Day 10 (Molly): Innsbruck — Munich — Ebersberg
I woke up early, drew the curtains and was blown away with a surprise view of the Austrian Alps. It was absolutely stunning. We were unfortunate to see them last night as we arrived into Austria late at night and so our surroundings were pitch black. I quickly woke James up and this was our view… a perfect way to start the morning.
We had our standard breakfast at 10:30am in a cafe overlooking the mountains. We were surprised to see that the smoking indoors ban didn’t exist in Austria (and I suspect Germany too) as we were hit by a cloud of smoke when entering a cafe. James decided to sit outside because of this and why would you want to waste a view of the alps anyway.
Afterwards, we wanted to get a better view of the mountains and so we found a skii jump not too far from where we were and assumed this would have some good views, we were right. We stood in amazement for a good 45 minutes in awe of the landscape and even though the skii jump itself was closed, we still managed to see some breathtaking views.
We then had to get going. We took an incredible route into Germany called the Fernpaß, a famous mountain pass in the Tyrolean Alps in Austria. James insisted on doing this drive (of course) and I was left to enjoy the views. It’s hard to decribe driving through the alps… they almost don’t look real at times and its hard to gauge a perspective on just how tall they are!
As soon as we reached the other side of the Alps and into Germany, it was as though it’d never happened. We were headed towards Munich for a mooch around and drove through the German countryside to get there.
Approaching Munich and I had to drive very carefully around here as there were so many lanes that if you missed one you had to do a loop all over again! However, here it seems they don’t drive as crazy as they do in France, so we were good. We parked up and ventured into Munich.
Munich wasn’t as James expected as he thought there would be much larger and taller buildings. We parked up and headed towards the centre. We had a tour of the shops to find a few items and James purposely took a back seat towards speaking to the staff so that I would take lead and get used to understanding German… I needed practise.
After a while, we found our car and worked out where we were staying for the night. Our hotel for tonight was located in Ebersberg. It is the most lovely little village we have come across and the hotel was amazing too, especially for the price we paid for it! We checked in and James wanted to try a “proper authentic German beer” before is flight home tomorrow.
We came across Artesano, a German bar. There were two booths inside, dangling decorations and full of locals. There was a warm and friendly atmosphere to the place so we found seats at the bar and settled in. We were welcomed by a young man (Christof) who, when asked in German if he could speak English, replied with a “of course!” and seemed surprised we were there (he mentioned a little later in the night that they don’t have many tourists around here because it’s such a small village outside of any major cities and that is why he was shocked).
Christof asked what we would like to drink and James asked (trying out his German again) for a “deutsches bier bitte” — a German beer please. Christof reccomended 2 different german ales, a wheat beer and a pale ale called Das Hella… James couldn’t decide. He looked at me for help choosing and, with it being the last night, I said why not have both. I had a vodka-lemon drink to start and we began our night. (James requested a cliche german tankard to drink out of and Christof humerously obliged).
The first drinks went down a treat and we intemittently chatted with Christof and Christpher (who turned out to be the owner). James was asking how they both spoke so good English (as he has done to everybody we met who spoke english as everybody seems to have an interesting story behind it). It turned out that Christof had spent a few years in Australia and Christopher went to university in England. He told us how he thought Germans could drink a lot until he lived with 2 englishmen at uni in Brighton and “they could REALLY drink”… Iexpect nothing less.
We were now two drinks in and enjoying the ambience of this small village local. We ordered a third and noticed that the two gents who had been sat next to us at the bar all night were playing a traditional german bar game with dice. Our curiosity caught the older gent’s attention and he directed his gaze at us. He began to explain in broken english the rules of the game (which we pretended to understand) and continued on. It was clear that he was winning as the other man kept shouting german expletives… hilarious. Christopher got out a different bar game ‘Jackpot’ for me and James and explained the rules. As it got later, we decided to head off to the hotel as I had a big day tomorrow moving into my new home for 6 months. Christpher wouldn’t let us go without a round of free shots for us, himself and the young barman Christof as a thank you and a goodbye.
We stumbled home and went to sleep. Our last night together.
