We enjoyed our last hearty breakfast at Hotel Hohenstauffen, packed our bags and said goodbye to the owner, who laughed at us (as she had in every interaction we had had with her) and told us we were a lovely family they had enjoyed hosting (I know…..she laughed at us all the time!).

Snow had fallen overnight so we crunched along on the ice, rolling our bags up to Platform 1 to catch a train to Munich. Cooper insisted on taking my suitcase as well as his – I think he just wanted me to focus on getting there without slipping on the ice!

We were in plenty of time for our train, but once again the carriages were not well signed or numbered sequentially, so we boarded the wrong carriage and by the time we found our correct seats, there were not 14 empty seats – other people had helped themselves to them! So we sat in the last carriage of unreserved seats for the 1 hour 45 minute journey to Munich.

The mountains surrounding Salzburg are so close and make everything look like a postcard. Salzburg is so close to the border that we had crossed it into Germany by the time we reached the first stop not long after we departed.

An hour and a half later I heard the message over the loudspeaker talking about arriving in Munich and thankyou for travelling with them. I commented to Luke that it was a quicker trip than scheduled, but still shuffled everyone off the train plus the 14 suitcases as quickly as possible so no one was left behind. As the doors closed and the train departed, Jarrod realised we had disembarked a station too early so were not close to our hotel. Simultaneously, Tom realised that he had left his phone on the train!

Jarrod (having experience in this area) multitasked extremely well……he looked up how to get us to the right station while getting assistance for Tom and filling out an online form for lost property. Once Tom had done all he could to lock the phone and hope soon for its return, we caught a local train to the next (correct) stop, and rolled our suitcases along the streets for 10 minutes to our new hotel, Hotel Brunnenhof.

As only one of our three rooms was ready, we left all the bags in there and went to explore Munich’s Old Town. After a late lunch at Five Guys, we looked around at the shops and historic buildings, and then returned to the hotel to check in and unpack. We only have three rooms here, so Ross and I took the family room to share with Abi, Belle, Jarrod and Tim.

We then returned into the Old Town for dinner at 7pm as Ross had booked us into an Augustine beer hall/restaurant – the boys said the beers were good, but the food was too big in portion size after our 2.30pm lunch.

Ross then did some laundry for me at a local laundromat, so I was still folding clothes at 11pm – a normal night time activity at home at that hour, but strange here to be up so late…..our days are so full and the sun goes down so early that I have found myself ready for bed by 9pm regularly on this trip.