Today's the day!!

Looks like a nice day ahead!

We enjoyed the complimentary hotel breakfast outdoors in the walled garden

A view over the rooftops

After breakfast in the tranquil garden we canceled our Friday booking at a Hilton Hotel by the English garten and instead booked another room at the Admiral. We liked it so much-small and quaint and above all quiet.

Now back to the room to pack

And take our last look out of the window across Kohlstrasse

Into a taxi then off to the BMW pick-up complex. Once there we were treated to a continental breakfast and some good espresso and then met our customer advocate who would finalize some insurance paperwork before leading us and our luggage to the new car which was in a garage of European Delivery cars that were being picked up today by their excited new owners.

This is where we first saw the car, albeit a bit dark in there!

Our advocate, Chris, showed me how to work the Navigation System and that was all we needed before I drove it from the garage to the outdoors where we could see better. My previous BMW which was now resting in our garage in Michigan was an automatic whereas I had chosen a manual stick shift in this car, for a more controlled driving experience. I would learn how to use it driving out of Munich in a few minutes!

I still have those German license plates

BMW's Chris hands over the keys

Carol inputs our first destination  to the SatNav so that we can escape the traffic in the Munich suburbs and take the Autobahn South to the foothills of the Bavarian Alps. Within  a few minutes I was comfortable driving the stick shift and soon would be on the highway doing 100 mph which was the maximum recommended with a brand new engine. We'll see you on the road.....

Beer gardens

We're walking through the Englisher Garten in Munich to visit some beer gardens and I know what you are thinking- we've seen some of these before! True, but this was our first visit to Munich back in 2003.
Tomorrow, in the story, we will pick up our new car and until we return to Munich 5 days later we will be visiting places I haven't shown you before.

On our map we saw something that translated means Chinese Tower and had a beer garden marked there. This would be our first beer garden experience in Germany even though we had already visited Bayreuth (1999) and Berlin (spring 2002). We didn't know what to expect.

Here's the Chinese Tower...

Yes there is a German Brass band playing on the first level-jolly oompah music.

If I step back a little you can get an idea of the scale of the crowd filling the tables nearby....

There's seating for 7,000 happy beer drinkers but we wouldn't be two of them. Why? Because the map showed another beer garden further into the park and it had a lake beside it. As we like to be near water and beer at the same time we decided to move along. We follow the stream...

Don't follow the geese as they are going the wrong way

The stream leads to the lake

We're getting closer

We can see people up ahead sitting by the water

We find a bench by the water and I go grab some beers. You get an empty glass and get in line and tell the man behind the counter what kind you want-for me it is usually lager (ein Helles) but it could be a Dunkel (dark beer) or a Weissbier (cloudy malted wheat beer). If, like Carol, you like to dilute your beer with Sprite or such you can ask for a Radler.

The birds gather around as there may be food on each table and so people give them some pretzel bites. Pretzels are huge and the most popular snack with beer. If you want meat and potatoes it's back at the counter where you got your beer. Roast chicken, giant pork knuckles, schnitzels and of course varieties of sausage. Add some mashed potato or fries and you have a great al fresco lunch!
The large beers (ein Mass) cost about 9 Euro and that's the highest price of all the Munich Beer gardens. MunichBeerGardens.com lists and maps all the sites for visitors.

View from the table

Even though there can be 2500 people here in this beer garden, known as the Seehaus, (See is German for Lake) you can have a conversation thanks to there being no ceiling or walls or band playing. People may be smoking at your table as this is Germany and most outdoor tables will have ashtrays. You may find a table for yourself away from the lake under the shade trees which are found in each beer garden.

People bring their kids here. I have never seen rowdiness or drunkeness. People are here to relax and enjoy each other's company while enjoying good beer and food on a pleasant Sunday afternoon. You'll likely be sharing a table with some friendly Germans, most of whom can speak English.

We whiled away a couple of hours or more at the Seehaus before making the long leisurely walk back towards Marienplatz to have dinner at a restaurant called the Spatenhaus. Spaten was the name of my favorite German beer at the time, bought in Chicago, so it made sense to visit a restaurant serving it.
It sits opposite the Bavarian State Opera house too, so within an easy walk from our hotel.

