Munich - Day Three

It's another grey day in Munich, although there is a little splash of blue in the sky. We pack our bags, say our goodbyes, and venture back out into the world with very little idea what the day will bring. The only option is to hop on the S-Bahn and head to the Central Station where all of the car rental companies have offices. It takes us a while to locate the rental co's, I leave Willy with the bags and do a scout, eventually locating them on the upper floor around the corner - about as out of the way as possible. We go upstairs and talk to them. "Hi there, we'd like to hire a car please." we say, smattered with poorly pronounced German. There are no cars in Munich they say. 

Oh dear.

It was a poorly thought out plan, but it's not meant to end like this... We slink back downstairs, find a luggage locker, play Tetris with our bags, then head off to buy a SIM card, and wander the streets in search of breakfast. We find this bizarre little cafe, I think it must belong to a hotel, it's just tucked around the corner in a concrete cage but has a really nice outdoor setup and we decide to chance it. We order coffee and pizza, both are very, very good. The coffee is the best we have had since we left New Zealand, and the pizza, made with shrimps and salmon, is excellent too.

We try to make a plan B. Could we catch a train and pick up a car at the next station? Which direction should we go? There are so many choices. Finally I make a call and a girl answers the phone in German. I ask (plead) if she speaks any English as my German is not good - it's barely enough to order a coffee so if we have to rely on it to rent a car we are in serious poo. Fortunately the lovely lady switches to fluent English, I pass her to Willy when she starts discussing car spec's but it turns out that there IS a car in Munich that is available today! We just have to catch the train like an hour out of town, but who cares, we have a car!!! Our spirits are greatly lifted with this information, we finish our brunch and head off to locate the Oktoberfest Museum.

The museum is closed today, and we are pretty sure that it's closed for the whole of Oktoberfest. Oh well. We make our way to the market again so I can grab a juice (papaya, lemon and orange I think) cry over the amount of cheese/meat we can't eat, and I follow it up by almost buying a pair of boots (I stopped wearing my other shoes as soon as we left England, and now I pretty much only wear my jandals). We stop in at one of the churches (its name escapes me) and when we step inside I am struck once again by the magnificence of these buildings. This is our first church for a while as Turkey is predominantly Muslim, and it's every bit as gorgeous as the churches we saw in Italy. Not the same as Italy by any stretch, but just as beautiful. 

It's three in the afternoon by this point so we retrieve our bags, hop on the train, make the walk, and pick up our car! I was expecting a less flash car, instead we get a little Audi. Our bags barely fit, but we squeeze in and we are off! So much nicer than a bus! Oh yeah, the guy at the rental place thought it was hilarious that we were driving aimlessly, I am pretty sure he thinks we're mad - we probably are.

The GPS is tricky and in German so we use my phone to get us out of Munich. Before we know it, we are on the Autobahn! Willy does an awesome job. We decide to stop in one of the rest stop hotels just before it gets dark. It's VERY flash. There's a seal of cleanliness on the toilet! And boxes of matches! We grab dinner across the car park in a truck stop diner. It's the second biggest dinner I have ever seen, closely trailing the previous night. We drink beer, discuss the next day, then disappear to our room to sleep.