Dewayne's Blog: Christmas Trip to Munich

I took my first official visit to Germany at the beginning of December. I went to Munich (München) for a few days to see the Christmas Markets. I flew over from New York (JFK) on Lufthansa on a Airbus A340 aircraft. It was the first time I had ever been on that aircraft. It is huge! While it's not the largest capacity aircraft on the market, it certainly is the longest and one of the most impressive in-flight.

The flight from JFK was an overnighter. The weather was horrible the day I was scheduled to leave (the inbound flight diverted to Philadelphia!). Thankfully, the weather cleared around 4pm so my 6ish departure was only delayed a short time. Germany is 7 hours ahead of us so between the overnight flight and the time difference, I arrived in Munich at 8:30am December 2nd. Notice I didn't say, "bright-eyed and bushy tailed?" I think I may have gotten a total of 2 hours sleep. But that's okay, being the aviation geek I am, I had plenty to occupy my time; not to mention the tons of movies Lufthansa offers via their onboard entertainment system. Oh yeah, I finally did get to see Salt with Angelina Jolie. It was a great movie!

So after I cleared Customs and Immigration in Germany, I went in search of their transit system. They have a transit station right at the airport and there are two lines on the Bahn; the S and the U. My hotel was on the S line; so I paid my fare ($12.00 US) and was on my way.

Since I made my plans rather "last minute" my hotel was sat about halfway between the airport and downtown Munich (a distance of about 25 miles). This was nice, because I didn't have that far to go in either direction...about 4-5 stops either way! I stayed at the European version of the Radisson - called the Park Inn. Here's a picture of my hotel.

In case you were wondering, it was a short walk from the train station to the hotel...here's what the walk looked like..I didn't mind it at all.

Once I got to the hotel, of course, no rooms were available yet, so I relaxed in the lobby, logged on to my iPad, and surfed the net and updated my Facebook profile. It was only a short time before my room was ready and I checked in. By this time I was so exhausted, I laid down and took a 4 hour nap. I woke up around 5pm and took the train into Munich to explore a little bit and to grab a bite to eat. This being only my second time in Germany (the first time, I was on a layover when I worked for Northwest and we were in Mainz). I didn't realize the different geographical regions that comprise Germany, so just because I was in Bavaria this time, I thought the food would be the same...um, no. Luckily, I found a restaurant that served my favorite - wiener schnitzel...and boy, do they serve you a lot of it - take a look!

So, after dinner it was a little stroll around the Marienplatz and a look at one of the Christmas Markets and some Gluehwein.

I met up with work friends who came in from earlier stops in Cologne and Berlin to visit the Christmas Markets there. They agreed that the best markets were in Munich. So after dinner at the Hofbräuhaus it was off to more of the Christmas Markets.

Oh yeah, how could I fail to mention how cold it was in Munich? They had some freaky cold and snowy weather before I arrived. The snow had stopped, it was still all over the place, but the cold had settled in and I don't think it got above 20 degrees the entire time I was there! The cold, mixed with the wind and all that frozen ice and snow.....brrrrrr!!!!

Here are some pictures we took in and around the Marienplatz....