Paris & Munich

We stayed in Paris for 3 days altogether. For those of you who went on the ski-trip to Saint-Francois-Longchamp, it was the same hostel that we stayed in all those years ago, and yes, the pac-man mural was still on the wall opposite the hostel entrance although I declined on eating any raw eggs :-)

I had been to Paris a few times before, but never got around to doing the usual touristy things such as going up the Eiffel tower or visiting the Louve museum, so we decided that we'd do those things on this visit. We also went to a star wars exhibition that was on, which had a lots of props and stuff that were used in all the star wars films - including Darth Vadar's suit from the original 3 films.

However, one of the more exciting parts of this visit was getting engaged to Kate :-)

After our third day in Paris, we made our way to Gare de l'Est (I think!) for our first sleeper train of the trip. It was going to be the first of many so I was very interested to see what the living conditions were like! There were 6 beds in a compartment smaller than most people's box rooms! Having said that, the beds were quite comfortable.

The next morning we arrived in Munich (9 hours later) where we would stay for 2 nights.

Munich is a lovely city, made even nicer by the plentyful supply of Bratwurst (german hot dog)and 1l glasses of beer :-) I hadn't had a bratwurst since I worked as a golf caddie in America (of all places) many years ago and I wasn't disappointed when I got to sample them again.

We also made a trip to the concentration camp in nearby Dachau. On our way out there, we overheard an Irish accent (Kerry, in fact) on the bus. As it turned out, the guy was living in Munich and worked as a tour guide, so we joined his small group. I had heard before about the attrocities which took place there, but seeing the place for real was an eye-opener. Our guide (sorry, but I can't remember his name) did an excellent job of showing us around ('guiding' us, you could say).

We left Munich for Vienna on 31st July. Goodbye bratwurst, goodbye nice german beer!