The time had finally arrived!  As I mentioned earlier in April, I decided that as a 55th birthday present to myself, I’d take a week long trip to Europe.  #2025EuropeanTour.  I’ve been planning for weeks for the trip.  Booking flights and hotels.  Booking tours.  And booking train transport between countries.  My ambitious travel plan was to fly into Munich and spend a day touring the BMW Welt and the BMW Museum, then take a train to Stuttgart to tour the Porsche Museum, followed by another train to Paris for a few days of photography and site seeing, then take the Eurostar to London where I’d do more photography and tours, then fly back home.  It was nearly non-stop activity for seven days.  I went by myself as quite honestly, I didn’t want to torture my wife or friends with the rather grueling pace I’d be keeping.  I don’t think I had one day where I logged less than 16,000 steps, and hit 30,000 steps one day.

I flew from Dayton to Atlanta, then connected on to my Delta One class flight to Munich.  As I had done on past flights to Europe, I left the US about 6pm, and arrived in Munich at about 8:30am.

After clearing passport control, I walked straight tot he the S-Bahn terminal inside the Munich Airport, and Caught the S8 train to Munich City Center and my Marriott Courtyard room which was a short walk from the station.  I made a commitment to myself that to the very best of my ability I would take local rail transportation and avoid taxis and Uber.  Not because I was being cheap (though I saved quite a bit of money) but rather because in most European cities you’ll get where you’re going much faster by rail then by car.  I had already downloaded the DB Navigator app for purchasing tickets on the S-Bahn and U-Bahn in Germany.

I dropped off my bags at the Courtyard and immediately headed to the BMW Welt:

It was important that I arrive before noon if I wanted to partake of BavarianWeißwurst – a beloved sausage served only in the Bavarian region of Germany, and never passed noon.  It’s been about 12 years since I was last at the BMW Welt, and at that time the cafe was located on the 2nd floor, but in the time since my last visit, a new cafe had been installed on the first floor of the Welt:

I was able to order my favorite Bavarian breakfast sausage:

I spent the next several hours at both the Welt and the BMW Museum across the street – look for my separate photo report soon.  I then headed back to my hotel to unpack.  After unpacking I grabbed the S-Bahn to Marienplaz – the wealthiest and most fun part of Munich.  The S-Bahn has a stop that’s right in front of the famous Glockenspiel:

The weather was fantastic – better than any other time I had photographed this iconic location in the past (2007 and 2013).  Much had changed in this area since my last visit.

After some photo taking it was time to get some dinner.  Tradition calls for the first dinner in Munich to be at the Hofbräuhaus München:

Marienplatz is a great place for high-end shopping.  I stopped at both a Leica store (my first time visiting one) as well as a Tudor boutique.

After dinner I headed back to the S-Bahn station at Marienplatz and got this picture of a girl waiting for the train.

I decided to make it an early night as I was trying to get used to the time difference, and the overall lack of sleep with lots of walking.  Tomorrow I would take a train to Stuttgard and tour the Porsche Museum.