Dallmayr, BMW, and Salzburg

Posted by Chelsie on Aug 20, 2012 in Europe 2012 | 5 comments

We got up decently early this morning and walked a little over a mile to Alois Dallmayr, the luxury grocery store and delicatessen I mentioned yesterday. It was definitely a worthwhile way to spend the morning in my opinion. Room after room of the best food money can buy including fresh bread, meats, seafood, coffee, tea, chocolate, prepared foods, desserts, cheese, etc. The fountain inside even had live crayfish swimming around in it which were also presumably for sale. Apparently, this store has been around serving the food needs of German Royalty since 1700. Wow! They can literally say that their food is good enough to be fit for a king. I also did some shopping at Ludwig Beck, a high-end department store nearby and bought a beautiful black lace dress by German designer S.Oliver. At this point we were starting to get hungry so we headed to the nearby biergarten where I tried to order Andrew a sausage plate, but ended up getting him a sausage sandwich instead. Oops! That’s what you get when you don’t speak any German. Good thing I had a healthy helping of chicken and sauerkraut so we shared everything including a large pretzel. After that it was time to pick up our BMW 1 Series rental car. This is Germany remember :) We had a lovely uneventful two-hour drive to Salzburg where we saw rolling fields, small towns, forests, and the dramatic alps rising in the distance. We had no trouble at all finding our boutique hotel and checking-in so we spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the old part of town and finding a lovely cafe on the river to enjoy a good meal (including apple-apricot strudel). The people here are friendly and well-dressed and so far we like the slow small-town vibe. It reminds us a lot of Edinburgh, especially with the fortress on the hill. We will be here until Thursday morning so I’m sure in the next few days you will be hearing a lot more about Salzburg. We hope everyone is doing well at home.

Cheers,

Chelsie & Andrew

 

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Walking around Munich

Posted by Chelsie on Aug 19, 2012 in Europe 2012 | 1 comment

Today might be our biggest sightseeing day of the trip yet. We walked over 10 miles taking in almost everything Munich has to offer which is especially impressive considering that it was 90 degrees out today. Our sightseeing began at Marienplatz (Mary’s plaza) where we explored Frauenkirk, a beautiful Gothic cathedral built in the 1400s, inside and out. It was especially amazing to see photographs of what the church looked like after it was bombed in WWII versus its restored self today. We then moved on to the New Town Hall which as you can see by the pictures, isn’t new at all. The best part was the Glockenspiel that comes alive (think It’s a Small World, but much older and larger). The figures dance as they spin around and two knights on horses even joust each other at one point. One thing I was really excited about seeing was Dallmayer…probably the fanciest supermarket in the world, but unfortunately they are closed on Sundays so we rearranged our schedule tomorrow in order to be able to see it before we leave town. Since by this time it was time for lunch we headed over to a Biergarten near Viktualienmarkt where we enjoyed our first real taste of German food– beer, pretzels, sausages, and sauerkraut. Everything was delicious…even the mustard, which is saying a lot since I’m not usually a mustard fan. Hey, when in Rome…right? After we finished, we headed to Hofbrauhuas making a quick stop inside St. Peter’s Church along the way. Hofbrauhaus is the most famous beer hall in Munich. Since we had already eaten, we just snooped around inside and took some pictures there before moving on to Hofgarten where we rested in the park listening to a live violin concert. As good luck would have it, I even found a 50 cent coin in the park where we were sitting. Sorry Mom, I didn’t check if it was heads of tails before picking it up ;) At this point, we had two choices…continue on and see the English Gardens or go back and visit The Residenz (an opulent Bavarian royal palace). Since we were up for some air conditioning, we decided on The Residenz which is actually two separate museums– The Treasury including the Royal Bavarian Crown Jewels and The Residenz Museum, a tour of the palace rooms. The tour guide warned us that the museum self-guided tour could be quite lengthy, but since it was so cheap to get the combo ticket, we decided to go into both museums figuring we could always bail out early if we got tired. The Treasury was great…as far as Crown Jewels go, these were pretty good. Unfortunately, the palace rooms tour turned out to be a little too much for us today. We spent 45 minutes enjoying some of the 60 rooms on display and 30 more minutes trying to figure out how to get out of that maze. Once we finally figured it out, thanks to two docents, and many map consultations, we took the subway (U-Bahn) to BMW Welt (World) so we could check it out before it closed for the day. Although we weren’t able to get tickets to a factory tour on a Sunday, we still had a great time here taking pictures and checking out the latest and greatest BMWs. The gift shop was a little disappointing though…mostly $50 polo shirts and Mini Cooper nick-knacks. After a quick U-Bahn ride back to our hotel, we walked to a local beer hall that came highly recommended (Thanks John and Jessica!!!). Since we are no experts in German food, we ordered a beer and a Radler (lemon soda/beer mix) and let our waiter choose the food for us. Wow, did he hook us up with some rich, saucy, German, deliciousness. See the pics below to get a better idea of what I’m talking about. Since we had eaten about half our body weight in sausage and spatzle, we decided to walk back to the hotel even though we could have easily taken the tram. Tomorrow we head off to Austria in a rental car, but not before we make a quick stop to Dallmayr for some chocolate :)

Cheers,

Chelsie & Andrew

P.S. Being here in Munich makes me think of my Grandpa Ron. He would have loved this place and its delicious biergartens. Miss you Grandpa!

 

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