"The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment where is it to be found"- J B Priestley
The children certainly had their Christmas wish come true and the snow that began on Christmas night continued throughout our stay in Munich. The only disappointment they had was that our stay was so short, only three nights, and then our white Christmas would be over.
We had turned to Hotwire again to find a hotel and were very lucky to get a lovely room with a mezzanine bedroom for the kids at the Hotel Exquisit. Accommodation in Munich is frightfully expensive but the lovely breakfast, which on the weekend was a delightful brunch, was included and so we enjoyed our treat.
We had two days for exploring and being so far behind on my blogging and in need of a quite day, Rob and the kids set out on an adventure by themselves. Firstly they found the local playground and delighted in playing on a playground thick with snow. Apparently sliding down a slide covered in snow is simply wonderful and we stopped complaining about they snow clothes which had filled our heaving suitcases.
The Christmas Markets had been and gone in Munich before we arrived but the kids were not complaining having seen so many before. I told them about a wonderful museum I had visited in Munich many years earlier, called the Deutsches Museum, which sounded great to them and proved to be a wonderful afternoon out with Dad.
Rob had no problem navigating Munich's excellent transport system and they made good time getting to the museum. I love when our day trips fit into our home schooling so nicely and this was another great example. This year Emma studied "Time, Weight, Mass and Measure" as our focus for maths and here the kids found wonderful hands on displays that tied in nicely.
They tell me it was too hard to chose a favourite exhibit but said that the aeroplanes, including the Wright Brothers first motorised plane, were terrific as was the kids hands on area called the "kids kingdom" down in the basement.
The following day we took our time over breakfast and decided to spend the afternoon at the Munich Zoo as we had read that it was the home of a family of Polar Bears and we didn't want to miss them.
Munich Zoo,a snowy winter wonderland, was filled with beautiful animals from around the world. It was very strange to see not only Flamingo's but also Emu's and Zebra all out in snowy enclosures looking very out of place.
It was very cold, -11 in the morning, and so many of the animals were not in their lovely open enclosures. It was not so nice seeing the animals in small concrete enclosures, reminiscent of old style Zoo's, but obviously this was so that animals such as the big cats could be kept warm.
We thought the indoor primate area and adjoining aquarium were wonderful, it was certainly a terrific place to keep warm on a chilly afternoon. We sat for some time watching the antics of some very cheeky monkeys and our own cheeky monkeys enjoyed themselves thoroughly.
There were very few visitors at the zoo while we were there but last, but by no means least, we found our way to the Polar Bears and found the other tourists milling around, jostling for the best view of these delightful cubs.
Tramping around in the snow was certainly a new experience for us. Luckily the kids and I had shoes with good grip, but Rob had decided to bring only one pair of shoes on this part of our travels as his size 12's certainly take up some room in a suitcase. And so his trusty Doc Martins, which had served him so well throughout our travels let him down, literally let him down onto his bottom again and again.
I found myself always nervous of falling and found myself stiff and sore from tensing up all the time. The kids didn't give it a moments thought and loved tramping around, slipping and sliding from time to time but this was all just part of the fun for a couple of Aussie kids.
After the zoo we decided we couldn't leave Munich without having visited Marienplatz and the Hofbrauhaus, those icons of Munich. I do apologise to anyone reading this hoping to find lots of wonderful things to see and do in Munich, having been on the road for over twelve months at this stage we were very good at doing nothing more that what we felt like, we were living in the moment and regretting nothing.
And so our very short stay in Munich ended with some wonderful oompah music, huge pork dinners and huge steins of the local beer in perhaps the world most famous beer hall. It was noisy, overcrowded and a total delight to all of us, a perfect end to our wonderful white Christmas in this corner of the world.
At so very early the next morning, and cold and very snowy one it was, we headed to the airport, where our plane was sprayed with antifreeze on the run way and we were off for our final hurrah..this time Spain.
