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 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 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.

After much hassles of trying to find our connecting flight at Geneva airport, we’re finally ready for the Munich-bound flight.

Had a walk at Marienplatz Christmas Market.
Totally love the very festive vibes

This ended our first day in Munich 💕

Café during CB

So glad that we got a nice espresso machine last year. It made our stay-at-home days of 3 months a very nice one. While most people found it stifling, we enjoyed our home, especially with the continuous supply of coffee and food at our own cafe corner. I was too busy exploring recipes to feel bored 😄

How it’s brewing at KELV’S

Simpler weekend breakfasts

Our good old local breakfast – fried bee hoon, egg and compressed beancurd

CREME BRULEE

Lemon loaf topped with candied lemon slices

Cocktail time

Day 1, Paris. 2 Dec 2019.

This time round, cheap airfare brought us to Munich. When we had decided in having Europe as our year end trip and started to look out for fare deals by Singapore Airlines, we found one to Munich.

Mid November to December is usually the blackout period (school holiday and festive month) for any promotions, so S$1,100 / passenger was a very, very good fare.

We would usually visit maximum 2 countries in a trip and as I would want very much to visit our friend & her daughter in Paris, soon after purchasing our SG-Munich-SG tickets, we bought Munich-Paris-Munich ones as well. And I was looking forward to it!

**This was our “welcome gift” from our friend about 10 mins before our plane took off from Singapore.**

Landed at Munich airport at 6.30am on 2 Dec.
As we were making our own flight connections, we gave ample time for immigration checks and baggage collection.
It was a very smooth process so we had a lot of time for a light breakfast before checking in for the next flight.
In the background, it was a small scale Christmas market set up between the 2 terminals.

Stayed at Novotel Les Halles for its good location (which we came to really appreciate in the later part of our stay) and their service was superb as well.

We had a smooth early check-in which gave us some time to roam about before heading to our afternoon tea which we reserved for 3pm.