Elle’s in Europe 2025 - Day 12 - It’s Not Traveling Without an Adventure
We’ve somehow already reached our last full day in Munich, a city that with each day we’ve fallen more and more in love with. How have we not traveled here already? We woke up leisurely this morning and went back down to breakfast. Unfortunately, Elle’s new friend (our waitress of the last few days was off), and so we were in the less capable hands of a new crew. Breakfast went a lot slower, and eventually I took Elle for a walk so Jenn could finish her breakfast. We didn’t have a lot of time after breakfast before Elle’s first nap, so we did a nice short 1-mile loop around our hotel before bringing Elle back for her nap.
While Elle was napping, Jenn tried to shut her eyes, and I took a nice walk. I had a coffee (Flat White) at Sweet Spot and took it to go and drank it on the way to the English Garden. I love walking around cities, it’s one of my single favorite things. I listened to my book (The Marriage Portrait), sat on a bench in the park, and leisurely explored, snapping photos along the way. I made my way to Siegestor, listened to a brief history of it, and then returned to the hotel just as Elle was waking up from her first nap.
We left right away to take advantage of the gap between naps and boarded the train toward Nymphenburg Palace. According to Apple and Google Maps, there were several ways to get there, but the simplest was to take the S2 train and walk to the palace. We bought our tickets and were able to board right as we made our way to the train tracks. We were only on the train for 7 stops, and then we began our walk. What we didn’t anticipate was needing to walk over 2 miles to get to the palace entrance. We walked through random fields, a few dirt roads, and ended up parallel to the train tracks before finally making our way into the surrounding park and towards the palace.
Fortunately, Jenn directed us to the palace doors, and we entered and purchased tickets to tour the summer palace that was originally built in the 1600s. After dropping off our backpack and stroller and placing Elle in the baby carrier, we were off. The palace was incredibly opulent, especially the first room, with stunning paintings lining the walls and ceilings. Elle was mesmerized by the chandeliers, pointing them all out to us as we walked by. The tickets we bought only gave us access to the main palace, and so it only took us 30 minutes to walk through and enjoy the grounds. When we finished, we walked to a nearby bench, let Elle eat some snacks, and jumped on the city tram back to our hotel. We were on the tram for over 20 stops, but it went by fast. We were able to take advantage of the stroller section and enjoyed seeing new parts of Munich. One of my favorite memories of our time in Munich was last night at dinner, each time the tram would pass by, she would wave hello or goodbye to it. Ironically, she kept doing that on the tram today, and we randomly passed right by the restaurant where we ate dinner last night on the tram.
We walked back to our hotel, stopping at a supermarket to grab Elle some more snacks and diaper wipes. We also hit up a bakery right outside our hotel that had been calling to us all week. I got a pretzel and Jenn got a cinnamon cake, and both were rather disappointing. We put Elle down for her second nap of the day, Jenn fell asleep this time while I caught up on my posts and enjoyed a free beer from the mini bar. When Elle woke up, we walked to the opera house, where we ate dinner across the street at Spatenhaus. We got a seat outside looking directly at the Opera house. Jenn had a combo of pork and duck, and I had their sausage plate. Jenn went with a glass of white wine, and I had their own brewed beer. One of the older waiters took a liking to Elle and, at the halfway point, gave her a pretzel, which she loved.
After dinner, we did a nice walk on a perfect summer evening. Jenn did some light shopping, and we eventually made our way back to the hotel and split a glass of champagne before retiring for the evening. Jenn bathed Elle while I started to pack up for our trip to Stockholm tomorrow. Munich has been such a wonderful destination, one that I know all three of us are sad to be leaving tomorrow.
