We returned to Munich from Innsbruck yesterday night, having spent five nights there. After breakfast this morning at the Le Meridien in Munch, we took the S-Bahn to the airport for our flight on United back to the US. We arrived just in time for rush hour traffic.
Munich
We woke up in Munich at the Le Meridien with some color in the sky but no beautiful mountain view like we had in Innsbruck.
We headed downstairs for breakfast at around the 6:30am opening time. The food was definitely higher quality here but, sadly, they only had floppy bacon. They do have a live omelette station but we weren’t hungry enough to go for it. It was pretty good when we were here last year though.
We returned to the room to finish packing everything up. After checking out, we walked across the street to the Hauptbahnhof to catch the next S8 to the airport. After going to the platform, we saw the train’s arrival time wasn’t changing. It turns out that the train we were planning on taking got stuck at a previous station due to a medical emergency. And because it was stuck at the station, no other S8 trains could get by.
One option was to take the S1, which goes to the airport via a slightly longer route in the opposite direction. We were about to board a S1 when our delayed S8 finally arrived, around 30 minutes late!
We decided to take the S8. Once we made it to the airport, checked in, and passed through security, we headed to the Lufthansa Senator Lounge where we had a small second breakfast.
We had a small second breakfast in the lounge. The options weren’t great but at least it was hot food.
We also had some snacks.
We were amused to find macadamia ice cream! With 2% macadamia from Australia!
MUC to IAD
After an hour or so, it was time to head to the gate to catch our flight on United. The aircraft for this flight was a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner.
We had preordered our meals before the flight. The shrimp appetizer was pretty mediocre as it usually is and the beef wasn’t great. Perhaps a bit worse than usual.
Interestingly, eisbuffet is used in German to describe the ice cream cart service. It’s probably always been that way but never noticed before.
After watching a movie and sleeping, we got up before the pre-arrival meal service. The pasta meal can be best described as not the best, but not the worst either.
We arrived at Dulles a few minutes early to rapidly increasing traffic and travel times. So after returning to our car in the economy lot, we headed back home via Frederick.
Post-Trip Commentary
The area of Tyrol around Innsbruck was reminiscent of the Swiss Alps. Everyone speaks German, there were historic buildings, and plenty of mountains all around. Food was definitely cheaper though. The mountains were quite nice to visit, though the glacier situation was unfortunately a bit sad. We probably should have spent a day visiting various museums and such, and there were many to select from, but we ended up spending most of our time in the mountains. Maybe we will be back in the future?