Europe 2007 - Munich

Day 19 (cont): Arrive in Munich

Our flight from Rome arrived in Munich just before 11pm and we got our bags and rushed out of the airport as fast as possible to catch one of the last S-Bahn trains that would take us to our hotel in downtown Munich. Figuring out the payment machine for the S-Bahn was difficult so luckily a German couple that spoke English took pity on our blank faces and helped us buy our tickets. Leaving the train station we got a little lost walking to our hotel but we ran into a young American who was pretty buzzed and pointed us in the direction of all the beer gardens. That gave me the sense of direction I needed to get to our hotel. Exhausted from a long day we retired for the night.

Day 20: Wake up in Munich

We spoke with Shannon's parents whom we were meeting up with for the Germany portion of our trip and decided to go to Dachau concentration camp. We decided to visit it using a local tour company called Radius that offered a 5 hour tour. So we grabbed some food and headed off to the starting point at the Hauptbahnhof train station. The tour group was nice and small and the guide extremely knowledgeable on not only the camp, but also Hitler and the history of the Nazi movement. I'm glad we went to the camp but make no mistake it was not a fun time to walk around a place where so much evil took place. I could talk a ton about what we saw but I want to keep this tabblo on the fun side. So instead I'll just say what we saw really illustrated how brutal mankind can be and that hopefully memorials such as this will enable us to keep that from ever happening again.

After getting back to central Munich from our Dachau tour the girls decided to shop while Johnny and I decided to take in the best of Munich—the beer. We went to Weisses Brauhaus which is home of the Schneider Weisse which is the oldest wheat beer in existence! We both enjoyed a half liter of the oh so tasty beer before heading over to the Ratskeller for dinner. Of course the girls were a little late so we enjoyed some more of Munich's finest! When the girls finally came we enjoyed a wonderful tradition Bavarian meal with sausages, bratwurst, pork hock, sauerkraut, potatoes, and of course more beer. The place was huge but had a neat atmosphere to it and wonderful service!

After dinner we walked a few blocks over to the world famous Hofbrauhaus, a huge beer garden that holds over 4,500 people. It was built back in 1589 and has an amazing history behind it but most importantly it was a BLAST! All the tables are huge and so you are encouraged to sit down with strangers from all over the world and enjoy a tasty beer in a liter mug!

As you can see we had a great time and met new friends along the way! Including a couple of guys from Philly.

But we'll always remember our non-English speaking German table mate whom we called Gunter. He pretended not to like us (especially me) but I think deep down he liked our company. He drank his beer, wondered the hall, and talked to all of us like we could actually understand him. What a great night and as you can see not surprisingly Shan had some troubles back at the hotel elevator! :) Here is a short video of Gunter that I uploaded to YouTube.

Day 21: Wake up in Munich

Woke up and surprisingly felt great, no hangovers! The stories we heard of German beer not giving you a hangover because the beer purity standards proved to be true. I was expecting to wake up feeling like 2 bucks but instead felt like a million dollars! It's a good thing because today we decided to do the highly acclaimed Mike's Bike Tours. Shan's parents didn't join us as they decided to take the train over to check out Salzburg Austria instead.

The bike tour really opened our eyes up to the beauty of this city. Yesterday we saw a lot of the history on Munich but today we saw what makes Munich a great place to live today. You never feel congested here and at times it seems there are more bikes than cars. It's a very green city with lots of parks, including the English Garden which is larger than NYC's Central Park at 3.7 sq km.

The two pics to the left are memorials we saw on the bike tour. The far left is a memorial to the six University students from the anti-Nazi White Rose group who were executed by the Gestapo. The other pic is actually a piece of the Berlin Wall that fell in 1989.

That's me in the Eisbach river which is in the English Garden. The bike tour guide recommended we all strip to our undies and jump in. We just let the current take us downstream a bit, it was COLD but very fun!

While still on the bike tour we then stopped for lunch and beer at the Chinese Tower beer garden that's located in the English Garden. It's huge as it sits 7,000 people and on that day most of the seats were taken (it was a German holiday) and there was even an Ompa-band playing from the 2nd level of the tower. Great food and a neat setup...I loved it.

To the left are the last pics from the bike tour, yes we saw a lot and we like what we saw. I fell in love with the city of Munich while on this tour. I told Shan I wish I could take this city and place it in Florida. Of all the European cities we saw this is the one I'd want to live in!

After the tour we went back to sit down, read our books, and just relax on a grassy meadow in the English Gardens. It was an enjoyable break. After that we met Shan's parents for dinner at Weisses Brauhaus. Then, at my urging, we went back for one last liter of beer at Hofbrauhaus.

Day 22: Wake up in Munich

We had some time before taking the train to Weisbaden so we decided to head back to the English Gardens because Johnny & Marsha hadn't seen it yet! Plus to be honest we liked walking by the nudist meadow anyway! So we grabbed some lunch to go and walked to the Chinese Tower to picnic.

Before the garden we headed to the University of Munich to check out the monument for the White Rose students. They distributed leaflets against the Nazi movement and were caught and killed for doing so, but not before flinging them out from the top floor of a classroom. The monument shows those leaflets on the ground in a scattered fashion.