Day 15 – Freising

Today’s Blog Entry

On Sunday morning Cindy and I left Innsbruck and headed for Munich so that we would be in position for our flight home via Amsterdam on Monday. We traveled early in the morning so that we’d have most of the day to have some fun in the Munich area.

The train took us north through central Austria to the border town of Kufstein where we crossed into Germany. From there it was a scenic ride through Bavaria to München Ost where we changed to an S-Bahn commuter train for the final leg to Flughafen München. Munich Airport (MUC) is a surprising distance outside of the city, almost 18 miles. It was built in 1992 and a second terminal was added in 2003. It’s currently the second largest airport in Germany – Frankfurt is the largest.

Upon arrival at MUC we took an escalator up from the S-Bahn platform into the airport terminal and then walked to the Hilton that adjoins the terminal. Our flight the next day was going to be very early so we wanted to keep things as simple as possible. In spite of the airport location this was actually a very nice Hilton with attractive, comfortable, and quiet rooms.

We checked in, dropped our bags, and hopped back onto the S-Bahn for a short train ride to the nearby town of Freising. We’d already visited downtown Munich this trip, so we thought that we’d try someplace new. We also wanted something that was fairly low key.

Freising is a charming university town that was first settled in the 8th century. The current population is around 50,000 so it’s nowhere near the size of Munich. It is located on the Isar River and is dominated by two hills, the Cathedral Hill (with a castle and cathedral) and Weihenstephan Hill (with the oldest working brewery in the world). It is home to the Weihenstephan-Triesdorf University of Applied Sciences as well as the Technical University of Munich.

We took a pleasant walk from the Freising Bahnhof into the surprisingly quiet center of town (it was Sunday and threatening to rain, after all) before having a late lunch at a traditional Bavarian tavern called the Weißbräu Huber. After lunch we headed back to the airport so that we could do some final re-packing before an early bedtime in anticipation of our dreaded 0400 wake-up call!

Monday’s travels went according to plan and we arrived back at Dulles Airport in Washington DC about a half-hour early. This was a nice surprise for a westbound crossing in the wintertime when headwinds can sometimes cause major flight delays.

After clearing US Customs in record time (if you don’t have Global Entry, get it!) we claimed our bags and caught the shuttle to the Westin Hotel where we had used their Park & Fly service. We were in our car and into the worst of DC rush hour by 4:30 with a 3 hour drive back to Williamsburg still ahead of us.

Today’s Map

Today’s Photos

Miscellaneous

The Meals

Breakfast : On the train to Munich

Lunch : Weißbräu Huber

Dinner : In the hotel room