Innsbruck/München - 25th-26th July

On Wednesday I left early and, after saying my goodbyes to Mike and Lisi, got myself a train to Innsbruck, where I intended to spend my lovely summer afternoon. At least, I thought that was where my train would take me. In fact, it took me to some obscure Austrian village I'd never heard of, from which I had to take a replacement coach to a similarly anonymous (though quite possibly amazing) village, then another train. Eventually I arrived in Innsbruck with an hour to spare before my connection to München. This was obviously a little less time than planned, so I quickly headed off into the old town. Luckily Innsbruck is a small place, so it was actually perfectly feasible to see a good deal of it in the time I had. It's also a very picturesque place, and I had a great, if all too brief, time seeing sights such as the Goldene Dachl (a roof tiled with gold) and the amazing mountain scenery which frames the streets of the town. However, it was soon time to move on, so after a bite of pizza I hopped on my train to Munich.


Now, as it turned out, my friend Holly, who currently resides in Munich, had got her diary in a bit of a tangle and very nearly forgotten I was coming to visit, but nonetheless managed to meet me at her nearest U-Bahnhof after work, and we went for a bit of a beer and a catch-up. After said catch-up we then progressed across the city to eventually find ourselves at a dinner party held by some of her friends. The food was all very enjoyable (meat fondue!), though I was rather tired from my day of heavy travelling, and caught myself rather impolitely falling asleep during the video we watched afterwards. Oops!

The next day, holly had to work, and I took myself off into the city centre to be a tourist. A cheap tourist. The same company whose free tour i took with Jane and Dani in Berlin also off a Munich tour, so I hopped along for the ride. Munich's rather a pretty place, and we took in the Old town Hall, New Town Hall, Glockenspiel, Frauenkirche, Viktualienmarkt, Hofbräuhaus and some other bits and bobs. It's also full of history (though not as much as Berlin!), so it was all in all an interesting day. Later on in the afternoon I met up with Holly again, and she biked me (some of the way) to the Englischer Garten, which quite confusingly contain a Chinese pagoda and lots of German beer. After that, we had a quick freshen-up then went for pizza and drinks with some more of Holly's friends. Fun!