It was dark by the time we finished a nice German dinner and walked through the streets to our hotel.
We were tired and jet-lagged and had to pack in the morning so we went to bed at 10 pm.

Next morning we would have to get a taxi to BMW to pick up the car and begin our scenic road trip adventure....

Munich-love at first sight

Our flight landed in Munich and luckily we were on it. This would be the only time we would take a taxi in from the airport as we had no need to rent a car. We would have our own car on Monday, the very next day!

Of course every sight of Munich would be a new one which is always exciting.There was a 7 hour time difference so we would be jet-lagged but we planned to stay awake and push on through to get in sync with the Germans.

On this trip we made our first visit to the Admiral hotel on Kohlstrasse, a hotel we would return to again and again over the years. Small, quiet and simple-no gym, pool, conference room or crowds.

The location was close to the center of the city and even better still was a two minute walk from the river Isar which winds through the city. Once we had checked in using our basic German, which wasn't needed as the reception staff speak good English, we unpacked and set out on a walk to explore our surroundings...

That was the Isar and that's the Deutsches Museum a treasure trove we would visit on our next trip to Munich. It's overcast now but I can recall it being 71 degrees F in early September. Nice!

We have a laminated city map as we walk and we are heading for the central pedestrian hub of Marienplatz.

Walking by the Isar river made a good first impression on us. Being a Sunday it was quiet without all the business traffic that would follow when the work-week started. Everything was new to us and we had all the time in the world so we could slow down and enjoy what we were seeing and hearing.
Beautiful historic buildings lined our route away from the river towards Marienplatz.

We passed by the Bavarian State Opera House where we had tickets for an opera later in the week upon our return from our driving tour.

We soon found ourselves in Marienplatz for the first time. What a crowded scene that was! There were cafes and restaurants with outdoor tables and waiters hustled back and forth carrying trays of food and....can that be BEER? Beer in Germany? Who knew?!! We were lucky to get a seat at a table with some nice German folks who invited us to sit. We like sitting and soon I had a big Mass of Helles (lager). Great people watching here and the beer really helped me settle into the German way of life (although I don't really need help!)

Everyday at 11 a.m, Noon and 5 p.m there is a mechanical animation show high up in the bell tower here and the shows draw a crowd. Everyone is looking up and taking photos (guilty!) as the figures dance and Knights joust on horseback (Spoiler alert- Bavarian Knight in blue and white always wins)
In this picture the folks are dancing and the Knights are offstage.

Here we see the Knights doing battle in the top tier...but you know how that ends-Bavaria (blue) beats Prussia ( red) yet again.

We move on after enjoying a delicious lunch of bratwurst and French fries (pomme frites) and yes, more beer. The beer was Hacker Schorr from one of the 6 local breweries. We are just going to wander and soak up the atmosphere and admire the architecture.

We had seen Rick Steves enjoying Europe's largest public park in Munich- the Englisher  Garten and made our way there. I heard there were beer gardens there and that was motivation enough for my feet. Carol came too and loved the long relaxed walk amongst the trees.

Maybe we'll see you at the beer garden??

A special trip to Germany...

I've been away for a while due to unforeseen circumstances and now have a month before I go away again. We are cruising the Caribbean in January to escape the cold of Chicago. That's something we do every January since we started cruising in August 2011 on Princess Cruises. This time we are trying another cruise line- Celebrity Cruises and we sail on their Silhouette January 17th.

In the meantime  here's the story of a special trip we made to Germany in September 2003.

What made it special? Good question and thanks for asking.

It was Special because we went to Munich to pick up a new car. BMW have a Program called European Delivery where you tell your dealer what car you want via an a la carte menu of styles and options. Our dealer was in Indiana where I could get a better deal than in Chicago and at the time I was nearing the end of my lease on my first BMW. Having found that car to be fun to drive ("The Ultimate Driving Machine") and very reliable I wanted to buy, not lease, another BMW. This one I ordered as a 2 door (coupe) with a manual "stick" shift (not the norm in the USA) and a stiff suspension for going around corners quickly. Once you decide what you want inside the car the dealer sends an order to BMW and they build the car. The car was built in Regensburg on July 13th 2003 and we planned to be in Munich to meet it on September 13 and spend a week driving it around Germany before shipping it home (no extra charge versus buying one in a dealership in the USA).

