3 Days and 5 Biergartens

So I have to say right away that Munich and Bavaria in Southern Germany have to be on the short list of my favorite places to travel. After two trips there I can not find a bad thing to say about the region. The people the, the sites, the food, the beer, and the whole atmosphere is extremely enveloping. Everything is very well maintained, clean, and orderly. All of the people are friendly in the extreme, and proud, they are more then willing to tell you the best places to go, how to get there, and the history behind it. I think is due to the fantastic history of the region. This is the place of dreams. The Kings for several generations build fantastic castles and explored nature and culture. The most famous of these is of course Neuschwanstein, the very castle that Disney land was modeled after. So it should come as no surprise that RG and I thoroughly enjoyed our weekend there.

We both arrived Thursday night at the airport north of Munich. After a bit of a struggle trying to figure out how to purchase a S-Bahn (light rail basically) ticket – my German isn’t so good and the English signs weren’t very instructive – we headed into town. We stayed at the Marriott Courtyard two blocks south of the main train station. As our flights were later in the evening and the train ride is 45 min we didn’t get into the room until around midnight so we pretty much crashed right way. Then next day I worked the first part of the morning then we went out to see the town. We got lunch at a great little café in the middle of a park. We couldn’t read the menu, and even though the waitress could speak English, we just ordered blind and wished for the best! It turned out well though. The meal was great. The amusing thing though was that this was a café frequented by local business professionals and as this is Germany they all ordered beer with their lunches. I was un-phased by this but RG was in utter and complete shock. It took her several minutes for the idea to settle (mostly because it was still prior to noon and people were drinking). I tried to explain that this was Bavaria and people start having beer for morning snack.

The rest of the day we saw the sites Glockenspiel, the twin domes of the Frauenkirche, the Königsplatz, and Beirgarten(1) in the main market along with a couple hour break in the afternoon so I could take some conference calls and RG could take a nap (we both liked this arrangement). After the napping/working was finished we decided to walk to the English Gardens, find the China Tower, and have a beer at the biggest biergarten(2) in town (4000+ seating). This part of the plan went well through dinner. I tried to order beer in German, miserably, even though the sever knew English just fine and we ate sausage, pretzels, and kraut. However around 9 in the evening mother nature decided to have little fun with us and the dark storm clouds rolled in. We were probably 3 ½ miles from the hotel and the park have very confusing paths. So without umbrellas and in the dark we tried to find our way out of the park. After 40 minutes we did emerge from the park, soaking wet, not really knowing where we were. But lucky for us there was a Hilton close by with a line of taxis (tip: when lost find a major hotel there are always taxis, bath rooms, and a dry place to wait out the rain).

The next day our plan was to meet up with some family friends at the end of the train line to the south. RDtl had flown in Arizona with my dad and lives just outside of Munich, he and his family were very nice and took us out for the day. We arrived at the train station about 10 in the morning. RDtl stop by his house to pick up his daughter and he drove us out to Neuschwanstein. RG and I did the tour while RDtl and daughter went to a Roman bath nearby to soak in some salt water. He doesn’t like to go into castles as his parents had drug him through so many when he was young. This was my second trip to the Castle and it was just as amazing as the first. I thin that RG was totally amazed. It is too bad that it was never finished. After this tour we drove through the mountains stopping at another castle briefly and then taking a walk through a town famous for creating wood carvings and crafts. Most of the stores were closed and biergarten(3) we were told was not a true biergarten so after ½ hour of stretching our legs and taking in the beauty of the town and the Alps we were off again. We then visited at RDtl’s house for a while then went to dinner at a great restaurant, which if it was summer also had another good biergarten(4) we could have enjoyed.

The next day we met up with RDtl’s son LDtl. He is a student at one of the universities in Munich studying engineering. He went with us to see the newly opened BMW world, next to the BMW factory and world headquarters. It is a large strangely shaped aluminum building that houses exhibitions of BMW technology, concept cars, and current line up. It was worth the walk through, especially since it is free. We didn’t due the museum because it is closed on Sunday. Adjacent to the BMW campus is the site of the Munich Olympics. A wonderful park that is open to the public and were people still play sports in the pavilions or swim in the pool. There are tall hills with views of the whole city, and walks for miles. At the top of one of these hills is one of LDtl’s favorite biergartens(5). So of course we spent an hour soaking in the warm spring sun, listening to some strange, semi-German/Austrian music, and drinking tall beers. It was a great relaxing, lazy afternoon. Later we did go to see one more site before collecting our luggage and heading to the airport but that is a story that must wait for a post of its own.