Our flight left San Diego at 2:50pm bound for Frankfurt, Germany arriving the following day at 11:05am. The flight was about 11 hours in duration. Our flight departed Frankfurt at 12:15pm arriving in Munich at 1:10pm. This was a very short flight of less than one hour. Once we arrived in Munich we had to find the S Bahn train station where we boarded a local train for the 45-minute ride into central Munich train station called the Hauptbahnhof.

Our hotel for the next six nights is a Marriott brand hotel called the Aloft Hotel. The hotel is just adjacent to the main train station so we only had a short walk with suitcases to our hotel. The hotel is a smoking free hotel which is a good thing in Europe since so many people here smoke. The hotel has a very casual lobby with a traditional bar, comfortable tables and chairs to sit at and comfortable sofas and chairs to relax in. There is a coffee and snack bar with fruit, snacks, coffee and tea all for sale.

After a short nap we ventured out on foot to the main square called the Marienplatz about a fifteen-minute walk from our hotel. The streets are extremely busy with people of all colors and ethnicities, dining at sidewalk cafes, shopping and coming and going in every direction.

Munich is the capital city of Germany and has a population of about 1.5 million inhabitants in the city and 2.75-million in the urban area. It is the fastest growing and most prosperous of all cities in the country. The city is now home to about 45,000 Turks, 30,000 Albanians, 25,000 Croatians, 25,000 Serbians, 25,000 Greeks, 20,0000 Austrians and 25,000 Italians.

For dinner we stopped at a local German restaurant next door to our hotel where we had sausages and sauerkraut, chicken schnitzel and potato salad. The potato salad is mixed with chopped cucumbers for a bit of crunch and is a bit vinegary than we might be used to. As is typical in most of Europe, table water is not served with your meal. Instead you are expected to pay for either bottled water or, as was the case today, we could get a small glass of tap water for 1 euro 20.

We were very tired from our long trip and retired about 9:00pm.