Intrepid,

:-)) what were you selling then? And I would certainly love to know how the hotel reacted, when you were drawing all those customers to your room...!

BTW: In order to get to the Hauptbahnhof just walk "immer geradeaus"!

I see someone has also inquired about the Hotel Eingang. Thats rather out of my price range, and I prefer to stay at the Pensione Ausgang. The Eingang serves lots of fruhstuck for breakfast, whereas the Ausgang serves just a little. I suppose you get what you pay for.

I thought that the Hauptbahnhof area of Lutenblag was somewhat superior to the rest of the city.

((I))

How about all those German towns named Umleitung? How do they differentiate among them? Must have seen at least a dozen of them in Bavaria a couple of years ago.

The quetion is: are there more towns called Umleitung or Ausfahrt?
And I bet there are even more towns called Exit in the US!

And who was that Einbahn dude, anyway? He has a street in every city named for him!

LOL! This reminds me of a trip I took with a friend who had never been to Europe before. As we were driving out of Munich and through Austria she said "Wow! That Ausfahrt town must be really big because there are soooo many exits to get to it!"

I almost had to pull over, I was laughing so hard.

Calling Jenn906! Hellooooo out there! Were you purposefully trying to draw out all these snide (and oh so funny) replies? It would really help if you cleared up what city you are referring to. You might receive some useful information.

Tschus!

Ok, sorry for not clearing up WHERE I meant...MUNICH. I'm having trouble with this site loading for some reason and had posted that before my previous post, but that one didnt show up. For some reason, I'm getting lots of error messages for the pages loading today too. Is anyone else having this trouble?

Back to topic, I didnt realize at the time of my original post that Hauptbahnof was common. But, I'm here to learn....

And no I wasn't trying to draw out snide responses, but they are funny. I can take it. My ignorance was showing, at least it wasnt my panties!

While in Munich last June, my husband and our two teens walked to and from the Hauptbahnoff several times of the day. The seedy sex shops do attract a more funky crowd, and I wasn't wild about walking through late at night, but Munich seems so safe in general. I certainly wouldn't have walked through alone or wanted my daughter and son to be on their own on that street.

Having said that, we loved the Hotel Uhland, just about 10 minutes' walk from the train station. It's an old renovated mansion, on a beautiful tree-lined street, in a quiet neighborhood across from the Oktoberfest park. Great large room for our family of four, new bathroom, wonderful breakfast buffet, free bikes to borrow, very friendly staff, very good value. Several nice restaurants within walking distance. We walked at all hours of the night and never felt unsafe.

Hi Jenn,

In all seriousness, the area around the Hauptbahnhof in Munich is a perfectly safe place to stay. It is quite central to many things and it makes it very easy to get around the city when you are staying right near the main train station.

I don't know if you are a beer drinker but one of my favorite beer gardens in Munich is only about 1k away!

I have stayed at the Hotel Helvetia a couple of times. They have some rooms with toilet ensuite and others with a shared bath. They serve a nice breakfast in the morning as well.

Hi Eurotraveler,

Thanks for the info. We were having second thoughts on the area. If we got bad reports, we wanted to change reservations now instead of finding out when we got there.

What is the name of the beer garden you're referring to? We plan to try a few, ok lots.... I'm not a beer drinker, but I'll give it a shot for this trip ;o)

Thanks everyone for the input.

This area really is ok! My best friend and I wandered around at all hours of the day and well into the night and NEVER felt we were in danger.

One of my favorite beer gardens in Augustiner. You sit under a canopy of trees and enjoy the people watching while drinking huge steins of beer. Another is the Chinese Pagoda in the Englishcher Garten. You must order the radish!

I haven't stayed at a hotel around the main station in Munich, but I have been there quite a few times in the last 5 years.

I don't think the downtown section will give you any worries.

I usually stay at a hotel in Schwabing because I prefer the area and it is close to our friends' apartment.

I have also stayed Schwabing near the university and it is a great place to stay. No matter where you stay it is easy and inexpensive to get around on public transport.

Jenn--glad you're such a good sport. Everyone was ignorant about this stuff at some point. The only problem is if one stays that way.

Rufus, it can't bother me. I'm planning a vacation, I could have worse problems in life to deal with, right? You have to be able to laugh at yourself.

Now that I know we're in Munich, I too recommend Le Meridien. We got a wonderful price there by booking direct way ahead. I especially liked arriving and departing by train and wheeling our luggage under the street and taking an escalator up to the street practically at our hotel's front door.

Having been to Munich before but always taking the metro to and from the train station, this time I was shocked how close the walk is to the historic center. I thought it was much further.

My travel agent booked us into the Maritim, about 5 minutes from the station. The room was ample, but not as clean as I might have hoped. The beds weren't dirty, but the walls were - you could see the track on the wall where the air came out of the air conditioner.

We got a double for &euro;138 and a triple for &euro;158. Very disappointing and <u>not recommended</u>.