Munich

We took the train from Zurich to Munch and dropped off our luggage at the hostel, which was only a few streets away from the train station. This hostel was much better than the last one in Venice! We had a room with three bunk beds and the bathrooms were dorm-style, but they were clean. The beds had a cage underneath where you can lock up your stuff, but since we had our own room we didn’t have to worry about that. After checking in, we started our walking tour of Munich. We took a walk through the city and passed several pretty gardens, fountains, and some statues. Willow had fun chasing more pigeons. I don’t know why the blog is making my pictures that were oriented vertically all squishy and blurry. It wasn’t doing that before, but now they are all squished and blurry. Oh well, they still look fine on my phone/computer, it is just on the blog that they are weird looking. Sorry!

Our walk took us to the Munich Residenz palace, where we walked through the stunning rooms. This building was mostly destroyed in WWII, so almost nothing was original. Even so, the restorations were beautiful, and even though the furniture and rooms were all updated they still showed some beautiful craftsmanship. My favorite was the grotto, which was largely the original work and covered with shells, or at least holes where the shells should have been.

From here we walked to Hofbrauhaus, the iconic beer hall to get a beer. There was an band playing traditional music, and it was such a great experience sitting in a beer hall listing to the music. The kids even found some ‘beer’ to try (don’t worry, no real beer was involved).

The next stop was Marienplatz and the big clock. The town hall has a beautiful façade. We waited until the hour to hopefully hear the giant clock play its song, but I think it only plays at certain hours because there were a bunch of people standing around staring at the clock for nothing to happen.

There was just enough time to go into a few churches. Our first stop was St. Peter’s Church, which was a beautiful white and gold church.

The next church was St. Michael’s Church which was also white and gold. I think I like these churches with the lighter white/pink/gold colors better than the dark churches we mostly found in Italy.

We reached the Viktualienmarkt, a large marked with lots of different vendor stalls, just as it was starting to close. There were stalls with fruits and vegetables, lots of different kinds of meats, cheeses, and pates, handmade wooden goods, flowers, and of course, souvenirs. Willow even found a purple car that is just her size!

We walked a little past our hostel to go to the ----- restaurant and biergarten, where we had dinner and of course beer! The beer comes in giant 1-liter glasses, which are really heavy. My mom and I shared a sampler plate of different meats and cheeses, which was interesting. This place is huge, with a self-service area, an outside table service area (where we sat), a terrace, and an inside. The kids shared a half a duck, which we told them was chicken. It came with some red cabbage, which of course the kids did not eat.

Although we only got to be in Munich for half a day, I really liked it. There were lots of bicycles, and we had to keep a close eye on the kids because the cyclists were not stopping for anything! On the sidewalks there were walking lanes and biking lanes, but in the crosswalks especially the bikes didn’t stay in the biking lane. I think if I lived here I would visit way too many biergartens!