Garda to Munich via Austria.

Last night's passeggiata was good to watch, all ages out to impress, the music however was not so good, firstly a rock band who started with a thirty minute jam session but playing the same melody/riff repeatedly and the second act in a different venue was a single guitarist with a good voice and interesting catalogue of songs by Neil Young, America, Dylan etc his problem was he couldn't play the guitar. We left Garda at 8:30 and headed north into the Alps, parts of the trip were quite boring going through long tunnels full of exhaust fumes but as we turned off for the Stelvio Pass things improved, some of the tunnels were original with no room for two cars to pass and there were even waterfalls in a couple of them and in some of the galleries. The climb up to the top of the pass was very twisty and the way down was even better. I was going to stop for a bratty at the top but there was no parking space, it must be mad in summer. I was amazed at the number of cyclists who go up, I can see the fun in coming down and you could see the fixed grins on the cyclists faces as they hated down the mountain. There was a big difference across the border in Austria, it seemed cleaner and more ordered and the road surface was a huge improvement on the Italian potholes. I stopped at the first Austrian services for lunch, it was like a five star hotel, immaculately clean and everything in its place, staff dressed in traditional dirndl though thank god there were no lederhosen on view. I went for the huge serving of gulashsuppe, that definitely killed the hunger pangs. Nine hours after leaving Garda I found my hotel in Munich. The hotel car park is a new style to me, I drove down into the basement where a receptionist directed me through a sliding gate onto a metal plinth, when I locked the car and walked out of the gate she pressed a button and the car descended into a sub basement, like something out of James Bond. Munich looks well worth a visit, this will go on my city break list. I did go for a walk down to the centre and down by the river, the public transport system seems very good, lots of trams and busses and a large underground besides all that everyone else uses bikes on proper bike paths, I wonder if the do cycle hire like Boris's bikes.