We slept in and had breakfast at the hotel. Then we headed back to the Marienplatz. Connie wanted to find a store where she had seen some items she wanted to get for Christmas presents. The sales clerks at the nicer stores were very helpful. At a tea store, the clerk went into elaborate detail about a tea preferred in Northern Germany. You put brown sugar in large crystals – like rock salt – into the bottom of the cup. Then you add the tea. Then you add cream on top. You don’t stir it. You drink it like this in layers. They didn’t sell the sugar at the tea store, but we found some at a candy store in Innsbruck.
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| Hofbrauhaus |
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| Bobby |
We walked into the Hofbrauhaus and took photos of the crowd of people sitting at long tables eating lunch and drinking beer. Then we left in search of a place where we could have more Goulash soup like Sheila had had in Hallstatt. We chose a traditional little restaurant but Sheila was hesitant because it was so crowded. The lure of soup won her over, and in typical European tradition, we sat down at a table, sharing it European style with an older gentleman and his beagle, Bobby. Yes, dogs are allowed in restaurants in Europe and that is not at all uncommon. Bobby was content to sleep under Connie’s feet which of course did not reach the floor from the bench were she was seated. When Connie slipped her camera below the bench to take a photo of Bobby, his owner seemed to warm. This was the unspoken international language of dog lovers.
After lunch we walked over to view the outside of the Residenz. We went inside the Theatinerkirche (the Theatine Church) that was an elaborate all white baroque design on the inside. We wandered through the palace gardens where we saw people playing bocce ball in the park. Here was the only place we saw dogs actually acting like dogs, barking and jumping. Elsewhere, all the dogs seemed perfectly well behaved and eternally calm. We then headed to the English gardens where guys in wet suits were surfing across a small stream inside the park (there was some sort of barrier that created a strong wave). This was in stark contrast to the more picturesque scene of little children feeding bread to the swans just a little way downstream.
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| English Gardens |
We took the subway back to Marienplatz and enjoyed apple strudel upstairs at a bakery. We grabbed sandwiches and ate in our room, took showers and put on fresh clothes, before heading to the station to catch our overnight train to Venice. Sleeper cars require advanced reservations so Sheila had purchased our tickets in advance on the Bahn.de website before we left the US. We had our tickets printed from the internet and that, along with her credit card for proof of purchase, was all we needed.
Our train left about 9:00 p.m. and we had a reserved sleeper car for two. We had packed our small day packs with a change of clothes and a few toiletries, along with the cameras and train tickets. Finding our sleeper was fairly easy but someone was already in it. The woman had made an error in how she read the ticket. Since there is only room for one person in the hall, for her to maneuver her luggage out while we maneuvered our luggage in was a bit comical, given that other passengers were piling up behind. Our sleeper was like a tiny little hotel room in a closet. Everything was miniaturized. We had a little sink and mirror with towels that was hidden behind cabinet doors. We had bunk beds and a ladder. There were even cup holders and night lights to read in bed. We settled in quickly and fell asleep. We were going to be arriving early in the morning and the car attendant arranged for a wake up “knock” before we retired.
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| English Garden |
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