Day 1/2 – Tuesday/Wednesday, June 9/10, 2026 (it all blended into one looong day) – Waupaca, WI, USA to Munich, Germany

Yes, you read it right!  The Durst-Kolinski clan is heading to…. Europe!?!?  Well, blog readers, to no one’s surprise, Noah graduated from high school this year, and this is the last chance we get to force him on a fun family vacation.  As for the others, well, tough news for them, they have a few more years.  We wanted to make sure Noah had a chance to be all cultured before heading off to college, so here we go (note: prior to this, he had been to two foreign countries, Canada and Costa Rica, which is one more than the rest of us).

Anyway, we hatched this vacation scheme a few months ago and decided on Germany and Italy to visit based on three things: no one cared specifically about a country; except for Braden who loves everything German and begged to go to Germany; and Sarah wanted a hotel room overlooking the Mediterranean and didn’t care where it was.  Done and done!

Plan for day 1 was to drive down to O’Hare and fly out direct to Munich.  Matt wouldn’t splurge the extra $1000 a ticket for Polaris class, so alas it was an economy plus upgrade for us (Noah is almost 6 foot 7, poor kid, he needs the leg room).  We loaded up the car after frantic packing and down to Chicago Preflight to park our car (with a stop in Oshkosh for ear buds as Sarah forgot her AirPods at home and realized it 30 minutes into the drive), and off to O’Hare we went.  Took like 15 minutes to get through security (YES, Sarah got patted down AGAIN even with TSA precheck, she was supposedly randomly chosen to be run through the 3D scanner but instead of her crotch lighting up like usual, her forearms did (SIGH)) and there we were. 

Against our better judgement, we dined at Chili’s Too.  We have been HOSED by these evil little spin offs of Chili’s, available at various airports, in the past.  We do not learn our lesson.  This time it wasn’t… terrible?  Matt and Sarah had beer, everyone ate some deep fried food, and generally had a great time.  Our flight boarded, our seats were fantastic, and we left basically on time!  We left at 6 pm Chicago time and got in at 9:30 am Munich time.

Flight was unremarkable in every way, which is good.  We are so conditioned to not getting fed even on Hawaii flights that it was nice to get supper and free beer and wine (we did not partake as we needed to be sober to land in a foreign county, lol).  The airplane breakfast was suspect – it was two syrupy waffles made into a breakfast sandwich with spicy cheese, sausage and egg.  It was…. interesting.  Everything in the Munich airport is in German and English, and we were directed to passport control.  Braden got a kick out of the “wanted” posters all in German that were posted there.  After we got through that, we picked up our luggage and the fun began.

We knew we needed to buy a ticket on the S1 or S8 train from the airport to the main train station, close by to where our hotel was.   The app was slightly confusing and we didn’t know what zone we were in.  Sarah was pretty sure she had read what to put in, but Matt ended up going to the help desk.  After sorting thru it all, we got a group ticket for ~33 euros and made our way out to the train station at the airport.  Note: no one checks tickets routinely, online estimates were that you would show proof of ticket maybe 50% of the time.  We could have just wandered onto the train with no ticket – which kind of blows our minds. 

Our train was there in 10 minutes, and we took the S1 for about 45 minutes until we got to the main train station in Munich.  The countryside looked basically like Wisconsin, just cuter houses.  And the graffiti is in German.  And more bikes and train stations.  We got off at the main train station (which was wildly busy), crossed the street, and there was our hotel!  Note: it is gray and raining.  Every German person has a rain coat and umbrella.  ALL OF THEM. 

We are staying at the Eden Wolff Hotel, which seems very cute.  There is some event going on in Munich and everything was booked up except for here and another hotel, which per reviews had drunken brawls and marijuana smoke, so Matt booked this one.  It is older but updated.  Like every hotel in Europe, the max we can get in a room is 3, so we have two hotel rooms.  One has the functional equivalent of a king bed, so the parents get that, and the other has three twin beds, so the kids are in there.  We are two rooms apart.  Note: everything is so quiet here.  Like you can hear everything in the bathroom through the door even with the TV and shower on.  Or the drunken brawling in the alley way outside (man, must be just something that happens around here).

