Munich – The City with a Heart – Part 2

This blog covers the second half of our time staying in Munich back in November 2025. Part 1 ended with us having spent the morning of day two enjoying a couple of the City Sightseeing bus tours and so part 2 starts with us heading to find some lunch. Our destination had been somewhere we had spotted whilst on the Schwabing bus tour, the Park Café in Munich’s Old Botanical Gardens, which was about a five-minute walk from where the bus tours start and finish outside the Hauptbahnhof.

Munich – The City with a Heart – Part 1

Having arrived in Munich late the night before, it was nice to be able to wake up in the city rather than at an airport hotel ready for an early flight. The first thing on our plan for our stay was to join a free walking tour, as these are a great way to see the sights and learn some of a city’s history. And so, after a bit of a lie in, we made the 15-minute walk into the city centre to Marienplatz to find some breakfast and join the tour we had booked.

London Heathrow to Munich – British Airways in Euro Traveller

The end of November 2025 saw us having a weekend away to visit one of the European Christmas Markets and so, after much deliberation earlier in the year, we had booked return flights from Heathrow to Munich with British Airways. Wanting to maximise our time in the German city, we had booked an evening flight and so, after Beth had finished work for the day, we met in the check-in area of Heathrow Terminal 5. Unfortunately, the journey didn’t start as smoothly as I had hoped, mainly through my own error.

Wolverhampton to Glasgow Central – Avanti West Coast in Standard Premium

The end of October last year saw me heading to Glasgow once again for work however, due to engineering works on the East Coast Mainline north of Doncaster and a fully booked Sleeper, I had to take a different route to normal. My route of choice was to head across to Birmingham and then catch an Avanti service from there and, with a four-hour journey to Scotland ahead of me I of course lined up a Seatfrog upgrade. Unfortunately, whilst on my way across to Birmingham, it became clear that my relaxing journey was already off to a bad start…

Hoek van Holland to Harwich – Stena Line ‘Stena Hollandica’ in an Outside Standard Cabin

With our holiday in Germany coming to a close and us having reached Rotterdam earlier in the afternoon onboard an NS ICD service, all that was left to do was make our way back to England. As with leaving the UK at the start of the trip, our return was to be via an overnight ferry, once again with Stena Line doing the reverse crossing from Hoek van Holland to Harwich. And so, after catching a local train from Rotterdam Centraal to Schiedam Centrum and a metro from there to Hoek van Holland Haven, we were at the port at 1900, around three hours before departure.

Hilversum to Rotterdam Centraal – NS Intercity Direct in 1st Class

With us having arrived back in The Netherlands by way of a Deutsche Bahn (DB) Intercity service from Hannover, our arrival into Rotterdam at the end of this leg would just leave a couple of local trains/metros before boarded the ferry home. And so, for this final long-distance train of the trip from Hilversum to Rotterdam Centraal, we’d be travelling onboard one of NS’ (Dutch Railways) new Intercity trains in 1st class. These Intercity Nieuwe Generatie (ICNG) trains have been introduced since my last journey on an NS ‘Intercity Direct’ service so I was looking forward to trying one out.