July 7, 2024 to July 11, 2024
Three Days in Munich
Ending-Trip Chores and Enjoying Munich
We are camped out at the Munich City Ibis South. There is the good and bad here. The hotel is very conveniently located, about 2 km from our storage unit and 3 km from our bike shop with some nice walking and convenient casual restaurants. The bike parking is good, in the garage. But the room is tiny and three nights in a cell is a lot.
In addition, the outlets are inconveniently located so Dave duct taped his computer cord to the floor so we wouldn’t trip over it on the way to the bathroom.
Dave said if we need to stay here next time for three nights we should do some additional research which is his way of saying we should consider a different hotel!
Anyway our two primary tasks here in Munich were to get our bikes in and out of servicing, and organize our gear in the storage unit, so that we could then enjoy Munich.
Like much of bike touring, we had a few glitches this week which caused consternation but everything worked out in the end.
On Monday after our Ibis breakfast, Dave did laundry (no drama to report) and we rode over to the storage unit with a load and also picked up a set of clothing I had worn on the plane out. This helped us to think about what needs to stay, and what needs to go home.
We also rode to a German post office and got some very kind help from a worker to mail a set of keys back to Hotel Rechsmurg 27. I had accidentally left the keys in my pocket when we departed this hotel last week.
We then took a 17 km ride to our bike store, Zwierad Stadler. It’s usually only 3 km, but I mapped out a ride to the east side of Munich, because it was our last ride, and it was beautiful out, and we just wanted to enjoy Munich, which we did.
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After the ride we arrived at Zwierad Stadler and to our relief, our favorite guy, Herr Staller, was working the service desk. He knows us, laughs at us, but takes the time to help us. We walked through what servicing our bikes needed, and I asked if Stadler would add a mirror on the right side handlebar. (We plan to ride in the UK next year).
That took a while but got sorted and then we rode the S-Bahn downtown to have dinner at our now favorite restaurant Pescheria, a seafood place by Sendlinger Tor. They have the best oysters (called Gillardeau), and we like them so much that we even started to research where else we can find them. This is definitely a first world privilege. This is our third time at Pescheria and we have sat at the same table every time in a corner of the courtyard. It just works for us.
In the mean time- on the glitch front-as we are sitting down to dinner, Lufthansa sends a cryptic text saying they have cancelled our flight out of Munich to Frankfurt on Thursday and they will be rebooking us. Not welcome news. We booked the ticket through United and we have no “relationship” with LH. When I followed the prompts to get some additional information LH needed our booking number, and of course, the only booking number on the United website was a United number, which didn’t work. We just decided I would have to call United when we got back to the hotel. We really didn’t want to delay getting home. Some friends were visiting Bend this coming weekend and if we had a delay we likely wouldn’t see them.
This resulted in our brainstorming through the first half of dinner how to handle any changes. We determined that we could take a train or drive to Frankfurt where our connection was, which would allow us to hang onto the rest of the flights home. Our plan more or less settled on, we got another text from LH: they have restored the flight! We are super curious as to what the deal was but as I sit here in Munich, we think our flights are on schedule.
Just as this was getting resolved, another US couple, Chris and Nancy, from Silicon Valley in California, sat down next to us. They were cyclists so the last half of the meal we chatted like crazy. They were pretty experienced travelers, and were TdF enthusiasts so we had a fun, spirited conversation about who was going to win the tour etc. They were off to Provence to meet friends and do some riding there.
We had a wonderful evening ride back to our hotel.
The next day we were at loose ends because we were waiting around for an SMS from Stadler to tell us our bikes were ready. It never came. We took a mid day walk to a cemetery- it was hot but beautiful and we just wanted something to relieve the boredom of being cooped up in our tiny hotel room.
We stopped and had a snack at a bao place. It was so hot (85 degrees) that we didn’t have much appetite. Nor did we receive an SMS from Stadler. By late afternoon we just decided to go over to Stadler and check on the bikes. Because it was so hot we opted for taking an Uber rather than public transportation- pretty wimpy I admit- and when we got to the Stadler service desk there was this hilarious conversation between 4 employees- all in German - about the status of our bikes.
The upshot: Dave’s bike was ready, mine was being worked on (it was 5:50 pm) but they couldn’t do the mirror on the right side because there was not enough room due to all of the gizmoids mounted on the right side of my handlebars. We told them to skip the mirror and they told us to come back in 45 minutes. We walked around the corner to a Holiday Inn, and split a beer on the patio. This necessitated a change in our dinner reservation but since everyone in the hospitality industry here seems to speak English, we learned it was no problem to go to dinner 30 minutes later.
We successfully picked up the bikes-sans new mirror for me- and had a fun ride to downtown Munich. It was warm, everyone was out, and the city showed off. We don’t go downtown very much so we enjoyed it.
Our restaurant, Goldener Kalb, was a steak place and we had our last cool meal on the outdoor patio gawking at all the tourists enjoying this town.
The following morning we had a leisurely breakfast, worked on the journal, and did a final packing. Ibis has a noon checkout which was perfect on a day like this. We checked out, rode to our storage unit and did a final rearrangement of our gear and stashed our bikes.
As we were leaving to walk back to the S-Bahn station, Dave couldn’t find his cap, resulting in the usual tearing all his gear apart to find it - he did.
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We rode the train to the airport and happily the Airport Hilton let us check in early. We always stay at this Hilton and like it quite a bit (the rooms are about 3 times the size of our Ibis) plus it has tubs. I was taken aback when the guy at the front desk reported that breakfast was 38 euros each! We eat a lot of cool European breakfasts, none is necessarily cheap, but this was in a new league. Obviously most people at this hotel are on expense accounts.
Afterwards we watched the last 48 km of the Tour. Using a tip from Chris, who we met at dinner the other night, Dave fiddled with his VPN and we were able to watch the Tour on Eurosport on tv and listen to Phil and Bob on Peacock on our tablet. (Apologies to the non -Tour watchers for this meaningless level of detail).
We then walked over to the Lufthansa counter at Terminal 2 to get a boarding pass from LH and just make sure everything was in order, since we had been unable to check in online. It was a bit funny: we’re traveling business class and the employee parked at the start of the line was checking to make sure everyone in line was in business class - and not any of those peons in economy! Because we didn’t have a confirmation from LH he wasn’t going to let us in, and we’re like, “uh, we’re here because we don’t have a boarding pass and LH hasn’t sent us anything and we’re trying to sort it out…” He did eventually let us in and we did successfully get a boarding pass and confirmation our flight was on.
Dinner tonight was at the Hilton restaurant. We shared a last Weiner schnitzel, a quinoa salad and a nice bottle of French Sauvignon Blanc. Our flight doesn't leave until 2:00, so we should be able to enjoy a nice leisurely breakfast before embarking on the return trip.
Today's ride: 30 km (19 miles)
Total: 2,461 km (1,528 miles)
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