In July, I spent time in Munich and Bavaria. This was my first solo international trip! I was planning to meet up with my brother, sister-in-law, and nephew in Munich before heading to Garmisch-Partenkirchen in the Bavarian Alps. I had some time alone in Munich before we met up. 

I flew from MSP to FRA to MUC on Lufthansa in Business class booked with 60k Aeroplan points + approximately $200 in taxes and fees. You can read more about that booking in a separate blog post that I will link here. 

Day 1:

I arrived in MUC at 10am and took the Lufthansa Express Bus to the Munich Schwabing stop which was a ten minute walk from my hotel. The bus runs every 20 minutes and has a stop in the Schwabing area as well as Munich city center. My one way ticket from the airport to the Schwabing stop was €12. The bus was clean, efficient, not crowded, and includes free Wi-Fi.

It was a brisk 10 minute walk from the bus stop to the Andaz Munich Schwabinger Tor where I had two nights reserved. The walk took me past a cute playground that would likely not be legal in the united states but that my kids would love, and nice walking path along a stream.

This was my first Hyatt stay as a Globalist. I was thrilled that I got upgraded to an Andaz Suite and that it was ready when I arrived at 12pm! I had emailed prior to my trip to let them know how excited I was for my trip and that I was coming to celebrate my brother’s retirement. They prepared an amazing spread of Bavarian beers and snacks for us to celebrate with.

To motivate myself to get out and explore and not just crash from jet lag, I scheduled a Munich bicycle tour on Viator for 2pm on the day of arrival. I booked it via Rakuten to earn extra AMEX points. The tour was through Radius tours in Munich, so you could also book directly with them. The tour took us through the downtown portion of Munich, but didn’t take us into Marienplatz, so you will definitely want to check out that area on foot if you take the bicycle tour. My favorite part of the tour was riding through the English Garden in Munich. It is huge and beautiful. Other highlights included watching the river surfers, and visiting Biergarten am Chinesischen Turm within the English Garden.

I enjoyed the bicycle tour and it was a great way to see a lot of downtown Munich. Before traveling there, I didn’t realize that much of Munich was destroyed in WW2 so there was not much old, beautiful architecture that you typically see in European cities. 

After the bicycle tour, I met up with a Nashville friend who happened to also be in Munich! I enjoyed a pretzel and chatting with friends at a local biergarten and then headed back to the hotel for an early night. 

Day 2:

After crashing early to jet-lag, I was up early the next morning. I scheduled a tour of the Dachau concentration camp. Again I scheduled via Viator through Rakuten and the tour was back with Radius Tours. 

I had an amazing breakfast which was included in my stay at the Andaz and then headed out to downtown Munich to meet up with the tour group. 

We took a train from the Munich Hauptbahnhof out to the city of Dachau and then an EXTREMELY full bus to the site of the concentration camp. The tour took about 5 hours total, and was well worth the time spent. It felt very somber, but highly educational. It is not a tour appropriate for young children. My recommendation would be minimum age of 12 to get the most out of the tour. That being said, there were children and babies present at Dachau. Make sure you wear sunscreen, a hat, and comfortable shoes for this tour. 

After the tour of Dachau, I planned to visit the Haufbrauhaus with another solo female traveler I met on the tour. I let her navigate, and we ended up at the Haufbrau Biergarten instead. While this wasn’t the original plan, the biergarten was a great experience. It was very chill and had plenty of seating. I loved that it had a playground for children amid all the tables. I wish America had more options like this for adults to gather over food and drink while kids have a place to run off their energy. I ended up eating a sausage of some sort and french fries to go with my beer and it was all tasty. The Germans apparently don’t eat many vegetables, as they were pretty hard to find at many locations.

