Elle’s in Europe 2025 - Day 9 - “MO” Our Style
After over a week in Barcelona, our time here has come to an end. It’s hard to imagine that it was over a week ago that we made a midnight dash to the Renaissance, but here we are. Our alarms sounded at 4:15 AM this morning, much to the chagrin of everyone in room 2404. But we all soldiered on and were at our airport transfer before 5 AM and at the Barcelona Airport thirty minutes later. After being whisked through the fast-pass line with our business-class tickets, we spent the next two hours at the lounge, where we all had breakfast and took turns walking Elle around. Jenn even made a small play pen with our suitcases and nearby furniture. At 7 AM, we walked to our gate and boarded 3A and 3C for the two-hour flight to Munich, Germany. Elle slept for the first 30 minutes of the flight and was an angel for almost all of it.
We departed the plane, changed her diaper, and were off to meet with the driver to take us to the Mandarin Oriental. The drive was quick, and we were taken aback by how green everything in Munich was. When we arrived at the Mandarin Oriental, we had a handful of people falling over us to assist us and to get us set up. They were insanely apologetic for not having a room ready at 11 AM when we arrived, but were promised one would be ready soon.
It didn’t bother us too much because that gave us a brief opportunity to go out and explore while we waited. We walked from the hotel to Marienplatz , the central square in Munich. From there, we walked for nearly half an hour looking for something to eat and allowing Elle to get a quick nap in. We eventually landed on Der Pschorr. We sat outside and I enjoyed one of their phenomenal beers while we both got various forms of sausage (Jenn had beef and I had pork). It was a beautiful afternoon, and Elle spent most of the meal eating our food and waving at passersby. Before going back to the hotel, we stopped and got our second mug of the trip, a Munich mug at a Starbucks across from Der Pschorr.
Our room was now ready, so we headed back to the Mandarin Oriental and checked in. To say this is a beautiful hotel would be a vast understatement; it’s gorgeous. We got a beautiful King room on the 4th floor. We were blown away by how beautiful the setup they had for Elle was. It was decked out with a baby robe, slippers, a stuffed animal, and an animal bed set. We recorded a room tour, unpacked a bit, got Elle situated, and closed the blinds. We were all exhausted from the early morning, so in rare form we “slept when the baby slept.” We were all fast asleep, I for an hour, and Jenn and Elle for over two. When we woke up, the clouds were just starting to come in, and we knew there was a chance of rain, but we went out anyway. Sure enough, a few blocks into our walk and the summer storm hit, and hit hard. We huddled under a building for at least fifteen minutes before the rain passed for good.
Given the rain and feeling like the day was starting to get the best of all three of us, we decided to have dinner at the hotel’s restaurant, Matsuhisa Munich (basically Nobu). They gave us a great seat away from everyone else so Elle could munch on her crackers and rice in peace. Jenn started off with sake, and I had a gin martini with a twist. The best dish of the night was the first, the crispy rice with tuna, which was out of this world. Elle loved the crispy rice, and I think Jenn and I could have lived off the tuna. From there, we had some shrimp tempura, sushi, shrimp, and beef teriyaki. It was a lot of food, but we had worked up an appetite. It was a nice dinner, if not a bit overpriced, but we enjoyed the food. We went on a brief walk before coming back to the hotel and giving Elle a bath before calling it a night. What a start to our time in Munich!
