food) for supper.
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| COLD TOES! |
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| The ducks were persistent, if not aggressive! We camped out on the grass in the sun near the creek's edge and watched the bikes and walkers go by while the girls played. |
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| This one tried to take a bite of GE's sandwich! |
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| Apparently the day for dog encounters: a Great Dane waits, rather impatiently, at the sliding door to the REWE City grocery store while I was getting a food items after our day out on the town. |
Tuesday, April 16th
Today's destinations:
Museum Mensch und Natur at the
Nymphenburg Schloss, followed by the
Botanischer Garten near the
Schloss and the
Olympiaturm in the
Olympiapark.
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| This time there isn't any snow!! |
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| Probably my favorite feature of the Botanischer Garten was this Alpine environment! Man-made hill but so many cool rock crevices filled with color and little creeping flowers. |
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| Bees! |
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| Oh, the tulips! So many colors. |
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| GE loved the fire red ones. |
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| Stopped for Eis on our way over to the Olympiapark. |
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| We could actually see the Alps from the top, but the haze made it difficult for the camera to capture them. |
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| View to the city center and the famous double towers of the Frauenkirche. |
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| Leaving her mark. |
Wednesday, April 17th
Our plan for today was to go back to the city center to get gifts and souvenirs for my sister and niece's friends and family, then they all came with me to my coaching session with Stellario.
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| GE asked to go on my walk/run with me. What a sweetheart! |
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| Lunch at Sesam Falafel |
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| Eis and coffee after lunch at a favorite café on the Rindermarkt |
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| Coloring or reading while we wait for Stellario to come over from his office. |
Thursday, April 18th
Today I picked up a bike from GE's classmate and my sister borrowed ME's bicycle, so we could go for a ride along the
Isar. GE's other friend, E, came along and we all had lunch at the
Zum Flaucher Biergarten.
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| Stopped to play in the rocks |
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| Could not have asked for better weather! |
Around bedtime my phone rang! Our sister, AG, and her two girls arrived via car. They had landed around noon, but were driving a rental car down from the Frankfurt airport--about a 4-5 hour drive to Munich. We all piled downstairs to help bring up their bags. My nieces were going to sleep here while my sisters were going to an AirBnB in our neighborhood. We helped everyone get settled and then crashed into bed. Tomorrow is a big day....
Friday, April 19th
Destination:
Schloss Neuschwanstein, about a 2-hour train ride southwest of Munich. We bought two
Bayern-Tickets, each for 5 people, which allowed us to take any of the
Regionalbahn (local) trains and the shuttle bus from the
Füssen train station to the Ticket Center at the base of the mountain. I did my homework: reserved tickets ahead of time with a specific time slot, worked the time backwards with the help of some travel advice websites to figure out what time to leave our apartment in order to catch a train that would get us to the Ticket Center to pick up our tickets by the allotted deadline. Then we took a horse and carriage up to the
Schloss, ate our packed lunch and walked up the last 500 meters to the
Schloss for our tour--only 30 minutes long! If you don't know the history of
Neuschwanstein, here's a
summary. And if you don't know about the Bavarian King, Ludwig II, be sure you
read about him too.
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| Catching some zzz's on the train to Füssen. |
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| View from the village up to the castle. |
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| Spot the para-gliders? |
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| In the Schloss Hof, waiting for our tour number to be called. |
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| We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the Schloss, but I snuck a few of the views from the windows. What a perch! That Ludwig... he sure knew how to pick them! |
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| Room with a view... |
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| We got the kids Eis from a kiosk on our way back down the mountain. |
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| We opted to walk down the mountain back to the village to catch the shuttle to Füssen Hauptbahnhof and our train back back to Munich. |
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| My favorite yellow building (across the street from our apartment complex) |
Saturday, April 20th
My sister RG and niece GK left in the morning for their trip home to the US. After I made sure they were on the right
S-Bahn to the airport, I headed home to get make another packed lunch and took my other sister and her girls into the city. We repeated some of the things we'd done with RG and GK: the
Marienplatz,
Eis at the café near the
Rindermarkt, a walk in the
Englischer Garten, and watching the surfers at the
Eisbachwelle. In the evening, we made pizza for the kids and then my sister and I went to a local restaurant, the
Wirtshaus Drei Mühlen, for dinner.
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| Dichtergarten behind the Residenz |
After our gorgeous dinner (AG had the trout; I had the flounder, and we shared the salad with
Spargel) we hopped on bikes (AG borrowed ME's) and rode north along the
Isar as the sun went down.
Sunday, April 21st
Easter morning... A and I went for a long run along the river together and stopped at the
Ihle Bäckerei on the way back. We set out a lovely brunch spread for all the girls and then they packed up and hit the road, giving me a lift out to the airport to pick up our rental car for the coming week of day trips. So glad they could visit and that the weather was so amazing. Next time we see them we'll be home in Virginia...
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| He is Risen! |
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| One last short walk through the Alter Südfriedhof across the street before they had to sit in a car for hours. |
J has been quite patient this week with all my adventuring with my sisters. He mostly hid in cafés and wrote on his book, but he did join us for the trip to
Neuschwanstein--even though I realized while working on this post that he didn't get into any of the pictures! So after I'd returned from the airport with the car, the two of us went out for a dinner date at a local spot,
Meat in Bun. The weather continues to be glorious. So grateful for what we've done this year and what is yet to come.
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