Day 9, Garmisch-Partenkirchen

We’re literally greeted with this amazing view when we stepped out of our room for breakfast! What a very pleasant surprise! It must have snowed overnight….

For us who are from a tropical island, this is definitely not a common experience.
Nice breakfast, great ambience and wonderful view.
And the lady chef said it’s actually kind of early to be snowing that much at that time of the year.

After a super enjoyable breakfast, we went for a short walk just outside the hotel.

Back at Quartier…

We reached Munich past noon and after a quick stop back at our hotel, we went for lunch and coffee. And did some last minute shopping on our last evening in Europe.

It was a great, great winter holiday. Feeling truly satisfied and thankful especially during this pandemic time.

Well, I must say these fabulous experiences and fond memories are enough to make up for this lengthy period of no travels 💕

Day 8, Garmisch-Partenkirchen

It’s another early morning, left hotel just before 7am to catch the 7.32am train to Garmisch-Partenkirchen for a 2D1N stayover. So for that night, we double booked accommodation for ourselves – our room in Munich (so we didn’t need to pack/move our luggage) and a room in Garmisch-Partenkirchen.

Ginger bread we bought from the Christmas Market

Enjoying the marvellous scenery during the 1h20m train ride.

Collected the KLOOK cable car / cogwheel train tickets (which we purchased the day before we left for our Europe holiday) at Zugspitzbahnhof Garmisch-Partenkirchen. It’s a very short walk from Garmisch-Partenkirchen train station to Zugspitzbahnhof, contrary to what we read on google map.

On the cogwheel train, going up to Zugspitze

First stop upon arrival ~ Sonn Alpin 2600m.
Hot soup as light lunch to warm our body.

Lunch at Panorama Lounge 2962, at the top of Germany @3,000m above sea level. We liked the view so much that we stayed there for a good 2 hours.

We’re at the Summit!

Back to Zugspitze station and walking to the hotel

Nice view of the Bavarian alps along the corridor, just in front of our room.

Quartier – lodges

Shortly after checking in, we went for a walk in the vicinity

Day 7, Munich

After clocking a 16-hour day trip the previous day, we just wanted to chillax. It helped that it was a Sunday, meaning I could not even shop as most retail outlets were not opened.

Woke up late and had a leisurely breakfast.

Headed out just before noon and had a slow walk to Marienplatz

Even the Christmas Market was not opened on Sunday.

Mucki & Floyd – Coffee break 1

Aroma Kaffeebar – Coffee break 2.
And we bought a pair of coffee cups for our homecafe.

Enjoyed roaming the Munich streets aimlessly between the cafe visits

Early dinner at the famous Haxnbauer.

Browsing at the Marienplatz Christmas Market again before ending the night.
Bought the next day’s breakfast and had a strudel. He had a hotdog bun too!

Day 6, Hallstatt

On the following day, we made a day trip to Hallstatt. Left the hotel just before 6am in order to catch the 6.23am train from Munich to Hallstatt.

No time to grab breakfast so got ourselves some bites & a coffee on the train

Enjoyed the beautiful scenery on our way to Hallstatt

After 4h24min and 2 changes of train, we finally arrived. And we’ve taken the shortest train route (Munich / Salzburg / Attnang-Puchheim / Hallstatt).

Upon reaching Hallstatt train station, we took a ferry (payment made on the spot to the ferry operator before boarding) to bring us across the Hallstatt lake to its town. That’s where all activities take place and restaurants / cafes / shops are located at.

Had early lunch at Seehotel Grüner Baum once arrived in Hallstatt.

Enjoying lunch and the captivating view of Lake Hallstatt. It’s so good.

Right after lunch, we went to the most famous viewpoint of Hallstatt for social check-in 📸

Beautiful Hallstatt.
An item checked in my bucket list 📝

Walked around Hallstatt market square and the Christmas market which coincidentally was only held for that weekend.

It’s time for afternoon tea.

It didn’t take us too long to walk from the market square to the other end and we made 3 rounds in total! Just wanted to indulge in the beautiful lake view and its environs within that few hours when we’re there.

Had another mulled wine before taking the last departing ferry.

Was attracted to this mobile wood fired oven on our way to the jetty.

After spending 8 hours in Hallstatt, we took the last ferry back to the train station where we disembarked our train journey to Munich. It’s already 11pm when we reached hotel. 8 hours in Hallstatt and 8 hours spent on train rides, totally worth it.

We’re happy to have made the decision to stay in a hotel that’s close to Munich main station / central station. Eurostars Book Hotel offered us no-frills accommodation and I didn’t like the cold ambience I felt when we arrived at the hotel lobby (daylight bulbs used & ceramic looking white tiles) and then the room (daylight bulbs again with tiled flooring). Breakfast was considered good with pretty varied spread but the restaurant was very small and our chairs were often hit by other guests who tried to squeeze through to get to the breakfast spread.

Nevertheless, just its strategic location was able to redeem all the negative points we experienced there. It’s less than 10 minutes by foot (550m away) to Munich Central Station and we walked to Marienplatz (Munich’s main square) every day. It’s a good 1.4km but didn’t feel at all that it’s a long route due to the good weather.

So if given a choice again, I think we would still go for it due to its location and the very reasonable room rate we enjoyed (corporate rate of €118nett).

Day 5, Munich

After walking for more than 17km in Paris city on the last day in Paris, we returned to the hotel with utter contentment and exhaustion. Minutes before we reached hotel, we received an email from Air France informing that our Paris-Munich flight the next morning (10.25am) was cancelled. But they had scheduled another flight itinerary to bring us to Munich (Paris-Geneva-Munich).

As our flight was at 7am, we had to leave hotel at 4am.
Except for 1 front desk staff, the hotel lobby was totally empty. Were we the only 2 affected by the strike? 🤔

It was during situation like this that we really appreciated our eventual decision of staying in a good hotel (including services & location) instead of the original intention of booking an airbnb apartment.

The hotel arranged a taxi to send us to airport and we paid €65 for the very smooth ride. It’s pretty expensive but definitely worth it (not that we had other transport mode choices at 4am).

We’re mentally prepared for a chaotic situation at Charles de Gaulle airport due to the flight cancellations & changes. But no, it’s very calm everywhere. There’s a queue at the check-in counter but it’s a normal one (about 5-6 travellers ahead of us). The boarding area was in quite a state of commotion though as some passengers’ boarding pass could not be scanned (including hubz) and there’re passengers who came for the wrong flight (boarding gate was changed at the last minute).

Apparently some of our seats were messed up. It took 1 passenger to realise that his seat was taken by someone else which led to the “ultimate discovery”. Ended up 7-8 of us were all occupying one another’s seats and none of us (except for the first one) realised it. But we all took it very well and had a good laugh over it 😄 Guess we’re all just thankful that we’re able to carry on with our journey despite the massive strike nationwide.