Munich - Sept 9 (UK trip day 28)
WOW! Turning in a full circle to take it all in, that is my only coherent thought and the word comes whooshing out of my mouth. This was my first impression upon exiting the escalator up into the Marienplatz station in Munich. The plaza is encased in a plethora of tall beautiful medieval looking buildings with incredible architecture and a ton of people - tourists mostly - are scurring every which way across the expanse. Jim pulls me out of the melee as we consult our sorta-map and try to match the printed Google map directions with the very few street signs that we can find.
This is when I realize that not taking any German in school was a mistake almost as large as not having memorized at least a few phrases of German before coming on this trip or a least remembering to download a German/English app to my iPhone.
THE HOTEL
Almost at our wits end and starting to snap at each other after going in circles, we return to our tried and true method of just relaxing and wandering down streets. Taking in the ambiance, the uneven streets, bicyclists ready to run down a careless pedestrian and finally the more quiet surroundings once we are a few blocks away we miraculously find Boutique Hotel Falkenturm. Blink and you'd miss it because it's only a very narrow townhouse-type section of the block. The small lobby is red, black and white with the receptionist sitting in a closet-type area that is closed/locked off at night by pulling a sliding door. Her English is marginally better than our non-German but we manage to get checked in.
Scrunching ourselves into the small elevator was no small feat - no pun intended. No WAY 2 more people - "capacity 4" per a plaque on the wall - would fit with us and our backpacks. I'd forgotten about the small European elevators but the mirror-covered walls dissolved any chance of claustrophobia. That and being intrigued with having to first swing the outer door open/closed and then making sure to keep us and backpacks out of the way of the expanding-fence-type thing that closes after you've pushed the floor button.
Yup, that's the elevator on the left taken from OUTSIDE. It's really only about 2x3 feet.
On the right is the elevator door taken down the hallway from our room. There are only 4 rooms on each floor.
The
room decoration is very modern continuing with the red, white and black
theme distracting one momentarily from the compactness of the room.
Everything one needs and nothing else. Well, a regular chair rather
than the small bean bag would have been nice. Basically a
room-encompassing double bed flanked by 6"x18" side tables next to the 2'
wide closet. Just enough room to walk around the base of the bed with
a shelf on the wall with a small flat panel TV.
True to Jim's research, the hotel location is fabulous - near to everything. Just around the corner from our hotel we find a plaza with shops, cafes, restaurants and The Hofbrahaus all hopping with tourists.
We choose a great restaurant in the plaza where I happily order Wiener Schnitzel and Jim courageously picks something else from the menu with help from the server who knew a smattering of English. My veal schnitzel was fantastic and I was in heaven. Bier (beer) is ordered by the half liter (vs the British pint) with the choice being either lager or ale.