Munich - Day 3

I woke up early (well 7 am) with a plan to go skiing however the weather conditions at the mountains looked a bit doubtful on the website so I decided to give it a miss and to crawl back into bed. Unfortunately that meant that we didn’t get up until lunchtime !!!! Shocking !!!! After finally getting up we caught a tram into town to Isartor platz and then walked to the central town square which is known as the Marienplatz. There was a big Christkindlmarkt and we stopped to have Bratwurst with Sauerkraut and Mustard in a roll. It was very good. Things are generally expensive. For most things you pay the equivalent in Euros as you would in NZD – e.g. cup of Gluhwein around 4 euros and is probably about $10 NZD. Of course you can’t think about it too much or else you wouldn’t enjoy your holiday. We then walked to Karlsplatz where there was an outdoor ice-skating rink and an undercover bar selling Gluhwein which we sampled. Gluhwein is very good – better than any mulled wine I’ve had before. I was disappointed that I couldn’t convince Mark to try ice-skating. We walked back to Marienplatz and had a look at Frauenkirche which is the largest catholic church in Munich. It was built in the 1400’s and has impressively high ceilings and columns. We thought it might be a good place to go for Christmas Eve. We found a cafe which did a good cup of coffee and a not-so-good piece of cake. We then checked out the visitors centre in Marienplatz. Unfortunately the people there weren’t very helpful and there was very little in the way of tourist brochures written in English. They did direct us to a 6 level Ski Shop which also arranges daily coach trips to the mountains for quite a reasonable price (ski pass included for around 35-50 Euros). I’m thinking of going either Sunday or Monday this week. I almost bought a pair of heavy shoes for walking about in the wet and snow but there is no rush and I need to do some more research. In the meantime I managed lose and find one of my gloves which has become a speciality of mine. I think perhaps I should get them sewn into my jacket like they used to be when I was a child. We had a look at an out an outdoor market called the Viktualienmarkt. There were lots of things on offer – cheese, bread, sausages and fresh vegetables. I was very impressed by some of the crafts that were there. There had very nice scented hanging decorations made of pinecones, wood, flowers and fruit all of which would be highly unlikely to make it through NZ customs. With the rain setting in we decided to return home and on the way stopped off at a gourmet supermarket called Kafer. They had a fantastic selection of only the best and their prices and clientele reflected this. I think we were a little under-dressed. We bought two pears which cost 3.50 Euros (= $8.40 NZD!). We also bought some cheese and a nice terrine which we have enjoyed for dinner. Beer is very cheap here – only 69 cents a bottle. German TV is all in German so we’ve taken to watch a TV series called 24 on DVD. We’ve watched 5 episodes in a row tonight which might be overkill!