Bohemia & Christmas in the Tyrol – DAY 18

Kirchberg – Munich

The last day of our group tour saw us leaving Kirchberg and the Tyrol for the German city of Munich, a journey which would take us through some of the most scenic areas of Austria and Germany, following the River Inn for much of the way, and passing by spectacular peaks such as the Ellmauer Halt and the Brandenberg Alps. Unfortunately there was a lot of glare on the windows of the coach, but by parking myself right in the front seat and basically shooting with a telescopic lens directly over the head of the driver, I was able to eliminate enough of it to get plenty of nice pics nonetheless.

The first part of our journey took us through many popular skiing areas, such as Brixen im Thale and Hopfgarten-Markt. The Austrians are master tunnellers, and there are plenty of places throughout the Tyrol where the roads go under villages or through mountains rather than skirting around them.

At the city of Wörgl, we joined the Inn River, a major tributary of the Danube that we’d last seen a little over two years ago when we walked along its banks at its confluence with that river in the border city of Passau in Germany. From here it was only 20km to the Austrian/German border.

A short time later, we were crossing the international border once again, and heading along Bundesautobahn 93 (Federal Motorway 93) towards the city of Rosenheim. From here, we would then turn west and head directly towards Munich. As we descended in altitude, the snow gradually gave way to a heavy frost that cloaked the entire landscape in white. The temperature gauge on the bus had barely moved from -3°C for the whole journey.

After an hour or so of travel, the blue skies gave way to a grey fog/smog that signalled the approaching outskirts of Munich. This being a Saturday, the Autobahn heading out was absolutely packed with vehicles driving up to the snow for the weekend.

Once in Munich, we waited patiently while the bus made its way through the madness that is the one way road system around the inner city, before double parking in a side street outside the hotel that served as the final stay for Albatross tours, although having read the reviews, we’d decided to stay elsewhere, just a short walk away. As a steady line of drivers that were now blocked from exiting the street started blasting their horns, we quickly grabbed our luggage and headed off. Honestly, I’ve never felt more relieved for a tour to be over as I was right then. We quickly checked in to our hotel for the next two nights, before heading into the old town to take a quick look around before dark.

Minus 3°C in the bright sunshine of Kirchberg felt vastly warmer to the dull and dreary -3°C of Munich, with the fog adding a sense of dampness that chilled us to the bones. We headed through Karlsplatz onto the main mall area of the old town at Neuhauser Straße, stopping at an electronics store where I finally managed to find a new Compact Flash card to act as a backup for my camera’s SD card. We also stopped briefly to check out the church of St. Michael München, with its massive vaulted ceilings and stunning Renaissance and early Baroque styling. Consecrated in 1597, it was severely damaged during World War II and rebuilt in 1946-48, with the interior stucco work only being completed between 1980-83.

A short way down the road we found an interesting sculpture in bronze of a wild boar, which turned out to be a part of the German National Hunting and Fishing Museum (Deutsches Jagd- und Fischereimuseum), which we noted as a place of interest for our return walk tomorrow, but for the meantime we continued on to check out a few more stores, as part of our plan for the afternoon was to purchase another carry-on case to take back with us to Melbourne, as we would need it to help spread the weight from our ever growing collection of Christmas market mugs and souvenirs.

Eventually we came to the Marienplatz and the stunning neo-Gothic Neues Rathaus (New Town Hall), which looks like it should be centuries old, but actually dates back to 1847 (although its design was heavily inspired by the 15th Century Brussels Town Hall). As the hour was getting late, we decided to turn around here and head back to the hotel. Having pigged out on a couple of massive pizzas at lunchtime, we decided to forgo dinner that evening, settling for a couple of beers and some chips and nuts.