Munich: The Capital of Bavaria

We had taken the overnight train from Berlin. We're used to these by now and have somehow adapted to sleeping on them quite soundly. We arrived in the morning at about 6am. The train station was right next to the hostel (literally on the same block to be honest) which was great. We checked into the hostel and found out that there was breakfast being served at 7:30am. So we decided to hang around for a bit and have some breakfast before heading out. After some breakfast we decided to walk around Munich for a bit and familiarize ourself with the city. Up until this point we have been doing free walking tours provided by a company called 'New Europe'. These tours are very imformative and are great for knocking out a city's main attractions, learning about the history of the city and generally good for orientation purposes. We knew that this same company did a free walking tour around Munich and we also knew the meeting point, but we were not sure what time exactly it starts. Generally these tours start around 10am, so we decided to head down to Marienplatz which was the meeting point of the free walking tour. It turned out that the walking tour started at 11am. Marienplatz was this square with somewhat historical buildings around it including the Neues Rathaus, translating to the new town hall (which contains the Glockenspiel). At 11am, hordes of tourists gather around the square to witness the Glockenspiel chimes. To be perfectly honest, this was by the the most overrated attraction I have ever seen. This was further justified by our tour guide who claimed that it comes 2nd only to the astronomical clock in Prague, in terms of the most overrated attractions in the whole of Europe. From Marienplatz, the tour guide led us to Peterskirche, which is a 12th century church (the city's oldest parish church). We then encountered the Frauenkirche (Church of our Lady), one of Munich's most notable landmarks and a city emblem which has two giant onion-domed towers. From Munich, there was a tour available to goto the Dachau Concentration Camp. Dachau was apparently the first concentration camp ever established. We were tempted to go visit this one, however decided against it as we had already seen Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp when we were in Berlin and one moving experience was enough. During the tour, we did pass through various Holocaust Memorial sites. It was interesting to see the contrasting difference between how people from Berlin remembered the war and how people from Munich remembered the war. The Holocaust War Memorial in Berlin was massive and in the middle of the city center. Berliners had to walk pass it every day as opposed to the memorial sites in Munich, which were scattered away in various corners where hardly anyone wondered and were very small. It seems that Berlin wants people to remember what happened in the Holocaust more than Munich. The large memorial site will be noticed by everyone, not just people searching for the memorial site. What we found with Munich was that the only people that would notice these small memorial sites are those who actively seek it, thus these atrocities can be forgotten more easily, as opposed to Berlin where people are forced to walk through it in their day to day lives and are reminded of what happened each and every day. After the tour, we continued wondering around the city and then head back to the hostel to relax and warm ourselves up a bit. For dinner, we heard about a place that served a giant schnitzel, the so called 'Wiener Schnitzel'. This was a place that serves schnitzels the size of elephant ears. We had to try it. So we did, and it was amazing. You missed out. Quite possibly the most satisfying meal either of us has ever had. The schnitzel was literally the size of an elephant's ear. Under it were fries and combine that with some Augustiner Beer (a traditional type of Bavarian beer), it was amazing. I'm not even quite sure how we managed to finish it all, but we did. I know what you're probably thinking... 'enough about the stupid schnitzel already'. But no, I will not stop talking about this stupid schnitzel. Seriously guys, this schnitzel is worth moving to Munich for. It was GREAT. Okay so after that we head back to the hostel and went to sleep (and dreamt about the schnitzel ofcourse).

The next morning we woke up and had only one thing on our minds. Okay, maybe two if you count the schnitzel. That was the BMW Werlt (BMW World). This is the headquaters of the most incredible car company in the world... BMW. Both me and Chris are avid fans of BMW and we had to check it out. It was a bit of a mission to get there but a trip to the headquaters of Bavarian Motor Works is a must, especially if you're in Bavaria already. We saw a wide range of BMW vehicles whilst we were there including the BMW 2008 Formula 1 car which was by far the highlight. It had the latest range of BMW's and both me and Chris were in awe. We then decided to go take a look at the BMW museum which displayed the past, present and future BMW products. This included the 'Bubble Car' and some of the older classics. What was also interesting was the new techonology that the museum was displaying. We saw a car that was powered entirely by Hydrogen and produced no emissions whatsoever. It was powered by hydrogen and produced water. Just imagine if that technology gets implemented into every day vehicles! But that was no the most interesting thing was saw there. BMW have been developing something that is called the 'GINA Light'. It's sort of hard to explain what it is or how it works, but I suggest you google it up. It's a car, but its outer body can adjust to take the form of various things (I hope that makes sense, because it doesn't to me). Seriously, just google it up! After we were done with the BMW headquaters we headed back to the hostel and on the way stopped by for some... yes, you've guessed it... schnitzel! We were gearing ourselves up for the infamous Munich Pub Crawl, the so called 'Beer Challenge'. Now if you don't know, Munich is popular for its Beer Halls. These Beer Halls are giant. They can probably house thousands of people in one and no trip to Munich is complete without visiting the most famous Beer Hall of them all, the Hofbrauhaus! The pub crawl visits various beer halls and finishes off at a Bar. I won't go into TOO much detail about what happened during the Munich Pub Crawl, partly because I can't remember half the night. But it was the best night out we've had by far. One thing I do remember is that we ran into this American Jazz Orchestra group and met a whole lot of awesome people. One of the guys from this American Jazz Orchestra apparently lived in Sydney for 6 months. So we naturally, we asked where. He mentioned Kenthurst. So naturally we asked what school he went to. He said Hills Grammer School. We were like, hey... that's the same school as us! What a coincidence. Oh, another thing I recall is that we ordered this giant pretzel. This thing was huge, possibly bigger than the schnitzel! But overall, we had heaps of fun there and managed to get back to the hostel.

We woke up the next day with just one thing left to do in Munich. We had breakfast, checked out and then ventured out to the Neue Pinakotheken. A museum which holds a variety of famous artwork. The highlights being Vincent van Gogh's Sunflowers and Claude Monet's Waterlillies. Both paintings were indeed masterpieces and Monet's Waterlillies in particular has been a painting i've been wanting to see since high school. We had a train to catch in the afternoon so we finished up and were on the road again...

Until next time...

Rishi