Day Ten 27th

It was time to pack up and leave Innsbruck behind us. Our morning train was scheduled for 10:38 am so we had time for a leisurely breakfast and one last wander around the old city. Today’s train was not one of the ICE or inter-city express trains but a regional line meaning we would make more stops and the trip would be a little longer. We were not due in to Munchen-Passing, an outlying station in Munich, until 1320. This longer, slower route turned out to be an absolute blessing in disguise.

With clearer skies today it became apparent how the Alps loom over the city

Think all this travel is starting to get to her!

All settled in for the journey

Our route to Munich took us quite literally through the Alps themselves. The day was perfectly clear and the views were nothing short of spectacular. As an added bonus, I was able to open the window and lean out for much better photos (wish I had Aunty Jo’s camera though!) I have only included a small sample of the beauty that greeted us.

For posterity’s sake, we passed through the following stations:

• Hochzirl
• Leithen (from here we started entering the tunnels)

Hey Zac, look out the window!

• Reith
• Seefeld in Tirol (gorgeous tourist town)
• Scharnitz (Border town with Germany and advertised as Seehöhe 964m [above sea level])

• Mittenwald
• Klais (höhe 933m)

At least the food was able to capture his attention. Not as if there was much else to look at!

• Garmisch-Partenkirchen
• Oberau
• Eschenlohe

• Murnau
• Uffing am Staffelsee
• Huglfing
• Weilheim (Oberbay)

• Sternberg (situated around a beautiful lake)
• Finally, München-Passing

What a disaster of a place München-Passing turned out to be. Knowing we had 11 minutes to make our connecting train to Cologne we made a dash for it only to discover that there were literally no platform announcements to be had. We ended up having to line up at the information desk, behind many others, to be informed that our train was to be about half an hour late and ‘quite obviously’ from Platform 9 – could have been 9 ¾ for all we knew! So much for German efficiency!!

Platform 9, despite catering for the larger inter-city trains, had no lift so poor Nathan had to struggle with the bags up the stairs and assist many others who could not possibly have achieved this on their own. It was an exposed station and absolutely freezing. The train also did not arrive for another 40 minutes. When the train did finally arrive it was jampacked and we found 3 elderly German ladies comfortably ensconced in our cosy looking compartment seating. They may have been allocated these seats on a previously scheduled train, but their train had been cancelled, and on this train, those seats were ours. It took the patient intervention of the train manager to eventually coax them into leaving though I think he moved them up to first class – it’s not like we were monsters!

We were very comfortable on this leg of the journey and our by now exhausted kids settled down to watch a DVD. We closed the compartment door and then only had to watch and not hear the poor people still packed like sardines in the passageways. We travelled via Augsburg, Ulm, Stuttgart, Mannheim, Frankfurt and Bonn before finally arriving in Cologne one hour later than scheduled at 1900.

We knew our hotel was not far from the Dom so we followed the signs from the station in that direction. As soon as we stepped foot out of the station building, there was the Dom, looming up in front of us. Nathan had been spot on with his description that Cologne was said to have a ‘bloody big church’. He also informed me that it is gothic so tomorrow the gargoyle hunt begins. Our hotel was then just around the corner so we couldn’t have gotten much more central.

We had two adjoining rooms at Hotel Konigshof which, whilst small, at least had decent pillows. We left our bags and headed back into the cold in search of dinner. Tonight we were all travel weary so stopped just around the corner at the Farmers Barbeque and what an experience this turned out to be. The boys were pleased to note hamburgers on the menu and ordered up. In reality, they were each presented with a meat patty, some fries and what looked like a piece of garlic bread. Zac’s look of complete bewilderment pretty much said it all. I ordered something which I assumed contained mushrooms and ended up with a bowl of some sort of cream soup with at least 3 types of the little fungi. Abbey took the safe option and settled for a plate of fries which is exactly what she got. We sat there eating our meals listening to the track from Bonaza, ‘Burning Ring of Fire’. It was definitely a cultural experience.

After our meal we took a quick tour of the Dom square and some of the local shops before heading back. Nathan entertained us all with his now nightly reading from ‘Tashi’ before Zac and I disappeared into the adjoining room for the night leaving him to deal with an over tired little Abbey.