Wednesday/Thursday June 29
We left Sydney for Munich on June 29 flying SQ on award tickets - straight through - first overseas trip since our aborted trip to the Seychelles in March 2020. So the lead up was agonising - planing etc and concerned that we might contact Covid in the days prior which would have put a serious spanner in the works.
The trip was uneventful - smooth as silk - from home to sitting in the SQ lounge at SYD in 40 minutes flat. We had a 3 hour layover in SIN which passed quickly even though the only lounge in SIN was chocker-blocker - standing room only.
We arrived sharp on time in Munich, whizzed thought immigration and customs in 10 minutes and found our pre-booked driver waiting for us. We arrived at our hotel, the Sofitel, at 8am but could not check-in (as expected) as the hotel was fully booked. We spent the morning walking around the old town window shopping and drooling over the fresh food markets - berry season was in full swing. Around mid-day we stopped at a nice restaurant right in the Hofgarten for lunch just as the hotel called to say our room was ready. We relaxed over a light lunch under the trees and umbrella in 28℃ sunshine. We walked back to the hotel and flopped - unpacking, showering and resting before having our welcome drinks in the bar/bistro followed by dinner. We were tucked into bed by 8pm.
Friday June 30
After a bit of restless night we had our homemade brekkie in the room - berries (blueberries, raspberries and a whole pannet of red currants) with yoghurt and 3 mugs of Nespresso. With Accor Platinum you only get a free breakfast on weekends.
The beautiful sunshine of the previous day had turned cool and drizzly. We walked to the old town for some sightseeing then had lunch at a typical Bavarian gastro-pub. After more walking and shopping we headed back to our hotel for a rest. We had dinner at another Bavarian restaurant just across from our hotel.
Saturday July 1
Since we had to change rooms today (long story - due to using our Accor Platinum suite upgrade) we had planned a day trip to Regensburg, a wonderful historic town about 1h30m by train from Munich. We had breakfast (free since it was now a weekend) at 7am sharp when the restaurant opened - packed up and caught the 8:43am train from Munch HBF. Fortunately we had pre-purchased first class day tickets as the train was packed with second class travellers - probably due to the 9€ special tickets being offered throughout the summer and of course the holiday season was in full swing.
We did a self guided walking tour of Regensburg and had lunch at a lovely outdoor restaurant It was a mild and sunny day (12-24℃) - perfect for such an outing.
We decided to catch the 2:48 pm train back to Munich and would have only caught it by the skin of our teeth but the train was running 5+ minutes late - clearly DBB is falling apart. The trip back to Munich took nearly 2 hours due to extra stops and various un-explained delays along the way. We got back to our hotel after 5pm and still had to re-check-in and unpack for our final night. After settling in and showering we decided we were too tired to go too far afield for dinner so just ate in the hotel bar/bistro.
