Our Start in Munich

WARNING; Long post ahead...

Yes, our holiday was going well, all too well and oh, so smoothly.  Today was the day that things went belly-up.  It was bound to happen but it was the only day like this one, much to my relief!

We were quite excited leaving Stuttgart to be on our way to Munich.  But excitement soon turned to stress when our train arrived.  

Firstly, I had only ordered 2nd class tickets (you may remember this post) for all train trips.  1st class were out of our budget, so we knew something was amiss when we discovered our seats were located in 1st class.  (I did check the tickets at home but I mustn't have thought anything about spying the 1st class printed on the Stuttgart to Munich tickets.  I also didn't know - valuable lesson here - that there is a difference between 'reservation' and 'reservation + ticket'.  Trust me when I say that I do now!!)  

We sat in our seats (oh so spacious) but looked at each other with a "what the?" look on our faces.  Hmmm...  So here we were, sitting in 1st class, when the Ticket Master comes along checking all the passengers tickets.  When he gets to us, I hand over the so-called ticket I had.

"And where is your ticket?"  He asks us in perfect German-English.

"This is all we have - I bought the tickets in Australia and this is what they gave me" I replied, fluttering my eyes being all innocent (because, I was!)

"No, this is a reservation ticket only.  You don't have a German train pass or EuroRail pass or anything?"

"I was only given those.  We've travelled on a couple of other trains with tickets - here I'll show you..."  and I produced our other tickets which I had thankfully photocopied.  I also showed our forwarding train ticket from Munich...

"No.  This is a reservation only ticket.  These seats are 54 Euros each" (roughly $100AUD)

By this stage I felt sick.  Lyndon was sorting through papers etc trying to see if we 'did' have another ticket or something to produce and meanwhile Monet is lounged over my lap getting all sleepy (love the side-to-side motion of those trains!!)

The Ticket Master said to us (spying a sleepy Monet), "Work out what you're going to do and I'll come back"....

We thanked him and looked at each other with 'what-now' looks on our faces.  We had the cash in our pockets to cover the tickets but we didn't want to pay for tickets that we had already paid for back home.   (I found the receipt to our train tickets today and it seems as if we had paid for tickets from Stuttgart to Munich so I'll be trying to sort this out!!)

Within minutes the actual Train Manager (not Ticket Master) came by and said "There's some kind of problem here?"

We explained to him what had happened and that we had actually paid for full tickets back in Australia (but had no proof).  He checked my (coloured) photocopied tickets of our previous train tickets and forwarding train ticket.  

"Okay.  It's okay.  Don't worry about it.  It's  okay."  And that was it.  

That.  

Was.  

It.  

I don't know if it was our Australian accents and being polite, if it was the sleeping child on my lap or proof that we weren't trying to rip off the German ICE system trains, but we were left very (very, very, very) relieved.  We thought the Train Master was God.  (After all, he had saved us forking out more cash for train tickets!)

We tried to enjoy sitting in 1st class - hell, when is that going to happen again?? - but every time the train slowed down (remembering we were traveling on a Very Fast Train) we thought they were going to chuck us out onto the train tracks below, or every time an announcement came over the PA system, we thought they were going to say something about the 2 Australians sitting in first class who haven't got tickets!!!  It wasn't the most relaxing train trip, even though it should have been (oh, the space!!)

We arrived in Munich a couple of hours later, (very happy to have arrived with cash in our pockets), ready to take on this corner of Germany.  

We made our way to our hotel I had reserved several weeks before.  I knew (oh gee did I know!) that something else was going to go belly-up and this time I have no one to blame except myself.  As we were 'trying' to check in to our hotel, the girl behind the counter was looking around, shaking her head - I knew something was up.  I feel sick even typing this up!!  

"Seems as if we have no reservation under your name" she said to us in broken English, "how did you book?"

"I remember booking it directly with the hotels website," I said, handing over the printed out form I had.

Double room with one bed for child Under 6.  March 28th.  3 nights.

March 28th.

March 28th.

March 28th.

It was April 28th.  I had booked the bloody hotel for 3 nights from MARCH 28th - a month beforehand!!!  Oh shit.  If I could have sunk into the floor it was then and there.  I could have cried.  It was my fault - I couldn't blame anyone else, that's for sure.  It was MY FAULT.  Urgh.  

The girl behind the counter said "We have another hotel a few doors down, I'll check if they have a room for you"...  thankfully they did.  I knew that Munich was a fairly busy tourist place at the best of times so finding a room was terrific...or so we thought.

We went a few doors down to their 'brother' hotel, which looked nicer than the original hotel I had booked.  Yes, they had a room, but he said it was quite small. So small it could not fit another bed in the room.  And the bed was a double bed.  So two tall adults and one tall child in one double bed had our heads spinning.  We would have to find somewhere else (it was past 4pm by this stage so I was stressed beyond belief!)

The kind fellow behind the counter of this second hotel rang another hotel, around the corner, who had a room available, including a bed for Monet.  Off we went again, with our luggage and Monet in the stroller (who couldn't understand why were were in and out of hotel reception rooms) to around the corner.  

We did a 'walk-by' first, just to see if it wasn't too dodgy.

"What do you reckon?" Lyndon asked (it had a passageway down to reception with a pink painted exterior.

"Let's just go in" I said.  (I needed to settle in somewhere and the thought of wandering around looking for hotels didn't turn me on!)

We did.  And I'm glad we did. 

The lovely older German woman was waiting for us behind the counter.  She already knew our story.  And she was lovely, oh so lovely.  I could have hugged her.  She promised us the same original room rate as our first hotel including a continental buffet breakfast each morning.  

"Because you have a child, I'm giving you this room.  It has three rooms with two queen-sized beds.  It's at the top, on level 6.  We have a bar you are welcome to use or buy your drinks from.  Any questions don't hesitate to see me"...  Now, she was hospitality rolled into one woman, right there.

Our room was recently refurbished - lovely, clean and spacious!!  It had 2 double sized rooms, a room in the middle with table and chairs and tv and a big bathroom.  It also had a huge balcony which ran along the side of the whole apartment/hotel room.  Here's the view we had, looking down on the street corner...

Lyndon had to return to our originally booked room to sort out any required payments (they told him no charge) so our day went from bad to fantastic.  

That's how we found the southern Germany hospitality - lovely, pleasant and helpful people, all who got us out of a real pickle!!  (I guess it might not have seemed so bad if we didn't have a 3 year old with us)...

We relaxed for a while and went out exploring the wonderful city that is Munich (it reminded us of Melbourne for some reason) and had some dinner, beer and pretzels...  They were well deserved!!

Stay tuned...