Everyone is exhausted and fell asleep at varying times.   We needed supper, having not been filled up by cinnamon rolls and weird waffle breakfast sandwiches, so Matt and the boys ran over to the train station to a sandwich stop and got a bunch of premade sandwiches, while Sarah and Zoe slept.  We all blearily ate them, and then Zoe convinced Matt and Braden to go to Aldi here to see what it was like (note: not exciting).

Everyone is resting up for a day of castles tomorrow! 

Foreign travel tip of the day: almost everyone speaks English that we have run across, but poor Matt is the one who has had to figure out if they do or not.  Not really a tip, more noting we need to find a way to find out if someone speaks English without being boobs.  Like, how do you do that?  When he asked over the phone “Sprechen die English?” or however you say it, mangling it, Braden was dying of laughter (note: he has been doing duo lingo German and thus is our de facto translator (also note: he has not been helpful except to laugh at us)).  Per the internet, we should say in German “I don’t speak German” and then say in English – “Is English ok?” – anyway, that is our new plan.

Day 3 – Thursday, June 11, 2026 – Munich

What a rough jetlagged night of sleep.  Sarah awakened at 2 am and couldn’t get back to sleep and spent her time spying out the window at everyone else who was awake (more drunken brawling at the billiards/internet/slot machine place).  Matt couldn’t fall asleep until 3 am, haunted by the fact that all 3 children may have starved to death due to lack of food in the other room.  All the kids randomly awakened around 4 am or so.

We staggered down to the fancy Central City Café in our lobby.  Supposedly a breakfast buffet was covered in our room cost.  Holy CATS.  This was perhaps the best breakfast buffet affiliated with any hotel we have ever stayed at.   We told the host our room number and were led to a linen covered table, offered individual silver pots of coffee, and then stood up under the chandelier to walk to get our food.  They had everything except pancakes and waffles.  Eggs, bacon, three kinds of sausage, decanters of every kind of juice, a table covered in every kind of fresh pastry (Zoe ate two pastries encrusted with chocolate chips and filled with chocolate), fruits, yogurts, and many kinds of cheese and deli meat and breads.  Unbelievable.  We enjoyed ourselves and then got prepared for the highlight of Munich – the castle tour!

Initially, Sarah’s plan had been for us to rent a car and drive on the Autobahn 2 hours to get to these castles (that you then hike up a very steep hill to get to at the end).  Then we decided this is a vacation where we don’t want to think too hard.

So we walked ten minutes to get on a premium coach bus where there were extra large seats, and a snack bar.  They had fresh pretzels hanging on a rack, stacks of wafers and chocolate bars and fruit, sodas and juices and coffees and teas.  We were maybe the second to last group on (sorry, Matt was right, we got there early but apparently everyone was earlier like he had wanted to be) but all sat together in the back.  Best part of the back?  The bathroom was UNDER the snack bar in the middle of the bus, so not near us.

We had a lovely bus driver who always offered drinks when we got back on the bus after each excursion, and a hostess who was Bavarian and narrated most of the time about history and the area – both were great.  It was a tour group of maybe 30 of us – plan was to drive a couple hours through rolling countryside to get to the Alps, and tour Neuschwanstein Castle.  We were dropped off in Schwangau, a little village about a 20-30 min walk down from the castle.  Sarah literally forced everyone to put on their rain jacket (props to Sarah’s patient who had just been to Munich and said it rained everyday, she was not wrong).  Everyone whined but when the random downpours came, we were prepared.  Oh, and we didn’t do that uphill walk to the castle.  We paid 3.50 each in euros to get on a crowded shuttle bus and get driven there.  Vacation baby! 

We got dropped off and headed over to the St. Mary’s Bridge that is over a gorge – a beautiful view of the castle awaits from the center of the bridge.  We explored the gated area on the other side of the bridge which had a shady appearing trail down to the gorge, then decided, not THIS time.  We then hiked about 10 minutes down to the castle for our 11:25 am tour. 

The tour guide was great, and we were led through multiple rooms of a clearly crazy King Ludwig.  It can only be described as House on the Rock, but gilded like Trump decorated it.  It was kind of obscene.  There were swans everywhere because he was obsessed with them.  Every tour guide today and our hostess all mentioned that he was single his whole life, and his one engagement broke off after several months, then they would say nothing.  OH!  Actually today is the anniversary of when he was arrested in his bedroom and accused of being mentally incompetent to rule, and we got to stand right where he was arrested, in his crazy-ass castle, on the anniversary.  He was found dead in a lake a few days later with his personal physician.  Suicide?  Accident?  Murder?  No one knows.  It’s a wild tale.  That we heard many times today.

