DAY 103 FRIDAY JULY 6 MUNICH

It was a sad feeling to leave the beauty and tranquillity of Fuschl, but there is much more of Europe waiting.  We need to experience Germany, Switzerland and France before we head for Scandanavia.  We hope to go to East Austria (Vienna) for a while as well.  Italy, Slovenia, Hungary, Luxemburg, Liechtenstein and others may feature very briefly if we find a spare day here and there.  We still plan to spend at least three days in each hotel for July, to avoid luggage lugging syndrome.  We caught the 150 Postbus into Salzburg for the last time and went to the ticket office to book our seats on our exit from Munich when we headed for Chur in Switzerland.  The slow train from Salzburg to Munich was German but not up to expected standard.  There was a small first class section with no air conditioning anywhere on the train and the only opening window anywhere near us could not be opened (four different people tried to budge it).  It was a hot day and people were standing in the crowded second class areas in our carriage, so this was a poor show.  People told us that European trains were better than the British ones but so far we had no issues with any in the UK, but we have had two bad days on the European ones.  Since the Hotel Petri in Munich was 6 kilometers from the station and we had no local knowledge we caught a taxi which proved good value at 16 euros.

  The Petri is family-owned and  we have found it to be just as good as the ones in Dublin, Derry and London in contrast to the impersonal large ones we used in Dublin, Carlisle and Cardiff, which have the convenience of being in the centre of the city, but provide minimal personal assistance and charge a fortune for extras.  We went for a walk before dinner and decided Munich with its wide streets and adequate facilities for pedestrians and cyclists was a good size city.  Not too spread out and a good underground system which presumably was a legacy from 1972 Olympics. We had good news in the evening as an email from Geneva gave us the OK for obtaining our Mongolian visa there.  We seem to be chasing it all around the world.  We also succeeded in getting into a hotel in Brig (Switzerland) near the Alps as our second stop in that area.  Booking accommodation and trains as we go is taking a lot of our touring time at the moment.  Still no ship from Korea to get us home.

LOVELY OLD WELL UNDER OUR WINDOW IN PETRI

The building has many Catholic features and we liked this staue of Jesus as a boy carved out of one piece of wood.