Munich, Darcee becomes a teenager and eating snails!

We arrived at our final stop in Europe on the 27th December - Munich. After over a week in the country we were back in the REALLY BIG smoke! The drive from Neuendettelsau was uneventful apart from a 20km traffic jam caused by an accident in the fast lane on the autobahn. Thankfully it looked less serious than it sounds and we arrived at our hotel (only the second hotel stay in 5 weeks) close to the expected arrival time.

This stop was planned to allow us time to get ready for Africa and to get rid of all the food, cleaning and other stuff we've been carting from apartment to apartment since Paris! The hotel is adjacent to the Nyphmberger Palace and is owned by some very accommodating young people.

Our first night in Munich we enjoyed a sensational Vietnamese meal just up the street followed by Magnums from the local supermarket! Just what you want on a lovely stroll home in -1 degrees!

Today was Darcee's 13th birthday and so we presented her with a load of options of how to spend the day. She chose to head to the cinema after a late breakfast where we watched Catching Fire (in English) and then enjoyed cake and coffee and tried to embarrass her by singing happy birthday as many times as possible! Just as well we don't live in Germany - those cakes would do us in!

As we tried to walk off the cakes we swung past the palace and made a booking at the French restaurant 100 metres from our hotel to celebrate Darcee's birthday.

This pond was frozen and so the sea gulls can walk on water!

Our European adventure began in Paris and so it was fitting that our final dinner in Europe was in a French restaurant which Darcee chose for her birthday dinner - and it was possibly the BEST dinner we've had since being in Europe!

The girls had been determined to try snails and so tonight we did! While I would perhaps hesitate to call them delicious, they were certainly very pleasant and I wouldn't hesitate to have them again.

The other meals were definitely delicious with salmon, pork and beef being ordered for mains, chocolate mousse (actually a soufflé was ordered but that's another story) and creme brûlées for dessert.

The salmon dish which Georgia and Darcee enjoyed.

We spent tonight reminiscing on the past few weeks, taking the mickey out of each other and just enjoying being a family without a million other things to distract us. The meal was topped off with a complimentary cognac from the owner of the restaurant and a short walk home where we kissed the girls good night (both teenagers now!), checked in for our flights to Dubai and then to Nairobi tomorrow, and started to get ready to leave Europe.

The last 5 weeks have flown by and provided us with such a wonderful opportunity to forge unforgettable memories together as a family. We are immensely grateful for this very privileged time together and look forward to sharing it more with those of you who can put up with more stories and photos once we return. Tomorrow marks the beginning of the next leg of the adventure as we make our way toward Africa. We don't leave till after 9pm tomorrow so we're planning to pack up and drive south to the alps to at least throw a little bit of snow at each other before we leave Europe for the heat!

Thanks for sharing our journey with us thus far....