You couldn’t pay Sarah enough money to spend a night in that creepy place, but everyone else was more than willing to do it for free.  Also, no pictures allowed because no one would believe how totally crazy the place is – if you want to prove it, you need to buy a book in one of the two gift shops they lead you through.  We bought a magnet.

After that, we hiked down the hill for 20 minutes back into the village.  Braden, who supposedly tore his gastrocnemius muscle in track sprinting (but we are now worried it is something else completely) was sadly limping down the hill, but quickly.  He looked like he needs a cane.  Sigh.  We were starving, and hit up a sandwich shop at one of the hotel/restaurant/biergartens there.  What a deal!  Cheaper prices than Chicago.  We each got a huge sandwich, Mandelhornchen (almond crescent dipped in chocolate), drinks for approx. 50 euros.  Delicious! 

We then headed back to the bus, and off we went.  We were brought down to Oberammergau, a village known for putting on the Passion Play at regular intervals (note: hasn’t been done since 2022) and woodcarving.  There was something in there about Hitler, and a road, and the winter Olympics, too.  (NOTE, just looked it up, was actually in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, clearly we were snoozing a bit by this point after lunch).  We were deployed to walk around the village for a half hour, which consisted of checking out the village square and the very **interesting** painting on the buildings, then making a beeline for the gelato shop where Noah got chocolate, B got lemon, Zoe got tropical, and Sarah got pistachio.  Matt and Sarah both got cappuccinos as well (snoozing, remember?).   We then rushed back to the bus, and off we went.

We then ended with a tour of Linderhof Palace – our friend King Ludwig strikes again.  Versailles was his inspiration, and oof, did it show.  And don’t worry, more swans – and mysteriously pictures were forbidden on the tour again.  This castle also featured 3D ceiling paintings where it looks in a few places like a woman’s foot is dangling out, like a corpse is partially buried in the ceiling.  Trust me, this place would have allowed for AMAZING photos.  We played the find a swan scavenger hunt, heard about his mysterious broken off courtship again, and admired the gilded gold everything.  It was spectacular.  After, we gathered on the veranda and at 4:30 pm, the fountain shot in the air and moved around (spraying a few errant tourists hanging around too close to the pool) – like we were at the Bellagio.  There was even a fleur de lis made of rows of flowers.  Oh my.

We then hightailed it back to the bus, where we picked up our bottles of beer when we got on.  Noah declined the offer multiple times from the hostess and us.  B happily took a sip and said it was good.  Zoe declined.  Sarah pounded her beer as she thought we would be back in 17 minutes.  NO, Matt said, 70 minutes.  Eh, good times.  We all napped in the sunshine at the back of the bus.

When we got back, we walked back to our hotel, then collapsed.  It was 7 pm and no one wanted to go out to eat (despite Matt’s best efforts).  The hotel restaurant is likely too fancy for us at breakfast, and definitely too fancy at night.  So we ordered some burgers from Hamburgerei and devoured those with fries.  We then washed some clothes in the sink (shout out to Rick Steves for the tip to use the hotel shampoo) and called it a night.

Foreign travel tip of the day: there is nothing worse than needing to pee and staring at a turnstile in the bathroom (water closet, SORRY) that only takes coins, when you have a 20 Euro bill and nothing else.  We needed the coin change from the shuttle bus tickets to use the bathrooms in the village, but then the bus came too quickly after she got her precious coins to be able to go back to the bathroom – FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS.  Don’t be Sarah, make sure you have coins too!

Day 4 – Friday, June 12 – Munich

Woke up to a cool, grey and rainy Munich day. Our sleep schedule is still out of whack, so everyone was awake early (but stayed in bed since 4:00 am seemed too early to get up). Went down to the breakfast buffet and got the same large booth in the corner that we had yesterday.  When the staff recognizes you, they just point to a table.  Success, we have become regulars!  Since we had nothing scheduled, we headed back to our rooms and watched some German-dubbed versions of the Simpsons and Pawn Stars on TV before deciding that the rain had lightened up enough that we should go exploring.

