Munich Monday

After a short trip overseas, I'm back home on the east coast! It was a busy but great trip. I arrived at the airport early evening on Sunday, and had about an hour to kill before my flight. In an effort to stay away from airport vendor food, I had packed a big veggie salad with sunflower seeds and some cottage cheese to eat while I waited. It was great fuel for the 12 hour trip.

I took a red eye with a quick stop in London, and landed in a rainy Munich mid-day on Monday. I met a colleague (also a Melissa) at the airport and after checking into our hotel and catching up on some work, we headed out to explore and get a bite to eat. We walked around for a bit looking for a traditional-looking place to stop, and ended up at a Bavarian gastropub.

The menu was entirely in German, but the waiter did his best to explain the options and offer some recommendations.

Sadly he told me my options for traditional German fare as a vegetarian were extremely limited, but he did recommend a fish dish - zanderfilet, which is a local lake fish with a firm white flesh. It came sauteed with lemon and served over a huge bed of garlic spinach. It was really flavorful and quite delicious.

Melissa went with a traditional schnitzel and potatoes, which she said was fantastic.

We worked through our lunch/dinner and powered through our prep session so we could go out and see some of the city. A few hours later and we were ready to tackle the Munich subway system. We were told we had to see Marienplatz and Odeonsplatz, which are in the downtown area and home to many beautiful buildings as well as the local university.

Not gonna lie, we definitely got a little lost taking the subway (the Munich subway map is crazy!) but we figured it out and ended up being pros by the end of the trip. Our little tour downtown was well worth getting a little lost.

The architecture was gorgeous and the downtown city area was so quaint.

The main square was packed with people and full of energy, even though it was cold and rainy.

Love this gothic building! I think it was once an old church, but is now a theater with restaurants and art galleries.

The streets were filled with bakeries, boutiques, meat shops and chocolatiers, and we made sure to hit up a few of the shops for goodies to take home.

I'd been told by a friend to be sure to stop by Dallmayr, which is a famous Bavarian shop featuring all the local treats you could imagine.

I picked up lots of goodies for the family, and a gift for myself too - citrus fleur de sel!

Can't wait to use this fancy salt on all kinds of things.

The chocolates were really calling to both me and Melissa, and it seemed appropriate to end the evening with truffles and cappuccino in one of the cafes along the square. We picked out a few different pieces of chocolate and split them all. The hazelnut ones were definitely my favorite.

Talk about a perfect ending to the day. I headed to bed as soon as we got back to the hotel since we had a big day ahead of us on Tuesday, and as soon as my head hit the pillow I was out. I guess being up for nearly 24 hours will do that for ya!

P.S. If all this talk of chocolate has you salivating and you haven't entered the Spodee giveaway yet, there's still a few days left. Click here and leave a comment so you can be entered to win!