12 Days in Germany

Sunday 5 September to Thursday 16 September

Lockdown - no more

I am debating with myself whether or not to officially declare my lockdown over now that I have made it to Europe. The truth is I still feel very much restricted. International travel is difficult. It's costly and navigating all the health and immigration regulations is stressful.

Life for everyone is forever changed by the pandemic. There's no going back to life pre-covid. We will slowly adapt over the next few years to this new world order. So today is as good a day as any to stop counting my days in lockdown, I guess. I'm still going to blog about my travelling life though.

We spent 12 nights in Germany. The early autumn weather in Munich was glorious. Sunny days and evenings warm enough to sit out in the beer gardens. We met up with friends one or two at a time and it was just lovely to catch up.

The city was eerily quiet especially later in the evening.We ate lots of our favourite German foods - Bredzn, Obatz, Weisswurst, Hendl, Haxn, Schnitzel, Tafelspitz...

I had the best birthday lunch ever... perfect truffle pasta at Vino e Gusto in Munich. Next year maybe I can be in Piedmont, Italy...

For Neil's birthday we bought a painting from an artist friend Anthony in Barrydale. It's currently hanging in a guesthouse there until we can pick it up. 

We spent the weekend with Christo watching rugby and braaing. We drove into the Bavarian Alps for a few days. More stunning mountains you won't find.

And we did a tour and tasting at Slyr's - a German single malt distillery.

Places were fairly busy with local germans but there were just no foreign tourists at all...

In Germany you have to show a vaccine certificate or a negative Covid test to enter a hotel or restaurant. We chose not to use public transport so we walked a lot and took a few taxis. And rented cars. Technical lockdown glitches included  the car-hire company having no available cars eventhough we had booked and paid in advance and chaos at Munich Airport due to extra document and test checks at the boarding gate. All part of travelling these days.