Frauenkirche – Big Surf Daddy's Pix, Tix, and Licks

The world is a book and those who do not travel read only a page.—St. Augustine of Hippo

We woke up this morning to our last day in Austria. We had a tasty breakfast in the garden of Hotel Nala and checked out. We loved this hotel.

We ventured into Old Town again with the children in tow and the ladies went to shop and the men performed their duties admirably with the children and kept them alive. Innsbruck is such a lovely city to wander in, good shopping, good eating, good architecture to admire, and of course the Alps are everywhere in the background.

We spent our morning in Old Town and gathered for lunch on the main pedestrian walk, Maria-Theresien-Strasse, and ate at Sensei for very good sushi. Afterward we enjoyed some gelato at Tomasseli Gelateria which is nearby.

We had a wonderful stay in Innsbruck and we loaded up and headed off for the two-hour drive to Munich.

In Munich, we stayed at Hotel Olympic. I need to say something about this hotel. It was very nice and the staff was very friendly and helpful. The hotel is located conveniently near the Viktualienmarkt and an easy walk to Marienplatz. There are numerous multicultural restaurants in the area. I researched the hotel online and it had good reviews and I will give it a good review here. Rick Steves book described it as “artsy”. However, I must tell you if you have an aversion to nudity in art, you may want to ask for a room that displays art that is more suited to your tastes. My son, who has a small daughter was given a room with a graphic orgy scene. The manager was called and he gracefully removed it and all was well.

We had already seen Frauenkirche on the day we landed in Munich five days ago. That day we had lunch on the plaza outside the church. We had an assortment of cheeses and sausages and sauerkraut at Nurnberger Bratwurst-Glockl am Dom. The food was very good. We used this time to have a reunion meal with our family that we hadn’t seen for many months since they had moved to Turkey.

Back to the day at hand. After checking in at Hotel Olympic, my son-in-law took our rental van back to the airport. While he was gone, we took the kids on a stroll to a park by the Isar River that runs through Munich. We met up with him later and had our evening meal at an Afghani restaurant across from our hotel, called Bamyan Narges.

We had a wonderful dinner here. All the dishes were excellent. My wife and I ordered Keema Bamyan for appetizer and an entrée of Quabelli Palau with grilled lamb.

Afterward, we went for a walk and found some good ice cream. It had been a good day of Innsbruck and Munich.

Next, our first full day in Munich.

One of the ornate facades in Old Town Innsbruck.

A narrow street in Old Town Innsbruck.

Row buildings in Innsbruck.

A window in Old Town Innsbruck.

One of the many outdoor sitting areas in Innsbruck.

Sensei is upstairs, not the restaurant on the ground floor.

Really, really good sushi at Sensei Sushi Bar and outdoor dining is available.

Tomaselli gelateria has delicious gelato in Innsbruck.

Hotel Olympic in Munich is a very good hotel with questionable art, but very good service and the location is perfect for Old Munich.

Wonderful dining on the plaza of Frauenkirche in Munich.

I previously took photos of golf courses, now it is dining experiences. This is another view of the outdoor dining on the plaza of Frauenkirche in Munich. We ate Nurnberger Bratwurst-Glockl am Dom, which is on the right.

Sausage, cheese, and radish platter at Nurnberger.

St. Maximillian Church in Munich.

The bank of the Isar River is a popular gathering destination in Munich. St. Maximillian Church is in the background.

Bamyan serves delicious Afghani food in Munich.

Keema Bamyan at Bamyan.

Quabelli Palau with grilled lamb was excellent at Bamyan.

Street scene near the Hotel Olympic.

Sunset clouds on our first night in Munich.

Ice cream of course at the end of a good day.

I grew up so poor in Austria that we never took a family vacation.—Wolfgang Puck

With all due respect to Mr. Puck’s upbringing, I don’t doubt that he grew up poor. However if there ever was a place to live where one could not go on vacation, this place is the place to be in that situation. There are postcard views everywhere.

We had a long day of travel. Indy to Philly to Munich to Golling an der Salzach. We were up for 23 hours before exhaustively going to bed. We had been traveling with family, including two grandchildren under two years old. We met more family in Munich who had come from Istanbul by way of Berlin with another grandchild under two.

We picked up our rental nine passenger van at the airport in Munich after a fourteen hour trip through the night and drove to the central train station in Munich to meet the other family members. After a great meal outside on the Frauenkirche plaza, we toured the inside of Frauenkirche then left Munich for the two-hour drive to our rental house in Golling an der Salzach, Austria. The drive to Golling was very scenic.

We arrived at our rental house in Golling in mid afternoon. We met our host from Air BNB, a delightful lady. She was most pleasant and had the house ready for us.

These are photos of our house in Golling.

Here is a picture of our view off the front deck for morning coffee…

Golling an der Salzach is a lovely town surrounded by Alps, about a forty minute drive south of Salzburg. We stayed here two nights.

Golling an der Salzach is a small town of about 4300 and the first mention of a history of people living there is in the 1200’s AD.

Our first meal in Austria was the evening meal at Hauslwirt. This is a lovely hotel and restaurant in Golling. We had wild garlic soup with a semolina dumpling for starters. This was maybe the best tasting dish we had all week. It is a seasonal dish in Austria. We also had a pasta dish with green and white asparagus and a very good Riesling. We shared a piece of sacher torte, a wonderful chocolate cake with whipped cream.

We strolled through town and went back to our house, exhausted. Some of us had been up for 23 hours and looking for a good nights slumber. I have found the best way to battle the time change going to Europe is to stay up the first night until my regular bed time and that helps me get back on track.

In retrospect, a good plan with traveling with children would have been to stay in this house longer and used it as a base to travel to Salzburg and Innsbruck. It is also close to Hallstatt. The kids had to get use to too many beds and sleeping arrangements, but they were troopers and did OK.

Nevertheless, on to Salzburg…

The following are pictures taken from our van on the drive from Munich to Golling an der Salzach, Austria.