After we left Sweden, we went to Germany for six nights. We originally planned on staying another two nights but decided to do a detour to Italy for two nights to see Rakesh and Ria as Simran had recently passed away. When we originally planned this summer trip, we knew we would be in the Munich area late July/early August as Shawna wanted to meet up with one of her Georgetown University friends, Stefanie, who lives in Frankfurt. We got a call from the Snarrs at the beginning of the year asking where we would be at this time as they knew we would be in Europe. We told them Germany but at the time had no specific plans. Well, funny enough, they planned on coming to Germany to see Taylor Swift (Eras Tour) and to make a family trip out of it. And since we also wanted to see T Swift in Europe, we bought tickets as well!
Munich, Germany
We arrived into Munich and after getting our rental car, we immediately drove out to Augsburg, an hour outside of Munich, to see the town where Shawna's mom grew up. Shawna had previously written down a few places we needed to see and so we ventured out to track these places down:
- Lauterlech 18 - the apartment building where Shawna's mom lived as a child until she was fourteen years old.
- St Ursula Catholic School - where she went to school - it is located on a very cute cobble stoned street.
- St Ulrich Church - where she says she got married to Shawna's dad (Jim). There are two churches on the site - one small Episcopalian and another large Catholic Church. However, when we went inside, neither one looked like the picture that Shawna had of her mom's wedding. So, we are not sure if this is the place where she got married.
- Rathaus - while nothing significant to Shawna's mom, we walked around the main square to see the town hall and the beautiful colorful buildings around the area. It was quite busy with tourists and a wine festival that was underway.
- Staatstheater - where she went to operas with Shawna's grandfather. Unfortunately, the building was under massive renovation so we could not go inside.
- Konigsplatz - a square with a park where she went to dances with her friends. We walked around this area a bit.
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| Augsburg |
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| St Ursula Catholic School |
We drove back to Munich and checked into our hotel, Adagio Aparthotel, which is located north of Olympiapark where the T Swift concert was to be held. It was the cheapest option we could find close by. Our room was small but clean and functional with two twin beds, a table with two chairs and a small kitchenette and bathroom. We were a bit tired so we just walked around the corner to Yasoroku86, an Asian fusion restaurant, where we had chicken curry and beef udon noodles - both tasty.
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| Olympiapark |
The next day, we met up with the Snarrs who had arrived a couple of days before. We toured the BMW Museum with them - although, we really just walked through and looked at some of the cars - didn't really learn much as we didn't read any of the exhibits! We then grabbed lunch - brats and beer at one of the beer gardens in Olympia Park. Not the best beer garden but it was quick and easy! We all went back to our hotels and got ready for the T Swift concert.
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| BMW Museum |
Kim and the girls got floor tickets so they had to stand in line a bit longer to get into the arena. We got seats since Shawna would not be able to see much on the floor - our seats were great - just a few rows up on the left side of the stage and under the canopy. We got there early, not knowing how hard it would be to get into the arena so we got a beer, took photos and sent love notes to a few people (e.g. Ruby) to let them know we were there. Ruby had made us friendship bracelets that we could trade but we liked them so much, we did not give them away - one woman did each give us one of her bracelets!
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| Taylor Swift Concert |
The opening act was Paramour - they were pretty good but we only knew a couple of the songs. So we grabbed a slice of pizza and one more beer before Taylor came on. The bathroom lines were super long so we never got to go to the bathroom which then limited our beer drinking! Taylor started on time and went for over 3.5 hours - we stood up for most of it and sang along with 70K other attendees. Turns out there were another 40-50K people outside the arena in the park on a huge hill listening along as well! The concert was truly amazing - the best we had been to. We got back to our hotel around midnight.
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| Taylor Swift Concert |
Garmisch Partenkirchen, Germany
The next morning, we drove down to Garmisch, where we stayed for two nights with the Snarrs. Garmisch is a very cute town near the Austria border and close to the mountains. Kim rode with us as their van was a little cramped! When we got to Garmisch, we went to the Partnachklamm Canyon which is a really cool canyon that you can walk along with rushing water below. The line to get in was long but it went by pretty quickly. After walking the canyon, we did the loop hike up Eckbauer mountain and back to town. At the top, we had a few beers and snacks at the snack bar near the gondola.
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| Partnachklamm Canyon |
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| Hike to top of Eckbauer Mountain |
We then checked into our AirBnB which was really nice - four bedrooms with a large living room and kitchen and a nice balcony with great views of the mountains. The only downside is that there was no A/C and while convenient to restaurants and shops, it was a bit noisy at night when we had our window open to let in fresh air. That said, we enjoyed our stay there. That evening, we had dinner at Fischers Mohrenplatz where we sat outside and had gulasch and knodel (potato dumplings) - food was tasty. We had a few more drinks after dinner at Louis Cafe.
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| View from our AirBnB |
The next day was a tour of castles. We drove an hour to Neuschwanstein Castle (the Disney fairy tale castle) where we took the horse and buggy up to the castle and did the tour. Since the castle was not finished nor lived in before King Ludwig II died, it had very little furniture inside and was not ornate. However, the setting is just beautiful - located on the top of a hill overlooking the valley. After the tour, we walked over to the bridge to get a front view of the castle and then walked back down to the car.
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| Neuschwanstein Castle |
We drove about 50 minutes to Oberammergau and had lunch at Dorfstuberl - we sat outside and shared some sausages and spaetzle. We ran out of time to walk around but were able to get a glimpse of the cute town - this is the town where the Passion Play is performed so we will be back in 2030 to see that. We then drove another 15 minutes to Linderhoff Palace, the smaller but very ornate home of King Ludwig II. We toured the castle and then walked around the beautiful grounds. Unfortunately, the grotto cave was closed. That evening, we had dinner at Bungalow 7 which was about a 10 minute walk from our apartment. The kids were a bit tired of German food so we opted for burgers which were very good.
