We got into Munich mid-afternoon, and promptly got a parking ticket. We had to park a long block away from the rental apartment, and hoof our bags over. The husband of the woman we rented from just had a stroke, so she had two friends meet us at the apartment.
The two guys were quite chatty, and I thought about grabbing the parking pass and heading to the car. Instead I was polite and we were delayed long enough that we got a ticket.
When I put the parking pass in the window, the woman who gave us the ticket came over and tried to converse with us. She felt bad, but I really couldn't be mad. It was just one of the breaks of the game. We had an extended conversation with her, in which neither Carol nor I understood her, and vice versa.
She then engaged the translation help of a woman in the car next to us. The gist of it was that, in theory, we were supposed to go to a nearby police station and pay outrageous sums of money for another parking pass. Apparently two parking passes is the way to go in Munich.
The ticket lady made the case (as best we could tell) that the pass we had was good enough, so we'll see what happens the rest of the trip. Apparently the apartment has a parking space in front on the sidewalk, but there was a white work van there at the time.
After a little time shopping at the nearby grocery store, we took a cab into the center city as close as we could get (a number of streets are closed for the market festivities).
Munich has at least ten Christmas markets of varying sizes and focus. The one at Rathausplatz (city hall square) is the largest. It sprawls on for blocks at a time. We wandered around, occasionally enjoying views of the city hall and other buildings, and otherwise threading our way through the crowds.
We walked back to a steakhouse we had seen. We didn't have a reservation, but as I quipped to the Maitre D, we did have money. And that was good enough. It was a place where they partly cook your meat for you, and then bring it still sizzling on a hot stone (shaped like a small brick). There's also a cold stone, so you pull the meat off the hot stone when it is cooked to your satisfaction.
While we've been enjoying the street food at the markets, it was nice to sit down and have a proper meal (sides of creamed spinach and grilled vegetables) with a Spanish red.
After that, we walked the nearly 30 minutes back to the apartment. There is a bakery across the street, and Torie had picked up a couple of krapfen, so we dined on that for dessert.
City hall.
Christmas market display.
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