Exploring Munich and Salzburg

Hello again! It's only been a few days since my last update which is unusual for me, but writing my last post I remembered just how much I enjoy making blog posts, and I have lots more to say so I figured why not keep going! This post is specifically going to be about my trip to Germany and Austria, the rest of October and November will come later (after Thanksgiving!)

Last month I had the pleasure of traveling to Munich, Germany where I met up with my parents who flew in a few days before me. Firstly, I was beyond excited to see my parents again and was overjoyed at being able to spend a few days with them. I am so lucky to have the parents I do. They are both such kind, caring, funny, intelligent, wonderful people and I am so grateful to have the relationship with them that I do. I love spending time with them and can talk to them about anything.

I arrived in Germany in the late afternoon on Tuesday the 18th of October. My flight from London was less than an hour and a half and before I knew it I was in Germany and the same country as my parents again! I took the train from the airport to the central train station where I found my parents and hugged them until my arms were sore. Munich was cloudy and cool, and only got colder while I was there. I didn't realise how wimpy living in London has made me to the cold, London has such mild weather! (Please note that I am typing this from under a blanket while drinking warm tea because I am a wimp now and I'm not sorry)

Despite the persistent cloud cover and cold, Munich was a beautiful city. The architecture was so unique and unlike anything else I've seen in Europe and walking the streets each area had a very distinct feel. Where my Airbnb was was more industrial than historic, but it was still a beautiful view looking out my window over the rooftops of the city.

The first full day there we hopped on a train bound for Salzburg, Austria. The train took about two hours, but this was no problem since the ride through the country and into the Alps was SO PRETTY. Germany's landscape is so different from England in everything from the foliage and trees to even the colour green that everything is. I couldn't stop staring out the window at the quaint towns dotting the hillside, with tiny houses spreading out around the central church with the iconic Bavarian steeple. It was stunning.

Even more stunning was Salzburg. I will never stop ranting about how beautiful a city Salzburg is. The cobblestone streets were pristine and everything about the city was so well-kept and beautiful it seemed to sparkle. We wandered around for a bit, did some sightseeing from the castle that sits on a massive hill, and ate lunch at a local vegan and vegetarian restaurant where I got a fried courgette burger that I almost cried while eating (it was that good). 

The Mirabell Palace gardens

The Salzach River that runs through the city

The Austrian Alps hiding in the clouds

The parents and I at the castle!

The view of Salzburg from Hohensalzburg Castle

My amazing vegan lunch in Salzburg from The Green Garden

 After sufficiently exploring Salzburg (and getting caught in the rain and having to buy umbrellas despite the fact that I live in London and should be trained by now to always carry an umbrella on me), we hopped back on a train bound for Munich.

The next few days in Munich involved some sunny weather, beautiful strolls along rivers and through forests, drinking in pubs and quaint restaurants, exploring the Deutsches Museum, the Glockenspiel, Nymphenburg Palace, and basically every retail store we could find (including a home store we found in Paris that my mom and I got very excited about).

Nymphenburg Palace which was the summer residence of Germany's kings and queens

Towards the end of the week when my feet were hurting from walking and there wasn't much else to see, my parents and I spent a rainy afternoon playing pool in their hotel lobby, laughing and chatting for hours. In the evening, we spent a solid few hours at the bar, chatting with the guys behind the bar about different types of gin and where they want to visit in America next time they go. 

I got to spend four days in Germany with my parents and learned several important things.

1. I will never learn German because it's too difficult a language. I'll just keep pretending I speak Spanish and French.
2. Bavaria is a stunning region and I cannot wait to visit it in summer (when there's more sunlight) and in winter (when there's snow). I wouldn't really suggest Germany in October because the weather is just kind of... meh.
3. I love my parents to death and am so lucky to have them in my life. Even with all the stuff going on in their lives they still take the time to listen to my problems and my stories and respect me as an equal to them. They spent the time learning about my boyfriend and got so excited to talk to him on the phone while we were all together. I am so blessed and lucky to have them not only as parents, but as friends as well.
4. It is very difficult to be vegan and vegetarian in Germany. Notice how I say difficult, not impossible. I did find plenty of vegetarian dishes I could have eaten, but I found very little without some sort of dairy in it. Now this could simply be the restaurants we visited (since we were limited to ones that had English menus), but there was an abundance of meat products on every menu. Which my dad loved, but made me miss my usual haunts in London that allow me more than one option for each meal and don't involve steamed veggies in a bit of broth.
5. There is a lot of beer
6. And pastries with Nutella in them.

So overall, despite being perpetually cold, I give my trip to Munich a 10/10 would HIGHLY recommend visiting (not including my flight back which got rerouted to Birmingham because Gatwick was full... at least I made it back to London in one piece). And a sincere thank you to my amazing parents for putting up with me there and for being so wonderful to me in general (and for bringing me candles and food from America). I also didn't take as many pictures as I usually do when I travel because I was really trying to focus on enjoying being there in the present, and although that means I can't share as much with you, I feel as if I remember a greater amount of my trip, including the little things, than I would have if I was busy trying to capture everything through the camera on my phone.

Stay tuned for my next trip which is to.... *drumroll* NORWAY!!! Slowly but surely I'm scratching off more and more countries from my scratch off map!

Thanks for reading! Hope wherever you are in the world you are having a wonderful day and know that you are loved.

Cheers xx