Oh, what can I say about Munich except the beer is great and the pretzels are HUGE.
We have an office there so I was able to schedule some meetings for late in the week and have Bryan meet me on Friday for some super good times. We stayed outside of the city so our mode of transport to the center was the U2. I asked Bryan if that’s how the band got its name and he was sure it was not. We still haven’t looked into that one.
Saturday morning we got up nice and early and headed on down to the center. It was raining so we decided to hop on a double decker and tour the city. Here are some of our shots from the bus. I took the pictures so you’ll see lots of raindrops on them since I didn’t really try to find a spot out the window that was dry.
Just so you get the general idea of the city. There were a lot of cranes around so many of our pictures didn't turn out so great.
Another festive street.
Angel of Peace statue: This monument commemorates the twenty-five years of peace that followed the war of 1870-71. Exciting, isn't it? Some bride and groom were taking pictures at the bottom of the statue. Bryan really wanted to stop and congratulate them but the bus driver wouldn't have any of that.
This is the building where Hitler used to conduct his business. It's flowery now...some exhibit.
Here's another view. Bryan was surprised at how openly the tour guide talked about Hitler.
After this, we walked around the pedestrian area and discovered the center of Munich.
Clocktower in the middle of Marienplatz. The Marienplatz is the heart of the city of Munich. In the Middle Ages, the square used to be a market place as well as the place where tournaments and festivities took place. Don't ask me what kind of tournaments. I'm sure we'd rather not know.
We don't know who this is.
Nice square in the middle of town, big pretzels sold here - and small ones too. This is where you find the maypole.
The Viktualienmarkt, a huge open air market, has a maypole at the center advertising the six major Munich breweries: Paulaner, Spaten, Augustiner, Hacker-Pschorr, Löwenbräu and Hofbräu. I went to three of those in my four days there. Sadly, Bryan only went to two.
Contemplating why Munich chose the lion over the teddy bear.
We decided then to hit the ultra-famous Hofbräuhaus. Some historical brewhouse started by Wilhelm V, the Duke of Munich back in 1589. This guy just wanted a better way to get beer whenever he wanted. I had been there with coworkers one night during the week since that’s a place all tourists must go when visiting the city. The experience was grand, complete with hotty mädchens in German costumes. I tried to get a picture, but it turned out blurry. Here are some other scenes from our experience there.
Here's the outside. There's a garden in back, but we opted for the inside since it was raining.
This one's blurry, but it gives you an idea of the atmosphere.
Here's the band. They work hard to entertain us tourists.
The regulars lock up their precious steins so that they don't have to lug them around everywhere.
Yeah, it was a cool beer hall.
We did see War of the Worlds while we were there too, all in English and no subtitles. Again, assigned seating, but we paid the Euro extra a piece to sit in the balcony, which was nicer and we didn’t have to sit next to anyone. Pretty much all Americans and Brits in that movie theater, but quite a nice time for us.
We hit the Löwenbrau beer garden after that. I had a radler – half lemonade/half beer. The beers in these gardens are sold by the Maas – one liter. We tried to get smaller, but you can only do that after 8pm or something. Didn’t quite understand that rule, but as we learned in Germany, rules aren’t meant to be broken.
