Day 5 - Munich

After a pretty sleepless night, not so much due to the drink as to the heat in the room (simply no air moving), we got up fairly late. This is amazing, however, as at sometime around 7AM a workman decided to drill into the concrete right outside our window. This went on and on and on...

Now comes one of my most vivid memories of the trip, don't ask me why. Brian was kind enough to make me one of the finest cups of coffee I have ever had (maybe I just needed it that much). It was wonderful and may have changed my never taking milk with my coffee if it could always be this good. Brian was home sick as a dog from work so I felt equally bad imposing on he and Bridget and their two little ones. We sat outside on the patio that morning in the fine sunshine enjoying the coffee and conversation. It was great. Brian then gave us all the full tour of the flat. Again, amazing. My thanks so much to Brian and Bridget for their hospitality!

Soon, we headed out. Chad was looking for an umbrella for his youngest daughter, so we went to this particular toy store, can't tell you where exactly, but to no avail. We headed to Weisses Brauhaus for lunch, always a great place for food and the best of the Bavarian Weiss biers. Had a great lunch and then headed out for some more shopping although little was actually purchased. Chad had picked up a bug the day before and was feeling really, really poorly. I felt terrible for him. Somehow he soldiered on (I guess it helped him to be in perhaps his favorite city in the world).

I had arranged to meet another friend and former colleague from Munich, Horst and his wife Annemarie. To make things simple, we headed back to Oktoberfest even though we honestly were not quite sure we were ready for it again (that's what old age does to you). We sat outside at a Hacker-Pschorr tent until Horst and Annemarie showed up. Had some bier and they had some food but mostly just catching up with them. During the conversation I mentioned that I was on the lookout for this fabulous Bavarian pork roast dish that I had had once on a previous trip to Munich. I could remember where I had it but not what its name was. Annemarie seemed to know what I was talking about and eventually we looked the restaurant up on the handy, dandy iPhone and headed there for dinner. The restaurant is the Wirtshaus in der Au. I had this dish here, we believe it is called Spanferkel, on a work dinner arranged by my good friend and also former colleague, Hans-Georg Haeck. I was so impressed, I had to have it again. However, I don't think I got exactly what I had had before but the dinner was absolutely fabulous. We basically had a Bavarian family feast and it was just wonderful. The bier was really great too as although it was Oktoberfestbier, it tasted as though it was fresh from the cask.

As we left Wirthaus it quickly dawned on me by the smell that we were very, very hear to the Paulaner Brewery. We could smell the incredible aroma of sweet malt and I have never smelled it so strongly near a brewery as it was that night. What a wonderful science is brewing!

After a fairly early night having had so little sleep the night before we soon retired for the evening ready to head back to London the next morning.

Yours Aye!
Neil