Munich, Singapore, Home

We’re back!! Following on from our last blog, we had a very pleasant rail trip from Vienna to Munich with some magnificent scenery along the way. Photo of river crossed over en-route.

Our hotel was located near the airport so we spent some time at the station scanning railway timetables printed in German to find where to go to connect with the airport train. Janice accosted two policemen who were extremely helpful and escorted us all the way down to our platform. We then realised we had no ticket so they directed me back up to the ticket machines leaving Janice on the platform with the entire luggage. Whilst watching other people I attempted to enter the details. After 3 tries I got it right only to find it would not take 50 Euro notes and I did not have sufficient in smaller currency. A trip up to the shopping precinct to buy a small bottle of orange juice and back down to try again. This time with success. At last returned to Janice who had wondered where on earth I had gone to.

The airport is quite a long way out of the city. The rail journey was 45 minutes. We then picked up a shuttle bus which travels between the hotels and airport terminals. A very nice hotel with extremely pleasant staff.

The following day we were going to explore Munich which involved shuttle bus to the airport and train again into the city. The day was very foggy and didn't improve much as the day went on. The tour buses were directly opposite the station which was very convenient. There were two tours on offer, a quick city centre tour and a longer, more extensive tour. We elected to do both. It seems that Monday is not a good day to see things in Munich. Many of the tourist attractions including museums are all closed which was a bit disappointing. Photo of character building.Don't know what it was though.

I was particularly disappointed that the BMW museum was closed. Anyway we had an enjoyable day. One rather strange thing we found was city centre surfing. They have built a canal joining two parts of the river and the water is very fast flowing. Under the water they built a small wall which creates a back wave effect and local surfers take advantage of this.

The following morning it was packing (again) and shuttle off to the airport. We left Munich at 1.30pm local time and arrived in Singapore 7.10am local time the following day but in fact by our internal time clock it was only about midnight. Needless to say we weren’t very tired and didn’t get much sleep.

We arrived at our hotel just after 8am and luckily they let us have our room early. After a quick change we walked to China town only to discover that most of China town does not open until 11am or later. Anyway, we found some shops open and Janice bought what she was looking for. Back to the hotel for lunch and a siesta. Relaxed, had dinner and an early night. Lift system in Singapore hotel.

The following day we were not flying out until midnight so we met Jon Potter for lunch. (Jon and Kirsty were meeting in Singapore on the way to Vietnam and Cambodia for a holiday and Jon had arrived a couple of days earlier to stay with his brother. Kirsty was not arriving from Australia until the Saturday so we unfortunately did not meet up with her.)

Our flight to Melbourne was not condusive to sleep. The 6.5 hour flight was interrupted by dinner after 2 hours and breakfast 2 hours later. We arrived in Melbourne at 10.15am but our flight to Hobart was not until 4.30pm so Peter and Paula Murphy (friends from Hobart who are now living in Melbourne) picked us up and took us to their house for lunch which was great.

We were met at Hobart by Tammy, Adele, Xavier and Eamon. On arrival back at our house we opened the door to see a big “Welcome home” sign made by Xavier and Eamon. Jamey joined us all for dinner prepared by Adele and Tammy and all had lots to talk about.

We had a fabulous 4.5 months away but now glad to be home.