This is our 21st day in Europe and our final full day here. Tomorrow we head home. Our flight leaves around 3:30 p.m. from the Munich airport and arrives at the Vancouver airport around 5 p.m. Even though we will be flying for 10 hours, we will only lose an hour and a half of time.

I am sad to say goodbye to this adventure, but  we are both ready to return home.

Jacob says one of his highlights was our hiking adventure through the Saxon Switzerland National Park. I’d agree that was a highlight, I also enjoyed some of our amazing road trips through Switzerland. The beautiful town of Thun. Walking through the Lauterbrunnen Valley. The amazing sights of Dresden. And seeing some of the amazing history here including pieces of the Berlin Wall and the Castle Church in Wittenberg.

We had lots of things we wanted to fit into our last day here. We started off by taking the train to see Olympiapark. This was where the 1972 Olympics were held. You can see the old Olympic Stadiums and the original ticket kiosks. Today were some pre-events for the Munich Marathon which either starts or ends at this park. We walked around and took in the sights. We also walked up to the top of Olympiaberg which gave us a fantastic view of the Olympic buildings.

I asked Jacob if this hill was man-made because it seemed so odd. Everywhere around us was pretty flat and you could walk up this hill and get almost a panoramic view of the city. I learned that this whole hilly area is what the German’s call, “Trümmerberg.” Its a hill erected from the ruins caused by the destruction caused by bombings during the war.

After our walk around the park we were off to buy some souvenirs. We decided to take the train to Marienplatz where we had been on Thursday. And wow, what a difference. Yes, Thursday was rainy but there were hardly any people. Today was absolutely packed. People everywhere. We lamented not doing our shopping on Thursday.

However, I was able to take in more sights that I hadn’t noticed on Thursday due to the rain. We also walked through the Viktualienmarkt. Even though it was pretty cold, people were still outside enjoying their food and beer.

After the market, we stopped by a few stores and bought gifts for our family members. Because our gifts were fragile (hopefully they survive the flight) we decided to walk back to the apartment and not fight the crowds at the train station.

Once we returned to the apartment Jacob took a quick nap and I googled our next stop.

It was bout 3 p.m. and we still had some good daylight hours left so we were off to the Englischer Garten. This park is one of Europe’s largest urban parks. It is twice the size of Central Park. Before we headed into the park I was excited to see the Victory Gate or Siegestor. The gate was commissioned by King Ludwig I of Bavaria and was dedicated to the glory of the Bavarian army but now its seen as a symbol of peace. It was destroyed in World War II and partially rebuilt with a new inscription “Dedicated to victory, destroyed by war, urging peace.”

It was a bit drizzly so we bought some hot cocoa to enjoy while we walked around the park.

We have noticed that parks in Germany are very dog friendly. There are dogs running around everywhere having a good time. Here is a picture of the park!

While walking around in the park we found a building where they were selling bratwurst and decided to get one each. Once we were eating them, Jacob told me that this was on the list of things he wanted to do while in Germany. Eat a bratwurst in the park. Although he said he had hoped it would be sunnier. I was glad we stopped for snacks and they were delicious!

After the park we were not done yet. We headed back to the main Munich station to buy some goodies. We were so excited to see there was a Laderbach shop in the station. We had bought chocolates at this shop in Zermatt and were sad we hadn’t bought more. Since we had the chance, we loaded up on chocolates. Then we headed to a grocery store to buy a bunch of Milka chocolate and gummy bears. After purchasing an embarrassing amount of candy we were headed back to the apartment.

Time to relax and prepare for our flight.  See you tomorrow America!