Europe Day 3 & 4 Trains in Germany

Thursday after breakfast, we checked out of our Brussels hotel and walked the short distance to a different train station than we came into on Wednesday. After a bit of a wait, we took a train to the northern Brussels station, where we boarded a high speed train to Frankfurt. The train was fairly crowded and there were no luggage racks near the entrance to put our luggage on, but I was able to get all three of our fairly large and heavy suitcases on the racks above the seats, and we were able to sit fairly close together.

We arrived at the main Frankfurt station after about 3 hours of traveling through mostly green countryside. It was drizzling outside and our hotel was a little over a mile away, so we grabbed a taxi. The taxi driver was very rude when he learned we were only going a short distance.

Our hotel was a tall tower near a concert venue, large convention center, and mall. It was almost 2 miles from downtown and we didn’t want to walk that in the rain or take a taxi, so we just looked around the mall a bit, then went back to our hotel to relax and go to bed. 

This morning after breakfast, we walked to the train station and boarded a train to Munich. When we first got on the train was even more crowded than yesterday, and it took us quite some time to find seats near each other. The only good thing was there was more luggage storage areas on today’s train. We realized we had erred by not buying reserved seats. If you’re thinking about traveling on European trains with more than two adults and luggage the reserved seats are the way to go. Also the train left about 15 minutes late and arrived in Munich about 25 minutes late. It was about 3.5 hours from Frankfurt to Munich.

Our hotel was about a five minute walk from the main Munich station. After checking in and figuring out our plans, we headed east toward the old town and the Marienplatz. It was about a 15 minute walk. We stopped and bought some warmer clothes, as all three of us had brought too many clothes for warmer weather and not enough for cooler weather, as it looks like the next week is going to be rainy and cool.

Just past the Marienplatz was the Hard Rock, so we went there for dinner (No 36). We then headed back to our hotel where we worked a bit more on travel plans and organized our stuff. Our room was a little crowded; most rooms in Munich have either one king or two twins; we elected to squeeze into one room rather than pay for two, so Jenn was on a rollaway.