Friday, June 30, 2023
Munich – Stuttgart – Munich Day Trip
Step Count: 15,690 Anika, 15,638 Nathan
Today we woke up to a gloomy and rainy day, so after breakfast we packed up our smaller hiking backpack with rain jackets, umbrellas, pack cover, entertainment for two, and more for our day trip to Stuttgart.
Part of the reason for picking the particular Austrian hike that we did, was due to its close proximity to where my girlfriend Whitney lives in Stuttgart with her family.
I managed to buy the train tickets for the high speed German ICE train for the two hour journey on the DB app, which warned of high demand and suggested we pay extra to reserve seats. The day trip already cost a pretty penny, what being the high speed train and all, so shelling out 20 or so more Euro for assigned seats was not something I wanted to do.
We boarded the train at the Munich main train station, which was the origination point of this particular train, and we carefully selected our seats. There is no real indicator if a seat has been reserved or not. We walked through several cars, before cautiously picking seats with a table. I was a little concerned we would get kicked out of our seats by a German with a seat reservation, and how embarrassing that would be, but we managed the entire 2 hour ride to Stuttgart without incident.
Once we got to Stuttgart, it was pouring rain, so we put on our rain gear in the main station, and walked from the big train platforms to find the S train platforms, where Whit and her kids would be.
From there, we all walked in the rain to the nearby Natural History Museum and it’s kid’s exhibition on garbage.
After the museum, the rain had mostly stopped. We found a restaurant for lunch, and enjoyed our time together. We narrowly avoided an international incident when Nathan walked Clara to the women’s room, and lingered outside waiting for her, too close to the door for the locals’ taste. Too short to reach the sink by herself, Clara summoned Nathan into the ladies’ room to hoist her up to wash her hands.
Crisis averted, we escaped the restaurant before anyone came to take Nathan away. On the move again, we bought gelato and walked around the pedestrian area before each of us needed to board a 4:15 train back.
The return trip was much the same, but we promptly got kicked out of the first seats we chose. Of course, the German person was speaking German, and we had no idea what she was saying. We got up, found another seat, and the remainder of the journey was without another international incident.
Once back in Munich, we quickly stopped by our hotel, and went out for pizza. Of course, now its raining in Munich, so we trudged, in the rain, to dinner. We decided to share a pizza, because we weren’t that hungry. Thank goodness we did, because even 1/2 a pizza was huge!
