Pellegrins travel to Germany

I previously posted about our trip to Belgium, but the second half of that trip was to Munich, Germany. After visiting Brugge and the race was finished we rented a car for the day and drove to Bastogne to visit the Battle of the Bulge museum. My husband’s grandfather’s army unit was stationed near there so we wanted to see if we could find out any more information. The museum we toured had gobs of information along with audio stories of three different characters from different perspectives. I am definitely not a history person so it was really eye-opening to read the history from WW1 through WW2 in another country to see how they viewed WW2. Towards the end of the self-tour we did in fact locate a display which showed the locations of where all the military units were stationed. It showed his grandfather’s unit location. That was very cool to see and make the connections within the timelines and seeing the full picture. We also got to see the Ardennes Forest (which is where Band of Brothers was filmed.)

After leaving Bastogne we drove the countryside of Luxenburg to get to Trier, Germany. Luxenburg was absolutely breathtaking with its rolling countryside and quaint towns along the way. Unfortunately I was unable to stop and take photos because European roads were narrow! In Trier, Trier is the oldest city in Germany, but for only one night there we did not see a lot and were not too impressed with what we did see. However, we did go to a bar which was underground called Cubiculum. It has a wonderful vibe and also serves pizza amongst other foods which looked fabulous!

We departed Trier by train and headed to Munich. Munich is a huge city and the be honest not really our vibe. We actually chose it because of the original breweries all being there. Our first brewery was the Paulaner Brauhaus. We ate dinner and got drinks. Then we walked to another brewery but turns out GPS was leading us to the middle of a park because that’s where it is located during Octoberfest!! SO we continued on to Augustiner Brauhaus. This was actually one of my favorites. (sorry for the iphone photos!)

The next day the weather was fabulous so we hopped on a train (which we almost missed!) and headed to the Bavarian Alps. The trainride was gorgeous (pictures below). We were going to hike Wendelstein – the highest mountain in the Wendelstein massif. It is 6,030 ft high. After researching the hike I knew it was going to be challenging and there was a chance of snow on the hike, but I couldn’t find anything that said it was for snowy at the top around when we were hiking it. We got off the train and started our hike with cool weather in the high 50s/low 60s and sunny. That did not last long! The hike got snowy and VERY WINDY! I didn’t stop to take pictures because I was so focused on following someone else footsteps up in the 1-2 ft snow we were trekking through… the last picture probably gives the best indication of snow on the mountain.

In all honesty I am terrible about writing about my trips, but know that we hiked and explored and drank lots of beer – radlers for me! I am going to post several photos too!

We went to Hoffbrauhaus our first day! Yes, it’s a tourist trap but we loved every second of it! We also did an easy hike to Andechs Monastery which was beautiful! I think my favorite food was from the Ayinger though and the staff was friendly too which was not always the case!

One place we went on our last day was the English gardens. It had a beirgarden (well several actually). We spent the afternoon at the Hofbrauhaus biergarden where dogs are welcome and the sitting is outside. The food is fabulous. It was seriously soo amazing. Then we walked about another half mile and found another biergarden connected to a recreation area. The park itself is huge and a great place to just hang out.