Our initial plan for the day was to tour around Old Town in Munich, delighting in the shops and churches, and follow Rick Steve’s audio walking tour.  Oh, how the plan went awry.

We started out towards the old town of Munich – the road from our hotel to the town square (Marienplatz) is mostly a large pedestrian shopping center with all kinds of stores on either side, and local vendors in the middle, especially bread.  So many different kinds of bread (Bröt, as was plastered all over all the wagons selling it).  Every person there had a rain jacket on and an umbrella.  What is up with all the rain here?!?  It was drenching.  So much so that we stopped at a T.K. Maxx (the German version of TJ Maxx, lol) to get a few umbrellas.  And let’s just say, no one is buying Bröt or eating at biergartens in the pouring rain.

The audio tour starts in Marienplatz, where there’s a famous Glockenspiel (a musical instruments made of pipes that’s played by striking the different pipes to make sounds similar to a bell, but can play music). This was in the bell tower, and played while a two-story scene depicting the first Octoberfest played out, with horses jousting, dancers and more. Kinda like the start of the factory tour in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie. So we lined up with lots of other tourists in the rain to listen and watch the 5 minute performance, which takes place at 11:00, 12:00 and 5:00. 

Using Rick Steve’s audio walking tour guide to go around, we walked past a church and then into their large, open-air market. Lots more vendors, vegetables, fruits, more breads, pretzels everywhere. Unfortunately, the rain was getting heavier, so we took a vote and decided to scrap the audio tour and head for the Munich Residenz, or the palace that the rulers of Bavaria had used over the centuries.  Mostly because it had a roof and guaranteed we would be dry inside.

The Residenz is a huge building in the middle of Munich, the largest in Germany, and was the home of the Wittelsbach monarchs of Bavaria. It was originally built in 1325 and has been rebuilt and added to multiple times, up to the early 1900s (and then was mostly destroyed in WWII and rebuilt) .The tour of the Residenz itself is 130 rooms (and that doesn’t include the treasury or another part of the tour that we didn’t take). It was an audio tour, so we each got a small device and we could enter the numbers that were around the rooms to hear about either a room or a particular item in the room. The tour started out in the some of the largest rooms and halls with large paintings and collections.

We then went upstairs to the various rooms (all very large) where the various royalty would meet with guests, visiting royals and popes would stay, more meeting and waiting rooms, bedrooms of the royalty at the palace, etc. Since the Residenz has a long history, the rooms were setup with various period furniture from different times. Somewhere around Room 30 Zoe lost the will to see anything else. We trudged on, and after more rooms Noah pointed out that they all pretty much looked the same. And that’s when we came on the sign with arrows that said long tour one way and short tour/exit the other. We took the short tour (which still had many other rooms, a porcelain collection and a silver collection to go through) before you exited.  For what it’s worth, we didn’t really know it had been mostly destroyed in WWII and rebuilt to look similar, and YES, we do feel slightly ripped off.

And then we went back for the Treasury (hey, we had paid for it!). They reset our audio tour for the treasury and in we went. This was a much shorter tour; only about 10 rooms; and every room was filled with the treasures from the Wittelsbachs. Crowns, swords, religious relics.. One relic supposedly held 4 pieces of the true cross (they were not there, just the holder), and another had potentially been stolen from Moscow. We also learned that one of the large necklaces had the emeralds replaced with glass, and one of the crowns had its top diamond removed to be auctioned in the 1930s by the Wittelsbach. They did not say why, and seemed to dance around this with several of the items.  This Wittelsbach family is pretty annoying.  It seems they started piecemealing parts of crowns in the 1930s for cold hard cash.  And of course, our favorite guy, Ludwig, came up multiple times, too.

