Bavarian Dream

On Friday October 7^th my Gran and I left Churton for Munich, Germany. I’d been really excited about the trip for weeks and when the plane was delayed by six hours I was really disappointed but we managed to get to Munich for 10:30 after navigating 2 German airports, which I can tell you is no walk in the park! My Gran insisted on telling everyone we were “on an interrupted flight” which no matter how loudly and slowly she said it the German attendants could not understand! When we finally arrived at the hotel my Gran did a tour of the bathroom, then sat on the bed and complained loudly about the quality of German fittings! It was too dark to see the city, but the sleazy sex club next door was open till 4:00am, which I can tell you was the exact place I wanted to be! Anyway the hotel was really good, clean and comfortable. The next morning we got our first glance at the city of culture, there were loads of weird lions all over town because of a celebration for 100 years of something, but we couldn’t work out what! The coolest one was a lion with sausages all over it! After a traditional lunch of meatloaf and potatoes, we shopped all afternoon and visited places like Frauenkirche, tallest building in Munich, and The Old Rathaus. It was really beautiful, breathtaking! We finished a fantastic day with beef broth and dumplings at a traditional Bavarian pub. The waitresses worked really hard but wouldn’t except a tip over 10%, which apparently is the highest tip they will take because any higher shows gluttony!

On the Sunday morning we had to wake up bright and early in order to catch a bus to the black mountains and the fairytale castles, Linderhoff and Neuschwanstein. The castles were beautiful and the tour guide was weird! He introduced himself as Clark Kent from Nashville and much to my delight he was also a singer/songwriter, does life get any better? So we were patronised all the way to Linderhoff, then to Neuschwanstein and all the way back to Munich again!

The next morning we went on a city tour around Munich, this tour guide had an illegible accent which was hilarious, the sites were amazing though, really beautiful. We were told that in Bavaria it is illegal to open shops or even mow your lawn on a Sunday, due to the strict Catholic religion. Everybody has the Sundays off and often go on family days out and holidays. So we got back at Manchester for 5:45pm. After a morning staring at confusing train signs, we decided to take the bus that was parked next to us. It was on the plane home that it dawned on me that maybe we aren’t so different back in England, and that maybe our countries are from the same origin. The question is where would you go? What would you do? What would you learn?

By Alice Ferrier