[🏔️ yodel ⛰️] Day 15 & 16: Salzburg & Munich Ost
Apologies for the radio silence friends! I've been nursing a terrible cold and the last thing on my mind is writing a newsletter. The first thing though, is trying not to sneeze.
The cold and wet weather isn't agreeing with me at all, even though I dived head first into this sort of weather as a younger person. I still remember trotting about Hokkaido in the dead of winter in a pair of Doc Marten loafers. Was I crazy? Yes. I had to buy an extra set of crampon-like attachments so I didn't break my head on the icy sidewalks. Was I young? Very much. So is this a sign that I am getting old? Most certainly.
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Day 15 saw us heading to Salzburg. Truthfully, we had no plans going in other than dropping off a care package of spicy instant noodles and duck rice chili sauce with an ex-colleague. We were also supposed to catch up over lunch but they have a baby and I didn't want to spread my flu-y germs to a very cute baby (not saying that un-cute babies deserve my germs! All babies and immunocompromised people do not!) so we cancelled it. I wanted to type "took a rain check" but Salzburg is really too far to take a rain check on.
Leaving gloomy Munich, we took a local train to a less gloomy Salzburg. It was raining all over Bavaria! The Salzach greeted us as the train rumbled into the hauptbahnhof.
While Munich has felt pretty gritty and raw, and the stations smell of pee, Salzburg's main station felt like an oasis in Bavaria. Very modern train station, clean and airy! They had a cozy waiting room too.
With us both down with the sniffles, we decided to eat something more nutritious and healthier. Which meant no fried food (whoops sorry schnitzel) or heavy stuff (sorry Obatzda). SD found a super cute vegan-friendly cafe and I had a meatless arancini.
Strolling around Salzburg's sunnier, quieter streets reminded me of Berlin a little. Lots of flat residential blocks painted in muted colours in between older buildings with craggy surfaces.
Continuing my very casual survey of Germanic animal logos, here is another one for a petrol/gas station. It's most probably some kind of canine but again, going with my own meme, I'm sure it is a dragon. It has six legs and it's breathing fire. Obviously it's a dragon.
OKAY.
So I googled and the six-legged dog belongs to Eni, which is considered to be one of the seven SUPERmajor oil companies in the world. No wonder it has six legs! It needs all of them to trample across oil fields.
With our own puny human legs (four in total), we trotted off to the Mirabell Garden where we spent a while frolicking amongst the flowers like Maria and the Von Trapp children.
I also dragged us further south to take a peek at Mozart's residence. I did not venture inside because I am still haunted by all the hours I spent practicing his piano pieces as a kid. Mozart, you will get my sweat and tears but you will not get my euros.
Then it was back to Mirabell Garden to visit Europe's oldest dwarf garden.
Yes. Oldest. Dwarf. Garden.
I didn't put these words together. Europeans did.
And there are more than one dwarf gardens in existence. Why!?!?!?
Oh! And did I mention that I splurged on first class tickets for us both? I don't know about other trains, but first class on the Bayerische Regiobahn is by no means a swanky compartment. It did mean that we had a guaranteed seat, which was great.
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A great piece of street art we saw.
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Today, we just ate. It was still gloomy and rainy, and I still felt under the weather so we dedicated the day to eating delicious food and resting. I watched 3 episodes of The Sandman and ate the following (not while watching Netflix!):
Leberkäse, which literally translates as 'liver cheese'. The Bavarian version however, should not contain any liver. It's kind of like a meatloaf, but feels more like a cross between a sausage and a ham. It was served with cold potato-cucumber salad. Because of its resemblance to sausages (and processed meat in general), I liked it a lot.
SD had beer sauce goulash and spatzle. It was salty and would have gone very well with beer. Unfortunately we both were sipping tea. Very un-Oktoberfest and very un-Bavarian.
For dinner, we found a lovely Nepalese place!
We forgot to tip at both places and I feel rather abashed. Tipping is not a must in Munich, but highly encouraged. Usually we round-off our bill or give an extra Euro or two but in our flu-addled haze, we didn't. I'm sorry!! I am sending many good vibes and a decent Google review your way.
(That said, we received very OK service at the tavern and our food took suuuuuuuper long at the Nepalese place so... oh well. We are never seeing them again so I will be less hard on myself. We're just dumb tourists after all.)
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Day 17 will basically be spent travelling back to Singapore. I'm not sure if I'll send an update at Munich airport or when I've touched down. Either way, expect a couple more letters summarizing my thoughts on the trip once I recover from this flu.
Thanks for sticking around till the end, despite the spotty updates nearing the end!