Day 9 (2 Mai) - Rotensol to Munich

The morning is beautiful, with a fog making the forest mysterious and yet inviting.  We share breakfast with Günter, Franziska, Vera, Philipp, Henri, and Elisa.  In addition there is Tobias, Leia, Oris, along with Ralf’s family, Maria and Emme, Maria’s sister.  We make our goodbyes.  We have grown very close to these people.  Arthur drives and I navigate.  We circle under Stuttgart, and notice signs for Kirchenheim unter Tek, which is near the village of Nabern from which the Hillers came.  They are widening the highway, so there is constant detouring.  And the fast lane!  So fast.  We speed by Ulm (can’t even see the famous tower from the road) and Augsburg which we had hoped to stop and see – too anxious to get to Munich.  Once there we drop off our car, and cab over to our hotel.

We are staying at Deutsche Eiche – gay and very nice.  There’s lunch first with Gulaschsuppe, and then we walk around acquainting ourselves with the city once again.  We go out for a walk looking at all the shops and visiting familiar sites.  Arthur notices a shop that specializes in Tracht, so it's not Lederhosen that will make its way to Arthur's closet but a lovely Bavarian coat.  He will look great in it.  Later on I find a wonderful linen scarf - just to keep up on the purchasing part of our trip.

Our friend, Bruce McCoy is in town, so we meet up with him for dinner at Zum Alten Markt, and I have beef in aspic and not much else.  I’m still dealing with yesterday’s excess.  Bruce asks if we're up for going over to the Frühlingsfest in the south part of the city, but we're done.