We had originally planned to do a tour of Munich today but when we awoke the weather forecast was accurate and we had pouring rain and overcast skies. We were also both a little tired after several days travelling and we could do with a rest and then we heard that there was a football match this afternoon with Bayern Munich’s biggest rival Stuttgart and so so many thousands are due in town and with the rain and our tiredness we said ‘lets forget it’ and have a day of rest which is what we did.
At this point we had briefly forgotten all about the change from the Queen to Prince Charles and the TV coverage on German TV in the breakfast lounge was such that we went back to the bedroom and watched this for several hours with all the ceremonial pomp and circumstance that on the Brits can do. Watching this took a few hours and so Noel spent time uploading photos, catching up with Blogs and then we moved on to the the question where to go to next. So we worked out a super plan, from here we would go to Stuttgart area and stay two night and visit en-route some old German towns and the on the second day head off in the opposite direction with a similar view. Following that we planned to go to Cologne and suddenly shocked at the prices of the Hotels which had gone thro the roof, why??? was the question which was soon answered after researching the web and we discovered a special DIGITAL event was taking place with the centre of downtown being converted in to a special space and so the room prices had escalated , if you could get one, from Euros 160 to over Euros 700 per night and some even higher, Damn so what to do? .
So we spent some more time researching and changed our plans and that after Stuttgart we would take a slowing route initially via Heidelberg and then on to a hotel just across the Dutch border about 45 miles west of Cologne for just one night and from there we had already made a booking at a nice Hotel near Utrecht for one night which were going to use for the night before we take the ferry and so we have changed this for a two night stay and will the free time to explore the area, swim in the Hotel pool and whatever.
With all the planning and photos out of the way we were beginning to get hungry, the Hotel restaurant is closed this evening and so we started to look for places where we can get a pizza although neither of us really fancied it and we had some stuff left in the food bag which needed eating or chucking and so we said lets get a salad from downstairs reception and top it up with whatever we have which is what we did. When at first we went to reception to purchase the salads it would appear they had none left then suddenly they said they would get the kitchen staff to make us up a couple and they would send to our room. The wait was longer than expected but in the meantime we watched F1 Italian GP qualifying on the the PC and then they delivered two huge salads and apologised for the delay but the guy who delivered them said that as the kitchen staff had gone home for the day, that rather than let us down he had made the salads himself, what a great bloke. I am sure in in UK, if the Kitchen is closed, tough….
We added some shrimp and a bottle of wine to the salad and it was really great and just what we waned as we watched the rain pour down outside our window. Nothing planned for the evening, no night clubs, strip clubs or restaurants, just a quiet evening watching a film on Netflix or something and then get ready for an early start for tomorrow.
It was really great to be able to watch the official crowning of King Charles 111 and really sad about HM the Queen who is well respected around the globe, the pwer of global TV really makes it easy to keep in touch with what goes on.
