Layover in Munich

For our five-year anniversary, Sandy and I spent a week in beautiful Croatia.  We left on Saturday, September 17, our actual anniversary.  Unfortunately, we spent it in the airport.  From RDU, we flew to Washington Dulles and took an overnight flight to Munich.  We arrived in Munich at around 8 AM local time and didn’t fly out to Split until late afternoon.  With such a long layover and the start of Oktoberfest, we decided to leave the airport for a bit.  Knowing it would be a bit crazy in Munich, we took the 635 bus from the airport to Freising, a smaller town very close to the airport.

There was a light rain, but we enjoyed walking around this cute little German town. The little town had a lovely European small-town feel.  We walked part the St. George's Church to Marienplatz, a little square in the center of town.

They were setting up for a festival, so we decided to come back in a little while.  Next, we walked a nice little stretch of trail following a canal along the edge of the town.

It was Sunday, so many places were closed, but we did some window shopping walking by.  Then we headed back to Marienplatz where the Hops Fest was getting underway.  We got some lunch from the street vendors and ate that while watching dancers on stage with traditional polka music.

And of course, being a Hops Fest, we had to get some good German beer, since we didn't make it all the way into Munich for Oktoberfest.  Sandy picked up a couple airplane bottles of some delicious liquors from one of the vendors.

After lunch and some drinks, we headed back to the bus station and took the bus back to the airport and waited for our flight to Split.  Although there was some rain and storms, our flights were on time.  In Split, we caught a taxi from the airport to the Riva and made the short walk to our hotel – Kastel B&B Split.  The rain managed to hold off until we had checked in, but then there was quite a storm.  We were tired and jetlagged, so went to sleep shortly after checking in.

Minnehaha Falls

Saturday morning, we finished packing and left the house around 730. We dropped Betsy, Laura, and Steve off at Glacier International Airport and then drove to Missoula. After clearing security, I got a huckleberry scone for a snack before boarding the plane. It would be my last time eating huckleberries for a while. Our first flight to Minneapolis was on time and our layover was 3 hours. I didn’t want to just hang out in the airport, so Sandy and I got a taxi and went to Minnehaha Regional Park, part of Mississippi National River & Recreation Area to get one last waterfall. The taxi dropped us off in the park about a mile from Minnehaha Falls.

We hiked quickly and got a couple of pictures of this impressive waterfall before hiking back quickly.

It’s a very nice 50-foot waterfall, especially given its proximity to a major airport. Definitely worth a detour if you have a layover in Minneapolis.

The cab driver had given us his card, so we called him and he picked us right back up and brought us back to the airport. Altogether, it took about an hour and half to get back to our gate, more than enough time for dinner and couple drinks at the airport before it was time to board the plane. A couple of people I talked to on the plane thought I was a little crazy for leaving the airport to get one more waterfall, but there was more than enough time and it made for an interesting story. We got back to RDU at about 11.