Leisure Day in Munich

Today we wanted to focus on letting the kids have a little fun time as we made them go through a lot the past few days. Number one priority was to make it to a playground and our destination was the Englischer Garten (or English Garden) - largest city park in all of Europe! We stopped by the infamous spot on the Eisbach which is a tributary of the Isar River where they do river surfing. Obviously not the season for surfing yet but those waves are pretty amazing.

As we made our way up through the garden we did happen to come across a little playground and we enjoyed a better part of the morning there with the kids.

They absolutely love those huge swings that they can lay on. With them both bigger now they enjoying laying opposite of each other and it was so cute to see them hold each other's hand while they rode.

I think she's a future Olympian!

With all the fall foliage around it was a good time to just get some fun little pics of the kids to really capture their innocence in an amazing place.

I LOVE this smile!!!!

We came around to the calmer part of the river and it was so beautiful to see the little waterfall, the light shining through the golden leaves...it was a magical place!

We walked across the street towards the Odenplatz, but stopped to check out the Hofgarten. In the middle is this amazing little temple building in the middle of this amazing Italian inspired garden. There were fountains in the four corners with statues of fish and more and what was really cool about them was that they were covered with seashells of all shapes and sizes.

Lining one side of the Odenplatz is the Residenz (royal family home). During the time of Nazi occupation in Munich, people would show support of the monarchy by rubbing on the brass lions' noses. When we were here two and a half years ago, we got our little baby Addison to rub this same nose. Can't wait to do the same thing when she a few year's older...

One thing I love about Europe is that it's anything goes when it comes to advertising. This looked like an anti-diarrhea medicine, but Addie thought this lady looked awfully funny...so did we.

Of course no trip to Munich is complete without visiting the HofBrauhaus. It's definitely a bit more commercialized than some of the other beer halls in the city but it was a must to bring Mike and Sally to.

Mike, Sally and Kevin all enjoyed a good ol' German beer during our meal. Just a warning to others...there is no children's menu at the HofBrauhaus so if you kiddos are picky eaters like mine you'll want to bring something for them to eat. For as much as Kevin and I LOVE German food...little Addison Marie dispises it. Sad thing was that they didn't even have pomme frites (French fries) for her to at least munch on. I think she ate two peices of bread with butter, but she didn't mind as she got to dance with Grandma and Grandpa to the Umpa-Umpa band playing inside.

After a little more souvenir shopping, we made our way to the closest Tram stop which was just beyond the Isartor (Isar Gate). It is highly decorated by a painting depicting a battle involving Luwig der Bayer in 1322. The main tower was built in 1337 and it looks amazing even amongst the modern hustle and bustle of the city.

We had an interesting trip to the airport. We had all of our luggage and car seats while on the little tram, but we jumped off after about 5 minutes to catch one of the S-Bahn trains out to the airport. We had to walk about 1/4 mile with everything and down a very steep and long set of steps to make it to the platform. The weather had finally warmed up so it was almost 18 C (about 68 F) and it was a beautiful day. Sitting there waiting for the trains just put me in awe of how amazing the train system was in this country and how I wish it was as easy to travel to places in the US by train because I would do it all the time.

We situated at the airport after have a bit of debockle with Luftsana about our car seats. Apparently in London they felt they were approved seats to use on flight but in Germany they said, "No, No," so we had to figure out a way to check them but not get damaged (we are not lucky at all on those things).

We had a good flight home and enjoyed our little cheese and butter sandwiches on board - well at least Harry and I did. The best thing about returning on this European holiday is that we had a driver pick us up at the airport...it is totally the way to go!

What an amazing trip back to Germany...and we can't wait to go again!!!