Day 15: Rome to Munich - A-ha in Concert

In what feels like an ever repeating story, it was another early morning rise... Seriously, I need to do something about my planning. Anyway, I left Hotel Colors and it's delightful 73 steps to my room behind and made my way to the airport for my Alitalia flight to Munich.

When we landed I got a bit of a shock at how cold it was. From the airport I caught the train to the main train station (or as it's known in Germany, the Hauptbanhof) and made my way to my hotel for the night, the Hotel Royal which was only 5 minutes away from the station.

After dropping my luggage off, I made my way by train to Marienplatz (or the main square) where I was in time to join the 1pm Free Walking Tour of Munich. In over 3 hours, we covered the main sights in the city centre, including the Glockenspiel, the Hofbrauhaus (the world's most famous beer hall), the Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady), the Viktualienmarkt, the Royal Residence, the Old and the New Town Hall, the memorial to the German Resistance, the Feldhernhalle (Memorial to Bavarian Generals) and much, much more.

 

 

Our tour guide, Donagh from Ireland was great. He told us lots of stories, and he had the type of personality that half of the stories he told could have have been totally made up and we wouldn't have known the difference. Apart from being freezing and the little bit of rain we got, it really was a good way to see the city centre given my limited amount of time. The guides work on a tips only basis, and he did a good job so I did tip him.

 

 

From here it was back to the hotel via the Hauptbanhof (man, that place is huge and a little confusing) to get ready for the evening's entertainment: A-Ha in concert at the Olympiahalle. Once again it was back onto the metro to get out to the Olympic site. The train was packed with people going to the concert but I was lucky to get a seat.

 

 

It was a great show, and the German fans were going off. It was pretty obvious that they had enjoyed quite a deal of success in Europe, when probably most Australian's thought they were only pretty much a one hit wonder from the 80's, although I do believe that a times it felt like Morton Harket (the lead singer) was almost channelling, dare I say it, David Hasselhoff - see below: