Munich; Monday, 22 December, 2014

I had another massive breakfast and then headed out into Munich to try and find things to do on a Monday, never an easy task in mainland Europe when most museums and attractions are closed.

Thankfully you can always count on either a botanical garden or a zoo and Munich had both, so I decided my first stop of the morning would be the Botanical Garden over to the western side of the city, and after that I’d head to the zoo.

After a look around the glasshouses I spent a good hour or so wandering round the gardens, most of which appeared to be under fir tree branches to protect them from the Munich winter, including bizarrely their alpine rock garden!

The gardens back onto the Scholß Nymphenburg so I took the tram one stop up the line to the top end of the palace grounds and walked back through them towards the palace itself.

I was quite surprised to find that the palace was actually open for visitors so I had a look round on the audio-guided tour before heading over to the café in the former palm house behind the palace for a spot of late lunch.

By the time I’d finished in the palace gardens and grounds it was too late to make it to the zoo, which was probably fortunate as the public transport system appeared to be in a bit of a melt-down with trams bunching up together and then, according to the tram stop displays, massive gaps between them.

I hopped on the first tram that was heading back towards the city centre, which turned out not to actually go anywhere near the centre of the city, but did connect into an U-Bahn line so I was able to head back down into town from there.

I had a bit more of a wander round the Christmas markets to pick up the last couple of things and dinner in a nice restaurant close to the town hall before heading back to the hotel to pack my bags and check-in for tomorrows flight.