Day 15

It’s the final day. Today we are going to Berchtesgaden. Everyone was tired and a little slow this morning so we didn’t get off to a roaring start after breakfast. Because we booked the hotel before the flights were finalized, we needed to extend our stay by a night which necessitated switching rooms. We packed everything up and moved to our new rooms. With that accomplished, we headed off to the Huptbahnhof to cattle train to Berchtesgaden.

As we strolled up to the platform we saw our train pulling away. This was not much of an issue as another train was leaving within the hour. In fact, after stopping to get Tavis milk the train arrived and we settled in to the 1st class area and waited to leave. Cindi‘s hip was bothering her so she decided to walk around on the platform for a bit. This was a fortunate turn of events as she discovered that the train was actually split and the part we were on was going to Salzburg not Freilassing where we needed to connect to Berchtesgaden. We quickly resettled in the correct portion of the train and enjoyed the ride to Berchtesgaden.

Well, not every day on a trip can go as planned nor should it. As it turned out our excursion to Berchtesgaden was the day that went sideways. Upon arriving, we were all hungry and decided to have lunch before attempting to go to the salt mine tour or boat ride; the two activities we had decided to do. We chose the Hotel Restaurant Schwabenwirt as our lunch spot. The food was delicious and the the staff gracious and kind. There was even a server robot that delivered food from the kitchen

occasionally. Lunch completed, we all walked to the Bahnhof to catch a bus to the salt mine. As we waited I decided to check out online tickets for the tour. It appeared none were available for today. Not to be deterred, I called to see if we could just buy tickets at the mine. The answer was unfortunately no. Time to pivot to plan B - the boat on the Königsee. Again I looked on line for tickets. No dice! Sold out. Well, it turns out we took a two hour train ride to Berchtesgaden for a very nice lunch and … a train ride back. Oh well.

Once we arrived back in Munich we decided to attempt one last bucket list item - the Augustiner Keller. Usually this particular Biergarten is always packed and reservations are needed.

Fortunately for us with the rainy weather putting a damper on the crowds, we were able to get in and enjoy the beer and food. We elected to sit in the self serve area and get our own dinner and food. I lucked out and arrived at the beer station just as they were changing the barrel. At the Biergarten they do not use stainless steel kegs, they still use oak barrels. I got to watch as the pounded the spicktet into the bung and our beers were the first out of the tap. Amazing!

After dinner the consensus was to return to the hotel and call it a night. When I say consensus I mean everyone but Tavis. He wanted to keep going and squeeze the last few hours out of the trip and his time in Munich. I certainly could not argue with his feeling and we left the others and headed back to Marienplatz one last time. Being midweek and getting on towards 9:00 pm there was not a lot going on even in Marienplatz, but we walked around

and enjoyed the evening and talked about the trip. Tavis has really embraced this trip and become quite the traveler. We had a great time together talking and exploring before heading back to the hotel.

The final (fingers crossed) hiccup back at the hotel; it turned out that Christian and Sharon’s flight back to Seattle was this morning not tomorrow morning. This of course is a major problem and as I write this we are working the problem. It is now 11:44 pm and today is threatening to turn into tomorrow so I will finish this entry as a cliff hanger. To be continued…