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| Linderhoff Palace |
Lecce, Italy
We got up super early and drove to Munich airport (where we left our large suitcases at left luggage) to fly to Brandisi Italy. Rakesh picked us up and drove us 30 minutes to Lecce where we stayed for two nights at the La Fiermontina Luxury Home which is a small boutique hotel in the old part of town. Our room was very nice and there was a wonderful breakfast included which we enjoyed both mornings.
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| La Fiermontina Luxury Home |
We quickly checked in and then did a food tour in Lecce for a couple of hours which allowed us to also see some of the sights in town. Our first stop was at South East Cafe where we had a pastry filled with creme. We then went to Golosita dal 1942, a small Italian grocery store where we tried olive oil with some cheese and prosciutto. We also got a glass of rose. The owner was very interesting and funny! We went back to this store after the tour to buy a bottle of wine which we later enjoyed at the hotel. Our next stop was Tentazioni which is a gelato place but we had a savory pastry with cheese and tomatoes. Our last stop was at Messapia where we had a pasta with chickpeas and a few fried dough balls with a glass of wine. Overall, the tour was not the best - food was just OK and the guide was not very chatty or informative - we had to ask a lot of questions to get information from him.
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| Lecce Colosseum |
After the food tour, we stopped at the sister hotel to our place, Palazzo Bozzi Corso, where we got a tour by the manager and then had a cocktail at their rooftop bar. The place is beautiful and we learned about the owners parents who were friends with Yoko Ono. We made one more stop for another cocktail at Cocktail Bar Saloon Keeper 1933 where we sat outside and did some people watching. Back at the hotel, Ria went to bed and the three of us sat outside to drink the bottle of wine we had purchased earlier.
The next day, Rak had arranged for a private tour to take us down the coast. The woman who arranged excursions for our hotel was our guide and we also had a driver. We first stopped in Otranto, a cute down on the coast - we walked around and saw the castle and went inside one of the churches. We made a few very quick stops along the coast to take pictures and then went to Lo Scalo, a great restaurant overlooking the water. We swam for about 10 minutes in the Adriatic and had a wonderful lunch of salad and grilled fish - the food was fresh and amazing. We drove down to Santa Maria di Leuca where we walked around the main church and drove back to Lecce. The scenery along the coast was beautiful.
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| Otranto |
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| Santa Maria di Leuca |
That evening, we had dinner at our hotel at Zephyr Restaurant. We had a few cocktails on the patio and then sat outside by the pool. We shared a tuna tartare appetizer, a pasta for our next course and scallops for our main - everything was delicious.
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| Dinner at Zephyr Restaurant |
The next morning we took it easy - had a later breakfast and then sat by the pool for two hours with Rak. He then drove us back to Brandisi to catch our flight back to Munich.
Munich, Germany
We got into Munich around 8:30 pm so took a cab to our hotel, Aloft, where we stayed for two nights. The hotel was great - very clean, modern with decent sized rooms. The hotel was across from the train station and very convenient to walking to the old town.
The next morning, we walked around the old town for a couple of hours to get some exercise and to see some of the sights like the Frauenkirche, Rathause (Town Hall), St Peter's Church, and the outdoor market. We also walked around the Englischer Garden.
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| Munich Rathaus |
We met up with Stefanie, Shawna's friend from Georgetown, around noon and went to lunch at Restaurant Laurin Sudtirol, a cute place near the outdoor market. We shared a very delicious salad and ragout pasta. We then went to a cafe for a coffee.
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| Lunch with Stefanie at Laurin Sudtirol |
That evening, we went to the Adele concert at a pop up arena outside of town that they built for her to do a 10 night concert. Shawna had seen on Facebook that Adele was going to be in Munich while we were there so she messaged Stefanie to see if she would be interested in joining. She got tickets during the pre-sale by setting her alarm at 3am in the States! The concert was amazing - we had floor seats nine rows back from the right stage so while we could not see her up close when she was on the main part of the stage, we did see her when she walked down the right wing of the stage. There were very large (700x100 feet) screens where we could see her as well. The show went on for two hours - her voice is amazing and she is quite funny. Truly another exceptional concert!! And we totally lucked out that it did not rain (it had rained earlier) since all seating was outside.
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| Adele Concert |
The next morning, we met up for a quick breakfast at Coffee Fellows, a cafe just a couple of blocks from our hotel - it was like a German version of a Starbucks. We chatted a bit more and then did a video that we sent to Kelly as we had tried to call her the day before but she was not available. We said our goodbyes and then we went to the train station to get a train to Zurich.
Zurich, Switzerland
We took the train from Munich to Zurich which took 3.5 hours. We were in the first class car so that we had more room and a table. We did some computer work and read the entire way! In Zurich, we walked about 15 minutes to the rental car place and then drove to a nearby park to call our parents. Since we had not eaten, we grabbed some cheese and bread at a grocery store at the train station and had that at the park as well. We then drove to Uster, a town about 30 minutes from Zurich, where Mike and Connie live and where we stayed for one night. The town is in a cute valley around a nice lake.
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| Brunch with Mike and Connie at their house |
We sat outside for a bit to catch up with them and then went for a walk to the lake. Connie made a great dinner of salad and pasta which we had outside at their house - their son and girlfriend joined us. We stayed up until 1:30 in the morning talking and laughing! The next morning, we had a nice long brunch of bread, cheese and meats out on their patio - and did a video call with Wendy, Dave and Jan! We drove away around 1pm to Lake Como.
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