Last Tango...

Day 3

Time to leave Paris. We are up to four bags now and it is simpler to transport everything, but still not easy enough for us to be willing to lug everything through the Metro, so we took a cab to the Gare de l’Est, where our ride to Munich originates. We also figured the cab ride would be much shorter than the Metro, plus we wouldn’t have the hassle of having to change trains along the way.

The cab driver was a very pleasant fellow who was eager to improve his English… too bad for us, eh? The ride was good right up to the point that we came to a dead standstill on a narrow street several cars behind a truck that was unloading stuff. This is a common occurrence and these delays are usually only a matter of a few minutes. Well this one turned out to be fairly uncommon as, after about ten minutes, horns started blaring and people began to get genuinely chapped about it. The city bus several cars behind us unloaded and the passengers traipsed by the logjam on their way to the next bus stop ahead. As they passed the offending vehicle, fists were shook and a few words were exchanged.

We were beginning to get a little concerned that we might not get to the train station in time, but the delay only lasted a little longer before we were on our way again. During the last part of the ride, we learned that our driver had previously worked at EuroDisney (as he still calls it). He was Tigger.

We did arrive at the train station in the prescribed time of 45 minutes before scheduled departure only to find that the tracks are not assigned and posted until 20 minutes before the train leaves. So we had plenty of time to stand around and wait. We did eventually get on board and into our reserved seats and the ride to Stuttgart was very pleasant. Lachlan did his usual napping and Zeb, Susan and I enjoyed watching the French countryside pass by, often at 200 or so miles per hour.

We did have a few delays along the way and did not arrive in Stuttgart until after our scheduled train had already left. There was another one, however, that left within about 30 minutes of our arrival and we got on it and finished the journey into Munich. There were no baggage carts available in the Munich Hbf so we moved the bags out to the taxi stand by “hand” and got a cab to the hotel. It was raining very heavily, so after cleaning up a bit, we had a nice meal in the restaurant downstairs and went to bed right afterward.

Day 4

Most of us had a good night’s sleep. Lachlan was a little over-rested from the train trip, so we will spend today getting him onto European time.

We had a nice breakfast in the hotel then struck out for a bus tour around town. We made stops at Schloß Nymphenburg and the Olympic Park. We showed the boys the memorial to the Israeli athletes and the Munich policeman who were killed there in ’72. We then strolled down the pedestrian zone and had a nice lunch at the Augustiner beergarden… one of my favorite places to stop. 

We walked past the Hofbräuhaus without stopping in and finished up the afternoon watching the Glockenspiel do its thing. We will have a leisurely dinner tonight, then get ready to go to Rome tomorrow.