Buying a European Delivery car saves you 7% off the price of the car (about $2800) and I negotiated further discounts with my dealer of $1200. BMW insures the car for a month while you are driving in Europe.

This would be our first time in Munich and our 3rd time in Germany since 1999.

With the help of Rick Steves we planned out places we would like to visit once we had the car.

The itinerary would look something like this....

Sept 12 arrive in Munich by air from Chicago
Sept 13 pick up car from BMW factory outlet and drive to Fussen in the Bavarian Alps to visit the castles of King Ludwig II-Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau. Stay overnight.
Sept 14 Drive the Romantic Road to visit Rothenburg for a couple of days
Sept 16 Drive to Bayreuth in Franconia to visit the grave of Richard Wagner and do a backstage tour of his theater that we had been to in 1999 (and later 2013) Stay overnight.
Sept 17 Drive north to Oberwesel on the Rhine (south of Cologne) and stay in a castle for a couple of days.
Sept 19 Drive back to Munich to drop the car at the shippers then stay in Munich for two days before flying home to Chicago.

So a lot of driving for me, but it's in a brand new car and apart from Bayreuth each town will be new to us.

Next up....Germany 2003 in photos

Back in business soon, I hope!!

Thanks to everyone who came over to Cruisecritic.com to read my review there.

On the day I was going to finish it I had a burglary and a beating so lost my computer.  Now that I have a new computer I hope to get back to the blog soon, but am missing a lot of photos.

Bear with me as I try and recover them somehow!

Best wishes,

Norris

Update

Thanks for still reading while I have been away on my cruise around Italy.

I am back in the USA and am writing about it on Cruisecritic.com.

Here's the link..

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2266598.

It's being written in real time so I write a bit each day, but there's already a lot to read and watch.

Becoming a member of CC is easy- just pop over and start reading. If you think you want to contribute to any of the boards then just pick a screen name and give some identifying details and then you are in.

The review will take me at least a month to write before I get back here.

In the meantime here is a short video to give you a gist of where I was.....

See you soon!

Norris

The cruise is over....

Before your last night on the ship-usually by the middle of the cruise,you are asked to pick a time slot when you want to get off. Some people have flights to catch and take an early exit. For us, staying in Ft. Lauderdale for the day, it makes sense to take the last slot which is usually 10 am. Luggage is color coded so it goes off the ship and into the Customs hall as it is needed. By the time we leave there is not much luggage remaining which makes it easier to find. Easy suits us just fine.

We have to quit the room by 8 am so we do and head to the MDR for a leisurely breakfast.

Some photos from that morning in January 2013

Sunrise in Port Everglades, the harbor of Ft. Lauderdale

There was heavy fog when we arrived at 6 a.m but it slowly lifted and added some atmosphere to the photos as it did

 The room stewards have 4 hours minimum to get the cabins ready for the new guests. The ship has 9 hours to take on all the food and supplies it will need for the next cruise. The vacuuming of all the public rooms started in the middle of the night. After breakfast the buffet and MDRs set the tables for lunch as 3,000 hungry new passengers will come aboard to start their week cruising the Eastern Caribbean. It's a long busy day for the crew. It's Turnaround Day.

As we are suite passengers we get to wait with our hand luggage in Club Fusion, where there are refreshments, while most of the passengers duffle by in waves on their way off the ship.

When our time comes there is little luggage left so we quickly find our cases and get in line for Customs/ Immigration control. As I am a British Passport holder and most of the passengers are American we go through a shorter line and are soon in a taxi on our way to our home for the day....

Marriott harbor Beach resort where the adventure began a week before

The warm sea breezes would soon be just a memory as tomorrow we were flying back to snowy Chicago.

Thanks for following along on this, our 4th Princess Cruise!

INTERMISSION

TODAY IS SEPTEMBER 23 2015 AND IN 3 HOURS WE ARE FLYING TO.....

WHERE, AFTER 2 DAYS IN ROME, WE WILL BE JOINING THE EMERALD PRINCESS FOR A CRUISE FROM ROME TO BARCELONA. THIS WILL BE PRINCESS CRUISE # 8.

SO IT WILL BE TWO WEEKS BEFORE I AM BACK ON THE BLOG.