Monday-Tuesday March 6-7
The trip over to Zurich was probably our last First class blowout using AA points on Etihad due to devaluation making it over-the-top pricey in the future - our trip over was 95,000 pp - in future the same trip is 160,000 pp - one way !!!
We left Sydney at 1pm - a bit early for a 4:40pm flight but we were ready and decided it would be a good idea to have an à la carte lunch in their recently opened Etihad lounge. The airport was not very busy and we were in the lounge before 1pm - a little delayed as Dieter took a bit longer to get through security due to the fact the automated machines cannot read his Germany passport and I had “cleverly” concealed a bottle of water in his knapsack (actually it was left over from our recent trip to the Blue Mountains). The lounge and the lunch were excellent - they even serve FC (French Champagne).
The flight boarded early (we were pretty much the last on with 45 minutes to go). The first class on the 777W (2 center seats) was pretty good. We downed a glass of FC and changed into our flight PJs and we were off the 14 hour flight to Auh Dhabi.
We both managed to sleep on the flight - the transit in AUH was easy in spite of the stairs and bus on arrival. We hung out in the lounge and had breakfast even though it was midnight local time - it was breakfast time in Sydney.
Our flight to Zurich left 45 minutes late due to air traffic but landed in Zurich 15 minutes early at 6:30am - a quick flight - just over 6 hours. Arrival in Zurich was painless, we took the train to the main station to wait for our train to Stuttgart. We were early so had to hang out at the HBF (Haupt Bahnhof) for an hour. Anyway some 3+ hours later we finally arrived at our Stuttgart hotel, the Schlossgarten, just before midday. Fortunately we could check-in right away. We had lunch at their garden cafe then had an afternoon siesta, showers and a light dinner before hitting the sack at 8:30pm.
Wednesday March 8
We both wore up early so we opted for an early breakfast at 6:30am - we dagged about then took the 10:08am train to Freiburg to meet up with Rolf and Lori. We spent the day with R&L and 2 of Dieter and Rolf’s cousins (Gertrude and her husband and Heinz). Back at the hotel we rested then had a light dinner at the Wienstube in the hotel.
Thursday March 9
We got up early again then left for the Metzinger Outlet shops at 9:30am - Maggie had offered to go with us and drive - saving us an hour each way on the train - good luck as it was raining pretty heavily. We had a pretty successful day shopping at the outlets - we hit Bogner, Boss, Escada, Max Mara and Timberland - landing our “essentials” - jeans (3 pairs) and hiking boots for Dieter. We had lunch with Maggie at a nice German restaurant and were back at the hotel by 3:00pm. We were both zapped (Dieter in particular who seemed to be coming down with a cold) so opted for some rest before meeting Helmut and Maggie for dinner. We had dinner at a typical Schwaben pub about a 10 minutes walk from our hotel - it was fine - we got to bed fairly late, around 11pm.
Friday March 10
It was a bit of a wasted day as Dieter had to meet Rolf at the head-office of his German bank to sort out a few things - it took 3 hours - totally amazing, not surprising given they misunderstood and sold Dieter the whole bank. We had a quick lunch with Rolf and Lori then headed back to the city. We met Helmut and Maggie again for dinner this time at the Schwaben Stuben - it was a much earlier night. We needed to get to bed early as we were off to Zermatt on the 9:15am train.