We said our goodbyes to Jarrod, Tim and Isaac this morning at 6.30am. After an extra goodbye to Jarrod who left his puffer jacket in our hotel room and had to make an extra trip up to the third floor to get it, they headed for Munich airport for their flight home to Australia.

The 11 remaining tourists met in the lobby at 8am and rolled our suitcases to the train station for our 8.53am train to Zurich. We were there in plenty of time to grab croissants and pastries for breakfast, a cup of the worst coffee we’ve had yet, and also had time to work out the correct carriage and our correct seats for this trip.

Three and a half hours later we arrived in Zurich, Switzerland and had 8 minutes to get all our bags off the train and get to platform 7 for our next train, a 50 minute ride to Lucerne.

Once there we rolled our bags down a main street to our new hotel, Hotel Cascada. With breakfast included and free minibar use, we enjoyed our still and sparkling waters and Coke, as well as a much better coffee from the pod machine in the room. The kids went to McDonalds back near the train station for lunch, while Ross and Sam explored and found some quiches for us at a cafe nearby, and I stayed in the room with my foot up because my ankle has packed it in again.

We then congregated in the lobby and did our own walking tour of the Old Town. I had used the time elevating my foot to read every brochure available in the room, so took everyone to the Chapel Bridge, Needle Dam, Spreuer Bridge (built in 1407 as part of the city’s fortification efforts) and other sites. We even wandered as far up as the Lion Monument.

While this is another beautiful city with picture-perfect mountains in the backdrop, it is an expensive city. We struggled to find a restaurant for less than 50 Swiss francs a head – which doesn’t sound terrible until you times that by 11 at our exchange rate which means it will be almost A$100 each. We settled for takeaway pizza in our rooms!

While everyone kept walking in the “strollable” city as it is called, I caught the bus back to our hotel after our exploring, because transport is free for tourists who stay in the city and pay the city tax.

We are missing Jarrod and his organisation, but impressed ourselves getting here without his help today! We are also thankful for his detailed preparation including spreadsheets and budgets – Luke checked it to compare what we were charged when we arrived, and when we questioned it, the hotel was very apologetic that they had mistakenly overcharged us A$2k!

I was able to update Jarrod who was sitting at Abu Dhabi airport waiting for their second flight which was delayed an hour, and he suggested that “saving“ could be added to the boys’ beer budget, but it might just cover our meals while here!

We left our hotel at 9am, grabbed a croissant at the train station, and went out to Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site. We tried to pay to join an 11am tour (4 euros each), but the cashier had trouble believing we were all from the one family! Ummm, I don’t have all these people in tow for fun or because I don’t know them, mate….. He also suggested Oliver was too young to do the tour, but it said on the website it was not for under 12’s – Oli can’t help his short Jones genes!

The tour was very informative and a lesson once again that we should protect our democracies, and keep power in the hands of the people. We did have a couple from Chicago USA on the tour, who looked shocked when the tour guide described Hitler promising to make Germany great again and pointing out several other of Hitler’s Trump-like promises.

We visited the barracks, the gas chamber and several stops around the site. Only four of us had worn waterproof shoes though, so the constant rain and snow and melting ice underfoot meant we were all ready to find somewhere warm and defrost at the end of the tour. I am very thankful Belle had room in her suitcase for my new waterproof hiking boots when I couldn’t fit them in mine! I also can’t fathom being imprisoned here with one pair of striped pyjamas, basic clogs and a thin hat in weather like this.

Jarrod had seen a Subway near the train station, so once the bus from the camp site dropped us there, we grabbed some lunch and headed back home.

Jarrod, Luke, Ross, Tom and Abi alighted early to go and see the Nymphenburg Palace, but everyone else was too wet and just wanted to go home and dry out. I took everyone’s wet clothes and their other washing down to the laundromat Ross used two nights ago – Sam had helped him then so he came with me to show me what to do which sped up the process.

Then I sent him to walk the two blocks back to the hotel to shower and warm up while I sat amongst the machines – my happy place 😂 And I need a happy place because I am sad about Jarrod, Tim and Zac leaving us to go home tomorrow!

The Palace closed at 4pm in winter, so the others just explored the grounds and then headed back to the hotel.

