Paula Maia's Wine blog

Stepping off the train from Vienna felt just like coming home. I love Munich for many reasons beyond my understanding. Maybe those deep roots do have an influence after all. My great grand-father was German and my great grand-mother was Austrian or Hungarian- or both. I, on the other hand, never had any interest in Germany until I met my husband, who’s German.

I don’t know if it’s the beer, the wine, or the Schnitzel that gets me, or if it’s something about their obsessive methodology, efficiency and perfectionism that draws me to it. Perhaps it’s all those wursts, all that green and all those fancy cars, but there’s definitely something about Munich that feels so homey. I love to walk around the historical city center, to stroll through the Englischer Garten and to simply wait and count the seconds until the bus arrives at the exact scheduled time.

From the Hauptbahnhof we walked to Hofbraukeller at Wiener Platz, where we had a Schnitzel of course, in their Biergarten near the Gasteig- Munich’s Philarmonic. It was the perfect way to end the trip and prepare myself psychologically to go to my real home in New York. Actually, the trip really ended at the airport, where I enjoyed a Currywurst with a Weissbier at the Airbräu- the next closest thing to heaven.

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Breakfast in Italy, lunch in Austria, dinner in Germany, oh the good life I have! Besides the natural anatomy of those countries, and the fact that if you drive from Germany to Italy you must cross Austria, it still sounds utterly decadent to be in three countries in one day.

Also in the Alps and surrounded by three very high mountains, Innsbruck is an international winter sports destination. In 1964 and in 1976, Innsbruck hosted the Winter Olympics and the First Winter Youth Olympics of 2012 is being held in Innsbruck as well.

Believe it or not, the day we were there they were having a festival that happens only every 20 years. We beat the odds of this all-weekend drink and dance fest that had most residents celebrating in traditional costumes. After checking out the altstadt we stopped at Stiftskeller for a Wiener Schnitzel and a Gruner Veltliner. By 10 o’clock we were back in Munich having- you guessed- another Schnitzel, this time with an Augustiner-Braeu.

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