Day 3 - Thursday 14th September - Munich

Raining and cold today! Bavaria's autumn seems to be more like winter. So we decided to be real tourists on the good old hop-on hop-off bus. After breakfast we headed just up the road to where the bus routes start.  It is handy being close to the railway station because a lot of things start from there. Brollies, scarves and jacket for John and cardigan for me, because i wasn't all that cold (big mistake) and we were off. Sat up the top, at the front and soon the sun disappeared and the rain started. We did the small route first and saw all the sights in the city centre, then we changed to the longer route and our plan was to get off at Nymphenburg Palace, wander the gardens, visit the inside of the palace and have lunch at the restaurant there. It was raining a bit when we got off so we went first to the Marstallmuseum which is in the former Riding Stables where we saw a collection of the most elaborately decorated royal coaches, carriages and sleighs. They were almost all resplendent in gold leaf and very, very fancy. Dozens of them in all sizes and all a bit too ornate for my taste in coaches. We walked through the porcelain museum but didn't linger. We were in need of coffee so we went for a short walk through the gardens to the Palmhouse where we found the little coffee shop looking over a small beautifully manicured part of the gardens and by the time we'd finished our coffee the rain had gotten heavier. On the way back to the palace through the gardens we took some rainy selfies then headed to the dry interior of the castle. The castle was commissioned in 1664 by Ferdinand King of Bavaria and his wife Henriette of Savoy, to mark the birth of their son Max Emanuel. The palace was extended several times to become the enormous place that it is today. We didn't get to visit the four extra pavillions (small palaces) on the grounds because it was too wet. The interior of the castle is beautiful with the usual gorgeous inlaid timber furniture, lots of royal portraits, tapestries etc etc. We love to visit these places but one can't help but see a similarity of over the top opulence in all the castles we've visited. Watched the 3D animation of the different building stages of the palace which was interesting, then spent some time and money in the gift shop before running in the rain and wind to catch the bus. I really should have worn a warm jacket and waterproof shoes so on the rainy trip back I dried my socked-feet and shoes on the heater by my feet. We saw Munich's Olympic Park with its big tower and glass roofed pavillions and the enormous BMW centre - had office,  new vehicle collection point and there's also a BMW museum. We didn't get off until we got to the end because it was raining to heavily. We headed back to the hotel to get warmer clothes and more appropriate shoes for me then went out again because we hadn't had lunch and I had some souvenir shopping to do and we decided to book the bus trip to see some castles the next day. Remembering that the underpass at Karlsplatz had lots of eating places all under cover, we headed there for a snack. By the time we surfaced the rain had stopped so, having sat for a large part off the day,  we strolled back into the centre and down some new streets we hadn't ventured down before. Found a lovely coffee and cake cafe where we resisted the very fancy cakes as they were too big and had coffee and a macaron each - salted caramel for John and I had chocolate & raspberry. On the way back to the hotel we stopped in a department stores so that I could get a warm beanie seeing as the weather was so cold. Because I have such a small head I managed to get a nice wooly hat in the kiddies section because I didn't like the adult ones and John kept laughing every time I tried one of them on. For dinner we went to a Schnitzel restaurant we'd passed many times but neither of us ended up having schnitzel. The waiter pointed out some of the traditional Bavarian dishes so John had beef in red wine stew with two different dumplings and I had pork strips in a creamy mustardy sauce. Very delicious. We started to see lots of boys dressed in lederhosen and girls in dirndls leading up to the start of Oktoberfest. Fortunately we'll miss it. But it was fun to see tourists buying up the traditional Bavarian costumes and having fun. Early start tomorrow for our bus tour so we tried to get to bed early but too many things to see wandering around.