My 10-hour Munich layover followed a 7 1/2 hour flight from Toronto where I had My 12-Hour Toronto Layover. Planning for my 10-hour layover in Munich was more difficult because I had no idea what my energy level would be. Would I sleep on the airplane? Would my feet be dead from the previous day?

After exploring Toronto, I boarded the airplane ready to sleep. And I did sleep. Kind of.

My 10-Hour Munich Layover

So I, of course, still came up with a few things that I definitely wanted to do while in Germany. For me, if I’m tired, I need to already have some sort of plan in place or I’ll not do anything because it takes too much energy.

My Two Things

1. Marienplatz Glockenspiel
2. Rischart (a restaurant)

Anything else accomplished would just be icing on the cake. 🙂

Munich Transportation

I opted to take the train (S-bahn) from the airport to Marienplatz, and the S8 is the one that you want.

If you’ve been around this website for a while, then you know that I used to live in Austria. Being back in a German-speaking country thrilled me. It was a type of coming home.

Marienplatz

In the heart of Munich, the Rathaus-Glockenspiel is a main tourist attraction, and when you take the S-bahn to Marienplatz, you exit right up into the square in front of the Rathaus and it doesn’t take long to figure out what you should be looking at.

I wandered around the area for a while, and I found this fountain where people were dipping their wallets. A huge crowd of people dunked their wallets in the fountain, and I still have no idea why. But I’m guessing it has to do with some sort of hope for wealth and luck.

Visit A Catholic Church

I love ducking into the Catholic churches in Europe. If you stand on the corner of a street and look every direction, it’s likely you’ll see a church. But, every church is insanely detailed and lovely.

Therefore, when this church peeked at me over a wall of scaffolding, I knew I had to dip inside.

And I wasn’t disappointed. Heaving the solid wood door open and stepping onto the stone floor, I entered the quiet space. Whispers bounced off pillars and cool air circled my neck. But what always draws me most is the place for prayer candles.

I’m not Catholic and maybe it’s not okay for me to light a candle and say a prayer, but I always like to. And so today, I lit two candles.

Eating at Rischart

In Germany as well as Austria, when you walk into a restaurant, it’s the norm to seat yourself. However, if you make eye contact with a waiter, they’ll sometimes direct you to an open table. This cultural etiquette was one that took me a while to adjust to because I used to be a hostess at an restaurant in America.

At Rischart, I was so proud of myself for recalling enough German to not only read the menu but to also order in German. In fact, my waitress didn’t switch to English, which is a huge deal. Most of the time, Germans will switch to English as soon as you try to speak German.

As I sat at Rischart, I didn’t know what else to do with my many hours still in Munich, but as I looked out a window, I noticed that people walked around a church clock tour above me.

I would climb it.

Climbing St. Peter’s Church tower

I didn’t realize how tall the tower was until I started climbing…and still climbing…and then I started regretting that I carried my backpack during this layover…and I was still climbing…passed some people as they came down…they told me I still had a while to go.

Let’s just say I was breathing heavy…

And not dying.

But you know, the view and the video was totally worth it.

Searching for Postcards and Stamps

When I was growing, a friend of my family traveled a lot of the world. At each new destination, that friend sent us a postcard. I look back at that, and I know that those postcards opened up the world to me in a way that I never thought I’d experience.

All that to say was that I decided I wanted to send a few postcards.

1. Don’t be ashamed of asking for directions.
2. Keep asking.
3. Write the postcards and mail them before you go back to the airport.

Foot sore and yet successful, I decided to take my stamps and my postcards back to the comfort of the Munich airport so I could write and mail them.

Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that I couldn’t mail them until I had only two hours until my flight. Apparently, the Munich airport decreed that mailing anything from the airport is not secure. No Munich airport employee may mail for you either at the risk of losing their job.

I was sad to say the least.

Shower at the Airport

Never have I ever showered at the airport until my layover in Munich. I chose to because after two full days of sight seeing and one long flight, I needed to clean up before I boarded my 11-hour flight to South Africa.

I expected a shower stall, but I received a giant shower room.

So do you see that weird green screen up there? Yeah, somehow that was the locking mechanism for the door, and it also opened the door. I’m still not totally certain the door was locked while I was in there, but it took me so long to figure it out…that I hoped it would take someone else that long too!

cost: I can’t remember, but it was around 30 euros. However, you got back most of it when you returned the shower key.

level of difficulty: easy except that weird door lock

Showering made me feel like a new human, especially since I had one more flight to go. An 11-hour one…

And that’s it, folks, for Munich.

In other news, I almost cried twice while I was in the airport waiting to board my final flight…I was so tired. And I couldn’t mail my postcards. And they’d just closed the kitchen for the restaurants. Traveling is great, but sometimes solo travel is hard.

What Do You Love in Munich?