A few years ago I decided to visit the annual flea market in Munich. It's the largest flea market in Europe and occupies the same site as octoberfest.
When I go abroad, its usually to Normandy. I drive off the ferry in Calais and turn right, go through the town to pick up a few supplies and drive across the top of France to my destination. Well this time I turned left. As soon as I drove off the ferry, this holiday was different.
I drove down the side of France, taking in a few flea markets on the way down, stopping in Luxembourg for the night. Walking over the bridge from our hotel into the main part of the city, we quickly realised we were walking among the government buildings. These were a bunch of large houses basically, with polished bronze plaques on the side of the door saying things like “Ministry of Finance”, “Ministry of Justice” etc. I was amazed that I could walk freely around them. In London, if you try walking into Whitehall or Downing Street without the right security pass and the best you can hope for is a taser. You could easily get shot.
The next morning I drove into Munich and had a sneak peak of what the stall holders were selling as they were setting up. Our hotel was directly in front of the flea market and I could already see the typical German precision in the layout of the stalls. Perfectly straight lines, with an intersection every 10 stalls. No one was allowed to sell anything though as the flea market didn't open until the next day.
Using my Fitbit and a GPS tracker, I mapped out my walk the following day. Over 18 kilometers, taking me more than 10 hours to complete, I walked every single stall of that market, stopping for lunch halfway through.
I spent the entire next day in bed. An 18k walk isn't that bad, but an 18k walk, looking at everything for sale, communicating in a foreign language and running my purchases back to the car when they got too heavy to carry takes its toll.
We spent the next 3 nights in a hotel in the mountains of Lichtenstein. It was stunning. Going into the shopping district, I couldn't believe how clean everything was. I didn't see a single piece of litter anywhere. I swear the pavements were so clean I could eat off them. It's such a rich country that when I wanted some cash to leave a tip in the restaurant we were about to eat at, I tried several ATM machines and discovered they only gave out money in denominations of 500.
We did Switzerland on the way back, visiting a diamond museum and buying some jewellery while we were there. We went to Austria next (we did this bit the wrong way round - we meant to do the opposite) and had a small shopping trip in a very nice small town near the border.
On the way back we drove several hundred kilometers through Germany, before hopping back into France for another couple of weekend flea markets on the way up. Driving into Belgium for another diamond museum and more shopping on the last day.
I always book the last ferry of the evening for my return journeys so we had a leisurely day in the Belgian markets before driving a couple of hours back to Calais and going home.
3000 kilometers in just over a week and a metric buttload of cash later, and I can't remember a single thing I bought except one piece of jewelry for my wife and a bottle of wine we saved for our anniversary last year.
I'd do it again tomorrow if I had the chance