Munich: Toys, Markets & Chocolates, Munich, Germany

It's not often that I've been able to repeat my travel experiences. Paris was a giant exception to this, plus my annual volleyball camp in Holland, an accidental two visits to Rome within six months of each other, and our random short trips to London.

I can happily now add Munich (as it is essentially our new Paris) to that list, and our list of repeat places is only going to grow this year. I see it as a good thing; we are finding our favorite locales, and, instead of trying to constantly "one-up" each previous destination, we are thrilled to have really found new homes away from home.

It was Paris, Amsterdam, Rome, and London. Now add Munich. Soon to add Madrid (Christmas) and the Algarve in Portugal (May) again. This is a pretty good line-up!

I hadn't really taken an evening off from volleyball yet, and, with no German lessons this week, it was the perfect opportunity to get to Munich before it gets too cold.

But, for September, it was cold. I wore boots, jeans, a sweater, a coat, a scarf, and mittens all day. I used to be able to say, "No scarves until October." Not in Bavaria!

Vilsbiburg is about one hour and fifteen minutes from Munich by train, but you have to change trains in Landshut. It's "inconvenient," but at least the trains run once an hour in both directions and it can be timed out well enough. ...... (follow the instructions below for accessing the rest of this article).