If we hadn’t burned Zoe out completely, and if the rest of us weren’t mentally exhausted from the Residenz, we probably would have spent a lot more time here finding out all the gossip on the various treasury items. (Also, the Wittelsbach family is still around, and although not ruling, they have foundations and earn most of their money from Munich real estate, and they still can live in the castles – seriously, they are the WORST)

After the Treasury, we were all starving and so we headed back to the most famous beer hall in Munich – the Hofbrauhaus. Normally they have a huge outdoor seating area, but with the rain the inside was packed. We wandered through a few times but did not see any tables or spots that could fit the 5 of us. So we headed back to the hotel, did a little research for nearby Bavarian places, and found a millennial looking place called Irmi. A small restaurant down a side-street from the station, we were the first ones to arrive at 5:00 pm when they opened (we were starving). Large bread and spreads appetizer, and then modern takes on Bavarian dishes, including pork knuckle.  Sarah tried a seasonal asparagus soup.  We drank some local beers and all shared Kaiserschmarrn for dessert which was delicious.

Day 5 – Saturday, June 13 – Munich AND Salzburg, Austria

Breakfast again at the wonderful restaurant in our hotel (this time the host plucked a card that said “reserved” off of it before directing us to our usual table), then off to our next tour (which left from right next door, so that was a plus). We walked over, checked in at Radius Tours, and grabbed coffee from the café near the tour spot (Americano – espresso and water is our go-to order). The tour guides met us outside and after a brief intro led us to the train station and our train, herding our group into one of the cars at the end of the train.  Jeremy was our tour guide and we had about 15ish people in our group.  While we rode the 90 minutes to Salzburg on the train, he filled us in on the history of Salzburg and the area in general.

Once we got to Salzburg, we were then herded onto the city bus, which took us through Salzburg to the start of the walking tour. The guide had told us several times that the Sound of Music is not a big thing in Salzburg, and there’s only one poster about it. Still, he took us first to a palace overlook that was featured in the movie, where Maria sang the do-ra-me song.

We then continued through the gardens and crossed the river into the even older part of Salzburg, and the stuff with all the touristy sites according to our guide. He said every place in Salzburg is the oldest, highest up, first, etc and then pointed out one of the oldest bookstores and one of the first restaurants (from the 700s). We also saw Mozart’s house and the Salzburg Cathedral.  Of note, in World War II, when much of Europe got destroyed (ahem, RESIDENZ in Munich, we mean you), Salzburg was basically untouched, meaning everything is original.

After the Cathedral we had “free time” to explore. On the train the tour guide had recommended a few restaurants food (Sarah has food anxiety and the minute the guide mentioned a certain restaurant, she booked it immediately while on the train). We had a spot outside, and beautiful weather to enjoy some Austria/German cuisine (brats and sauerkraut for B and Matt and Sarah, and Noah got cheese/bacon spaetzle, and Zoe got a chicken salad, and beer for parents of course!).

We wandered a bit, noting that it was the opening day of their famous Opera Festival – apparently this is for the very wealthy and celebrities (NOTE: Sarah googled “Salzburg Opera Festival celebrities 2026” and found nothing of the sort, but our tour guide was insistent).  They were shooting a cannon in close range in a stone courtyard filled with people dressed in traditional costumes.  Ever see the Volterra scene in Twilight New Moon at the end of the movie?  Yeah, like that, but Austrian and no vampires.

We then headed to the funicular and the fortress at the top of the hill – one thing we wanted to make sure we got in.   The funicular was fun to ride to the top in, and once at the fortress, we traipsed all over, exploring the look outs, dungeon pit, the usual castle stuff.  Sarah was on a mission and did find a random place at the fortress selling gelato, so we all enjoyed some gelato. 

We then took the funicular down, and made our way back to the meeting spot.  Our guide counted us up, loaded us up onto a city bus, then we made our way back to the train station.  It was 4:40, he told us to be on the train platform in 10 minutes at the latest, and our train was going to take off at 5:05.  He stressed this multiple times.  So we are all on the train, and he is counting us over and over, and bad news, Leslie didn’t make it.  We don’t know who Leslie is, but I hope that she figured out how to buy a train ticket home from Salzburg because she was not the train with the rest of us.  The guide felt bad but dang, he was pretty clear about everything.  Lastly, on the trip back, they stopped the train and La Polizcia came on for passport control – they took one look at everyone in our car and continued on, not asking for our passports. 

We got back to Munich after a great day – we ultimately decided to get food at the train station again, because we were hungry and tired.  Yorba’s food hits the spot – we had hot dogs and brats and Sarah had a tomato sandwich.  Delicious!  And little bags of chocolate covered crackers that we hoovered.