Starnberg instead of Stockholm

Thursday
We made a slow start, with breakfast in Terminal 1, in a sort of Bavarian tavern, the waiters in blue checked shirts and Lederhosen. Other people were ordering beers and sausages. Buying single tickets for the S-Bahn was a mistake. We could have saved about €34 had we realised that we could buy Tageskarten for the whole network. I should have done more research.

Gemeindeverwaltung at Ismaning

Covered bridge over the Seebach
and church, Ismaning

At 1:30, Chris had to be on the phone with his computer to hand for the Stockholm meeting; therefore we only had time for a short outing that morning. I remembered Ismaning, only three stops down the line, where five years ago we had stayed at the farmhouse-like Hotel Frey with Peter, who had driven us there from Stuttgart. I'd had to memorise the streets to find my own way to the station. What's more, I'd memorised them backwards, so knew how to reach the hotel, although I'd forgotten the little roadside stream. Beyond the Hotel Frey on this occasion we found the Rathaus (a former Schloß) and the Schloßpark. We walked round the village for half an hour before sitting down for sandwiches at the station.

Hotel Frey, Ismaning

During Chris' afternoon meeting I went swimming in the luxurious hotel pool. Steam baths, saunas and a massage parlour were available for nude guests, and a poolside cocktail bar, but the swim was enough for me. I did sit in the hot tub momentarily, keeping my swimsuit on.

Rotkäppchen (Little Red Riding Hood) at the Weihnachtsdorf

At 4pm, when it was already almost dark, Chris could finally relax, so we set off by train again, this time all the way to the Marienplatz in München. The city is lavishly lit and decorated for Christmas. We went window-shopping, could have bought a Rolex watch or Louis Vuitton suit if we'd had the money. We passed the Opera Haus, the massive churches, the city gates and squares and had a posh supper with Glühwein for me at the Luitpold Café (1888), afterwards taking a look at the kitschy Weihnachtsdorf with its dioramas of German fairy tales in the courtyard of the Residenz, and the Hofgarten. We were lucky to catch an S8 train back to the airport just in time.

Friday, some of this written on the train to Starnberg
This was supposed to have been our free day in Stockholm --- postponed indefinitely!

Chris was worried by a message from one of his colleagues recommending that we fly to Timisoara by Air Berlin instead of Lufthansa. Following up this suggestion meant a long morning at the airport with a horrid breakfast at Surf and Turf, because I couldn't face yet more bacon. Then we took a long walk down conveyor belts and up escalators through Terminal 1 to the Air Berlin ticket desk. We'd have to fly via Rome and Budapest, they said, by Air Italia, and the journey to Timisoara would take 26 hours. Since Lufthansa flights were still promised for the next day Chris at last decided to "take our chances" and stick to Plan A, which I'd been advising all along.

At Starnberg, by the lake

So finally we left the airport on the S8 train again, changing beyond the city centre at Pasing so that we could catch a connecting train to Starnberg; I wanted Chris to see the Starnberger See. Well, we did see it, but not the view of the snowy Alps that start to rise at the southern end. It was too cloudy. Chilly, too, but we soon found an ideal spot for lunch at the Maharaja, a Bengali restaurant that served good, hot food. Through its windows we could see another restaurant across the road, in a nineteenth century house with a haiku-like poem on its wall:

Am stillen See

Sitz' ich und starre 

In ein gespiegeltes Paradies.

Full of energy after the curries, we decided to climb the hill to St. Josef's church beside the town's castle, up many stone steps. It was worth it; this part of town was very peaceful with another view of the lake. Beside the church, not open, was a walled Schloßgarten with an attractive layout. We came down some other flights of steps back to the high street, with luxuries for sale. A lovely grey Dirndl for nearly €1000 caught my eye. We bought postcards and lingered by the lake near the pleasure boats docked for winter and the locked up boathouses, then caught the train back to the city.

