European Road Trip: Day 1 Munich, Germany

I’ve been on many road trips before. How can you live in America and not have been on a road trip? Living in America and driving the open road pretty much go hand in hand. I’ve been across the country from LA to Detroit, up and down the country from Detroit to Florida and many many other small trips in between.

Now. A little secret. I don’t particularly like road trips. Hours 1-2 are usually great. We’re on an adventure. Listening to amazing music. Sampling everyone of our tasty and unhealthy treats that are reserved for only these type of occasions. Life is good.

After about 2-3 hours, I start getting antsy. After 3-4 hours, I feel like I am so restless I need to kick something/someone. 4-5 hours, I seriously need to get out of the car or I’m going to explode. Then we will have a short stop, eat some more and the cycle starts all over again for the 12, 24, or even 36 hour trip. Its kinda like torture – for me and the unfortunate people that are in the car with me.

So you’re wondering, why on earth anyone would ask me to go on a road trip through Europe. The answer is, they had to. Because we’re family. My husband, my sister-in-law and her boyfriend all thought up the perfect plan to see a large part of Europe in 10 days. I was not excited in the least. A train or plane would be my preferred mode of transportation. However, I was excited to visit a lot of places on my bucket list.

All in all, the trip was one of the best 10 days of my life. I thoroughly enjoyed both the driving and the exploring. Turns out, I just hadn’t road tripped through the most amazing roads in the world. I would do this again in a heartbeat. Of course your travel companions make a huge difference too!

So that brings us to Day 1: Munich, Germany

This has been one place I have wanted to visit for a long time. I am glad I did.  Its a place of legend – mostly of the beer drinking and pretzel eating kind.

Early in the morning we walked around the city center and basically followed the tourist path. By about 11 we had seen enough. At which point we stumbled upon the Hofbräuhaus where my husband convinced us that there is no such thing as too early to start drinking a huge stein (ein maas) of beer. For some crazy reason, we agreed and indulged in an amazingly delicious drink.

Things pretty much went sideways after that. We had one of the best afternoons of our trip just wandering one of the fancy shopping streets and then making our way to the English Gardens. There we sat with hundreds of people in the gorgeous sun, drinking and laughing the afternoon away.

I am really looking forward to going back.  I don’t think I would change a thing the second time around! Well perhaps taking more pictures. And eating more pretzels!

Click through for a map of the full road trip

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