On their way back they booked dinner at a restaurant for us all, two blocks in another direction from our hotel. The Altmunchner Gesellenhaus was a lovely large restaurant, with very few patrons on a Sunday night (until the 14 of us showed up!). We enjoyed more schnitzel, steak and vegetables, pasta, and chicken dishes for our farewell meal, then said a round of goodbyes with Jarrod, Tim and Zac.

We will miss them but for now are now trying to get them to finish packing and go to sleep, because they have to leave at 6.30am to get to Munich airport for their 10.30am flight home!

Luke found a two hour walking tour that began at 10.45am in the Old Town, so took his family to find breakfast before that began. When Jarrod went to add us on to the tour, he found the tour was full, so we decided to have breakfast near its starting point and see if we could still join, or just do the 2pm tour.

Free walking tours would probably have no-shows quite regularly, and while the tour guide at first said she couldn’t fit us in, she then counted her attendees and changed her mind, so added another 7 of us to the tour. Meanwhile, Jarrod had received an email at dinner last night to say that Tom’s phone had been found, so he and Abi were on a train by 6am to Frankfurt this morning to pick it up.

Our walking tour was very good and informative, but a lot of walking! We watched the Glockenspiel at 11am on the city hall, and saw several important sites and learnt more about the history of Munich. Two spots stood out to me more than the others.

The tour guide talked about the monarchy and the successive kings: Maximilian, Ludwig the First, , Maximilian the Second, Ludwig the Second…… She mentioned Ludwig the First having several mistresses as well as a wife, and how he was very taken by and influenced by one called Lola Montez. Well that made Belle blush immediately!

In 2020 during lockdown, Belle’s year 6 class was asked to research a famous person, and she stumbled across Lola Montez who apparently created salsa dancing (amid many more sordid and scandalous details) and, according to 11 year old Belle, “looked prettier on Wikipedia than the others the teacher suggested they research”. Belle prepared a presentation on cardboard to present to her class over Zoom, and it was only because I checked the information and was horrified at what I read that she came to realise what words like “exotic dancing” actually meant. She thought she tore up the presentation and started again with one of the approved research suggestions, but she doesn’t know I have that Lola research stored away for her 21st 😂. It was funny to hear the tour guide talk at such length about that character today!

The other spot that stood out to me was the commentary on Hitler’s rise to power (and its similarity to some aspects we see in politics overseas today, but I digress…..). A clash Hitler and his supporters had failed but the experience taught Hitler that an attempt to overthrow the state by force would bring forth a military response in its defense. From that time on, he was committed to taking advantage of the Weimar democracy to subvert the state from within. He sought to come to power by means of the popular vote. He aimed to influence that vote by using the freedoms of speech and assembly guaranteed by the Weimar Republic.

A statue created for 16 of Hitler’s supporters killed in this clash (the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923) had to be saluted every time people walked past the statue in Odeonsplatz. If they didn’t want to salute, there was an alternative route to avoid the statue that became a cobblestone street of silent protest, The alternative way that jews and brave dissenters took to avoid the Odeonplatz went through the small alley of Viscardigasse, and a small cobbled stone path marks their way. In 1995, a line of bronze cobblestones called “Argumente” (English: “Arguments”) was installed in Viscardigasse to memorialize those who resisted the Nazi regime.

The tour ended at 1.15pm and we decided to have lunch at a famous beer hall we had seen on the tour, Hofbrauhaus, where everyone ordered …..schnitzels!

From there we divided into two groups – one wanted to climb many steps to a Tower lookout and the rest wanted to take the elevator option to the top of Munich Cathedral to its lookout. I tapped out once I heard that option involved 90 steps to get to the elevator, and chose to sit in the Cathedral and wait for the others, but everyone returned quite underwhelmed with both lookouts.

Abi and Tom had arrived back by then, with Tom’s phone! We all returned to the hotel and ordered in pizzas for dinner so we didn’t have to brave the cold and go out again (it’s negative degrees here). This hotel has a rule that you can’t eat in your room or risk an additional cleaning fee, so they open up their dining room for free use. That suits us because once again we can all congregate together!

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.