The city was packed, this being the official opening of Munich's central Christkindlmarkt, with amplified speeches and music. Fighting our way down the Kaufingerstraße was rather exhausting, so we had a hot drink and a slice of cake in a very narrow coffee bar before moving on to marginally quieter streets. We came across the Isartor and the famous Münchener Hofbräuhaus that I'd described over a microphone to the diplomat guests at our "Oktoberfest" in Ottawa, after singing the song about it. Too crowded for us! I have a habit of making off down side streets and into courtyards when in a place I don't know so well. It leads to discoveries like the Theatinerhof where we had supper, at the quiet and elegant Café-Arzmiller. No crowds there. Chris had their thick pea soup; I had the lentil soup. After that we found a branch of Hugendubel, where I bought a German novel.

Back at the airport hotel we both had a swim: a lovely way to end the day.

Sunday evening, getting to Ingolstadt

Munich airport was buzzing, with its famous Christmas market already in full swing in the space between Terminals 1 and 2. Too preoccupied for shopping, we walked round the edge with our luggage, seeking the car rental offices, eventually finding them in Terminal 1, and on the way catching a glimpse of the hotel where we’ll be on Wednesday. The AVIS girl, who was charming, spoke to us only in German, which was flattering. My attention wandered while Chris was filling in the forms so I didn’t catch the fact that she was giving us an automatic car, even though we’d been assigned a manual, originally. Chris didn’t quite catch this either. The car was waiting for us at spot 410 on Level 4 of Zone 6, at the western end. When we emerged from the “Lift” (they no longer use the German word Aufzug) there was no indication as to which way was west; we just kept walking to find the number. Parking spots in Europe are a lot tighter than in N. America; I couldn’t get into my side of the car, so was waiting outside as Chris turned on the ignition. A horrible scrunching noise from the engine; it was pretty clear to me that the brakes were still on. He said they weren’t. The car rolled forward fine when in neutral, but still refused to move when the drive gear was engaged. About five goes later Chris realised that it was indeed an automatic vehicle, with two pedals only, and that he’d been pressing both the accel and the brake pedal (not the clutch after all!) simultaneously. When you’re jet-lagged …

So we moved forward and, once we realised we needed the card she’d given us to open the barrier, out of the garage. The next challenge was working out how to input the destination address into the GPS gadget, but all it seemed to be giving us was a map of where we were, not where we had to go. We gave up and decided to follow the Google directions on my laptop instead, which I’d left at the correct page, but when I picked up that machine, the screen went blank. This meant that I had to try to remember what I’d read, back in London. I did well: apart from the distances I could remember all of the essentials, therefore we did head away from the airport in the right direction! First though, we were beeped at, because our headlights weren’t on, and it was already night. We had to pull over and try to get them working. This took a good five minutes, as tension levels rose. Then, with some difficulty, we pulled out into the traffic, following the signs for Alle Richtungen. The crucial turn from the airport highway was the one onto the A9 towards Nürnberg, some 15 minutes later. I was still trying to get the GPS to work to the accompaniment of distracting exclamations from Chris when we reached it; fortunately he spotted the slipway sign just in time. Once on the Autobahn, the navigation was self-evident; this was when we finally got the hang of the GPS, now that we didn’t really need it any more. The exit for Ingolstadt along the Maichingerstraße was clearly marked. There was only one turn to make once in the town, and the hotel was straight ahead.

We did a complete circumnavigation of the hotel before we found its rather small entrance. It is the Classic Oldtimer, built around a showroom of classic oldtimer cars. There’s a motorbike on our floor as well, and an alarming set of cymbals and drums, which I hope are just for show. On the walls, including bedroom walls, are pictures of girls from the past, all posing with cars.

In the evening, we had an Italian supper perched at one of the tall tables in the bar of an hotel diagonally across the road from ours, with a row of four large screens over the counter, each broadcasting a different TV channel, overstimulating for the eyes and brain, not healthy. The food and beer was good, though. After that we needed some fresh air, so we walked into the Klenzepark through a cyclists’ tunnel, the lamplight very dim, as is typical for Germany after dark, with mist rising from the lawns, passing what I now know is the Exerzierhaus and Reithalle that belonged to an old military fort, then the Reduit Tilly and the Turm Trivia, the German equivalent of Kingston’s Murney Towers in Ontario, now a Police Museum. Then we came upon the River Danube (die Donau) flowing swiftly along and reflecting the lights. The most impressive of these were the floodlights illuminating the Neues Schloss across the river. I snapped it from the bridge.