My belly was full so I decided to walk around and explore on my own. I made my way to Marienplatz to see the the glockenspiel and New Town Hall. Then I really wanted to get new Birkenstock sandals while I was in Germany so I walked to the Birkenstock store. I was saddened to see that the prices were not much better than back home, so I ended up not purchasing any. Retrospectively, I could have gotten the VAT tax refund making them discounted compared to home, but it wasn’t worth the hassle since I wasn’t planning on doing any other shopping in Germany.

The Andaz is not located in downtown Munich, so I walked most of the way back to the hotel and then hopped on a scooter the rest of the way. Munich takes their bike lanes VERY seriously and they are ubiquitous. Scooters are very prevalent and a great way to get around town. It felt much safer than using a scooter in the US without any bike lanes or separation from cars. They also have a robust subway/train system and buses throughout Munich that are pretty easy to navigate. I purchased a one day pass online that allowed me unlimited use of the trains and buses. 

Day 3:

On my third day in Munich, I enjoyed another awesome breakfast at the hotel and then met up with my brother and his wife and son to drive further into Bavaria for two nights. Our plan was escape the heat and see the mountains. See my upcoming Bavaria blog post for more info on that part of the trip!

So my actual 3rd day in Munich was after our trip to Bavaria. 

The reason for my trip to Germany was to see Taylor Swift in Munich! We got back to Munich from Bavaria for the tour around 11am. It was chilly and kind of raining when we got back into town. Despite the weather, there were already Swifties camped out waiting to get into the show! We parked at the BMW Welt with plans to visit the BMW museum. Our first task to conquer was to walk over to the Olympiastadium Munich in Olympic Park to obtain our VIP boxes. There were A LOT of people parking at the BMW welt in order to go to the concert that was starting in 7 hours. 

We really enjoyed the BMW museum and seeing their history. BMW did a good job addressing the company’s dark history during WW2. The one thing they could improve upon would be adding a children’s area or somewhere kids can run around in the museum. 

The night of the Eras tour, we stayed at The Pullman in the Schwabinger neighborhood. My sister-in-law had gotten non-refundable reservations prior to my full scale obsession with Hyatt, so we stayed at the Pullman for the night of the concert. It was nice and in a good location, actually very close to the Andaz. Seeing Taylor in Munich with the addition of the Tortured Poets Department set was amazing and absolutely worth the trip to Germany! There were an estimated 50,000 extra people outside the stadium in the park listening to the concert! The Pullman is located about 3 miles from the Olympistadium, and not easy to get between the two via public transportation. We ended up taking scooters from the hotel to the entrance of Olympic Park and it worked out well for us. It wouldn’t have been great with children, and in that situation we would have just taken an Uber. 

Day 4:

I checked out of the Pullman early the next morning and walked back to the Andaz to drop my luggage off. I had no expectations of my room being ready at 9am, but I wanted to make the most of my last day in Germany. The hotel was fully book the previous night due to some sort of Porsche driving tour. All of the Porsche’s were subsequently parked right outside! I decided last minute to book a day trip to Salzburg. I booked train tickets and a Sound of Music Tour! It is an easy 1 hour train ride from Munich to Salzburg and absolutely worth taking the trip! See my Salzburg post for more details! I got back to Munich and accidentally got off the train at the wrong train stop! Thankfully I was able to rent a scooter and make my way back to the hotel.

Day 5: 

It’s time to head home. I had a 7:20am flight out of the Munich airport to London Heathrow. I decided it would be easiest to take an Uber at 5am. If I had to do it again, a cab would have probably been a bit cheaper. I was worried that the taxi line would not be present when I needed to leave, but I was wrong. There were multiple lined up in front of the hotel when I got in my Uber, even at the early hour. The UberX that I took was €62.98 plus tip. I had PLENTY of time before my flight so I was able to visit the Priority Pass lounge at MUC – Airport Lounge World. The lounge is located in Terminal 1 and was VERY large with lots of plane spotting opportunities and plenty of food. They even had the full bar open at 6am.

Thanks for coming along with me on my travels to Munich! Check back soon for more posts about my day in Salzburg and my flight reviews.