The girls (minus Jess) had an earlier start today, as we had to be at the Mirabell Gardens at 9am for our Sound of Music tour! It was great, taking us to many sites used as filming locations, playing the soundtrack on the bus for everyone to sing along to, and giving us behind the scenes info about the filming of the movie.

It took us as far as Wolfgangsee and Mondsee (where the wedding was filmed). We stopped there for morning tea, but the service was so slow, we didn’t have long to spend in the church. The tour finished back at the Mirabell Gardens where a lot of Do Re Mi was filmed, so after Beck, Abi, Belle and I took a lot of photos and recreated some scenes, we went to meet the boys (plus Jess) for lunch.

Meanwhile, the boys plus Jess went to the Catacombs, visited two churches, and went to Dom Quartier, a lifestyle and art museum. I asked Luke for a guest post about their morning, and that’s what he told me, and this is what he showed me! 😂 Apparently there was lots of art to look at and dress ups to use…

We met them all at a restaurant not far from the gardens called Bärenwirt, where we ate yet another schnitzel! I actually asked for a pork cutlet not realising it was just a pork schnitzel rather than a veal schnitzel.

The boys picked that restaurant because there was a brewery nearby where they were hoping to do a beer tour after it opened at 3pm. With some time still to kill before 3pm, we decided to walk back into the Old Town to visit Mozart’s birthplace and the Mozart museum. It did teach me some facts about the Mozart family I didn’t know, but there were SO many people in the museum! At 15 euro per adult, it was not a cheap attraction but definitely drew the crowds, and for us it was included in the Salzburg card we had purchased.

The boys then headed back to the brewery, while the rest of us headed back to the hotel. Zac, Beck, Jess and Oli were keen to get inside out of the cold, while Abi, Belle and I continued on down the road to another attraction included in our Salzburg card called Bible World. It billed itself as an immersive experience of stories from the Bible. The concept and space was great, but the execution was…..well, we are still processing our experience…..

The boys couldn’t join a brewery tour without booking in advance, so enjoyed a couple of beers there instead at a table with an Austrian man called Rudolph who could not speak English.

They then picked up Subway for everyone on their way back to the hotel and we enjoyed eating all together again in the Baroque room. Everyone turned in early tonight though, with the last three stayers being myself, Abi and Zac, who has felt marginally better each day. He wanted to be the last one up for a change, even though he looked like this!

We were a little concerned about this accommodation because we could have been stuck in several different separate hotel rooms over the new year, but the Baroque room being made available to us allowed us to congregate and eat together every single night, which was lovely. It has been a lovely place to stay in a central location in a city I’ve never been to before but now love.

Our family had an earlier start today as we had booked a chamber music concert. It is an annual special event held each early January in the Golden Hall of the 900 year old Fortress Hohensalzburg. Works by Mozart and Strauss as well as others are performed by internationally-renowned soloists in a 1.5 hour concert. It was very well done.

The cousins tapped out of the concert and walked through the Mirabelle Gardens and visited the Natural History Museum while Beck visited the Christmas markets. They then grabbed some lunch and headed to Untersberg to meet us for a cable car ride up the mountain. Most of the experiences we have enjoyed here are covered by the Salzburg card (which also provides us with free transport).

We didn’t have time for lunch before we met them at 2pm, so once we all headed back down the mountain we went back to the Old Town for an early dinner. The boys had wanted to eat at the Goldene Kugel yesterday because they served Augustine beers but couldn’t get in, so we thought we might have more chance at 4.30 in the afternoon!

After more weiner schnitzels (and large Ox-burgers!), we explored the Christmas markets briefly again before they close tonight, and took three pretzels home for dessert.

The hotel owners again gave us access to and served us beer and cups of tea in the Baroque Room for the evening, allowing us to gather and play card games and discuss tomorrow’s plans.

We also asked the ones who braved the fireworks last night what it was like – they said they saw far more illegal fireworks let off than offical ones! They walked back to the Old Town and found a good spot near the bridge to watch the fireworks, but then found themselves in the line of fire when people around them started letting off fireworks, resulting in some people with singed clothes and near misses! 😳 The conclusion was once again that Sydney does NYE far better!