The great thing about independent travel is you get to choose your own adventure.  The downside is, when something goes wrong, there’s only you for your wife to blame.

It’s summer in the northern hemisphere, so time for us to attempt another daring escape from the rigours of the harsh Australian winter (well – we had a frost a couple of weeks ago, which counts as doing it tough Down Under). As usual, we’re off to Canadia for ‘second summer’ with the family.  Less usual, we’re going the long way around, with a short stop in Europe on the way.

Our departure date is about four days away.  For some obscure reason, Nanette wants to double check all the stuff we booked way back in February.  Time for me to shine!  I know I have copies of all the booking details filed away in ‘the cloud’.  She’ll be so impressed!

I now realise that I may have missed a subtle cue in her opening statement.  “Before we do anything else, I want to have another look at that place you picked in Munich.”  Now, someone as experienced as me should have recognised the trap in “you picked”, but I didn’t.  “No worries. I have the booking details right here.  All confirmed.  Anything else?”

“Well, I’m still not convinced we should stay there.”  Ah, now I remember.  Back on that balmy February night when we did all those bookings online, there was some ‘robust debate’ about where we would lay our jet-lagged, weary heads in Munich.  Like those House Hunter TV shows, I wanted to be close to the attractions of Old Town – she, on the other hand, reckoned we could get better value for money out in the burbs.  We had both, I thought, finally seen the logic of being within walking distance of everything we wanted to see.

I courageously pull up the booking website and find our proposed domicile.  “See – it says it’s just a ten or fifteen-minute walk from the main train station.  We can catch a train in from the airport and then just toddle down to the hotel.”  “Hmm.  Have you forgotten about that time in Paris when you said it was only a few blocks from the metro to our hotel?”  Well, er, no, how could I ever forget dragging our luggage, for what seemed like hours, through the busy crowds of a strange city, in about a million-degree heat. “And what about that other time in Varenna when we walked right past the cab sitting outside the station.”  Again, I remember.  Dragging our bags up and down the steep cobbled streets of the little town was, well, character building.

I have one last card to play.  “But, the hotel in Munich is close to everything.”  Nanette then responds with her hidden Ace.  “Can you pull up the street view again.  From memory, the area around ‘your hotel’ didn’t look very nice.”  I oblige.  Ok, so it’s a bit ‘urban’ looking, but what do you expect so near to town.  “Why does that sign say ‘cabaret’?”  “Um, I think that’s German for coffee shop.”  She doesn’t look convinced.  “What do the reviews say?”  “Well, this one says, um, er, well it says the place was a bit noisy.”  “Scroll up.  I want to read the rest of it.”  “Um, er, ah.  Ok.  So it says the place was a bit noisy because the area has a lot of bars and … oh, ‘entertainment venues’.  Maybe we’ll find somewhere else.”

The good news is, since we first checked, prices for hotels in Munich have actually gone down.  We’re now booked in a much nicer place that’s not only opposite a park, but even closer to Old Town than our, sorry ‘my’, first choice.  Oh – and we now have a shuttle booked from the airport direct to the hotel.

Well, I’m just glad I decided we should recheck all the bookings before we left.

The area around ‘my’ hotel – not so nice

Dragging luggage in Paris in summer

Varenna’s streets weren’t made for rolling luggage

‘Our’ new hotel is in a much nicer spot