To Munich

As before, Nathalie has laid out a good spread for breakfast but this time inside as it is way too hot outside. We said our goodbyes at the lake which is very near to the backpacker’s hostel Lucerne. Nathalie planned to spend an hour or so there swimming and relaxing. It is a holiday in Switerland today. Goodbye Nathalie and thank you for looking after me so well.

There were familiar faces in the hostel, Dom from Melbourne and several others from the Menaggio Hostel. Also Sophie the New Zealand Busabout guide.  Now we are leaving Switzerland for Germany… Euros only from now on!

Mountains and lakes still abound on all sides and I am glad of the air-conditioned scenic view from the coach as it is extremely hot outside. There seems to be much less snow on the peaks now.  Just passed the sign ‘welcome to Toggenburg’.  iPhone still says Swisscom so am guessing we haven’t crossed the border yet. Ah we have just gone through a check point over a river into Austria at a place called Koblach on the road to Innsbruck.  Phone now searching…. smart camera tells me I’m in Dornbirn.

We have arrived in Lindau for lunch. Fish and chips snack with a German beer in the pretty square sorted the hunger pangs.  More beautifully decorated buildings in this little Austrian town where noone seems to speak English… must now brush up my German ready for Munich.  Just a 50 minute rest before we are back on the road and my phone now says Telekom.de.

This journey is fairly uneventful and not especially scenic so decided to settle back and watch the movie on board as we have quite a journey ahead of us…. very funny “An Idiot Abroad”.   Munchen 140k, I notice briefly through the window!

The mountains and lakes seem to have been left behind now…. oh no, another tunnel up ahead but just through a hillside…. and replaced with crops and farmland. There are quite a few solar panel crops too… well this is Germany – efficiency country!  A good number of vehicles on the road here seem to be Mercedes or Audi.

We finally arrived in the city of Munich quite early, about 4pm.  Dom and I find ourselves in the same dorm and are both agreeably pleased both with the room with en suite and with the whole hostel which has everything we need, good showers, power points, wifi, welcome glass of wine or beer, central location, etc.  Our only problem is the heat.  There is air conditioning downstairs in the common area so we decided to pop out and buy a snack to bring back rather than spend unnecessarily at a restaurant.  After all we had had a reasonable lunch in Lindau.

The hostel pack contained a useful map of the city with all the best places to go.  I decided to give Dachau a miss as I’d been to Auswitch in Poland.  However, there seem to be some galleries and gardens within easy walking distance of the hostel, which is quite central.

For now a cool shower and early night.