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So we were in the beautifully charming city of Munich, meeting up with our California friends and off to take in the Bavarian city. WARNING - there are a LOT of pictures on this post, it may take a while to load and some of the photos might actually be creative! Proceed with caution!
If you haven't ever visited Munich I would highly suggest giving it a try. It is an amazingly easy city to navigate with year-long reveling going on making it a lot of fun but with enough museums, shopping and nearby castles to have a little something for everyone.
We woke up in time to make the "included" breakfast at our hotel, Hotel Alfa, which was more than sufficient to give us an energetic start to our day. We had decided we would spend the day touring about the city and caught the subway to the Marienplatz stop.
For first timers the square is pretty impressive, especially if you come out of the subway into the center of the Marienplatz.
The Glockenspiel, otherwise known as the "new town hall", looms majestically across the busy square that seems to fill up with tourists in time for the on of the daily "shows".
Keith gave us the quick Rick Steve's overview of the history of the square and the basic what? and why? on the Glockenspiel.
In a nutshell, for you armchair travelers, the Glockenspiel is a HUGE tourist attraction that works pretty much like a giant cuckoo clock that performs several times a day.
The story played out by the clock is twofold; coopers dance around, celebrating the end of the plague of 1517 and later knights on horses re-enact a joust that was done for a royal wedding in 1568.
Amazingly every day the square fills up in time for the several shows and even more amazing is that people wait through it until the very end! It is cute and quaint, but after a couple of minutes you get the general idea and ... well ... see for yourself:
This is just a side view of the square, still filled with people watching the Glockenspiel.
...and these are the happy tourists out enjoying the strangely warm day in Munich.
While we were standing around we were approached by a couple people who were offering bike tours of the city. It was such a gorgeous day out (it had been REALLY cold the day before) it was almost unimaginable to be out on a bike cruising around the city. Mike's Bike Tours I already had read about and had a good reputation but Discover Munich was even more tempting because it was FREE!
Before we could decide on the bike tour we needed to get a little more sightseeing out of the way and of course our little Claire needed to visit two of the catholic churches in town.
First up was Frauenkirche, Cathedral Church of Our Lady, one of Munich's largest churches.
This church looms above most of the skyline and the onion dome towers date back to 1525. The inside is immense, the ceiling looms above and the painted frescoes seem so far above everything else.
The church altar was beautifully decorated with festive Easter decorations and looked even larger in perspective with the priests standing in front of it.
This trip I had brought along my Canon camera that I tend to use when I want to be a bit more "creative". Here are some of the shots I took inside Frauenkirche with the Canon...
In 1945, during the war, the church was heavily bombed and only a shell remained.
The church was restored by using as much of its own rubble as was salvageable.
Claire, with a little bit of urging, went in for an extreme close-up with the Pope.
Another interesting fact, when standing from the back, looking up towards the altar, the church seems to have no windows. Legend has it that the devil, standing at the entrance to the church, stamped his foot in "glee" at the stupidity of the architect who forgot the windows and left a blackened footmark on the floor.
Our little group huddled together in various parts of the church while Keith read to us the history and facts from our guide book which were really interesting. The one thing I enjoy about traveling is the constant living history lesson. 
Of course no church is complete without pigeons milling around in front of it, this one was no exception.
Outside of the church, set into the actual foundation walls, were some interesting plaques of which I have no idea of the origin. but were very striking.
On our way back to the Marienplatz area I spotted a very special store, the store where my wedding ring was born!
I'm lucky enough to have a tension setting design by Niessing. As the story goes, I spotted the ring on the year anniversary of our first date. I mentioned to Keith that someday, when I get married, to whomever I get married to, that would be the ring for me. Seven years later he still remembered that comment and popped the question with the Niessing ring I had always dreamed about! Sappy, but true.
After watching the weather reports for weeks, we all were in disbelief of the warm day we were experiencing but we certainly weren't complaining. Everyone was sitting outside of the bars and restaurants taking advantage of the gorgeous day.
Next up, church number two, St. Peters, Munich's oldest church, known as "Peterskirche".
There was a service going on as we stepped inside and we were asked to remain in the back of the church and not take photos until it was finished so we waited in the back of the church until it was done.
The inside of the church is very grand; baroque in style and impressive if not a bit over the top. I preferred the simpler patterns in the church...
We let Claire pay her respects and then headed back out again into the beautiful warm sunshine and the lovely Bavarian atmosphere of Munich.
We decided that it was just too lovely outside to not take advantage of a free bike tour and walked over to the fish fountain in the Marienplatz to meet up with the rest of the group.
I don't usually feel old but looking around at the other 30 people going on the bike tour with us, I REALLY felt old. I think the average age was 21. Both Claire and I were a little worried that it was going to be just a "brews cruise" and not much of a tour and of course Mike and Keith were game for anything. Claire and I decided to suck it up and go along for the ride!
We were given a small briefing on the importance of not actually ruining the bicycles and then a good 10 minute talk on the history of the Marienplatz before being led out of the square and past an open market to retrieve the bicycles for the tour.
Again, another big briefing on using the bikes and a LOT of urging to treat the bikes nicely, or else! As much as they were making it a "party" atmosphere, it was obvious they wanted us to be somewhat organized and return everything in one piece.
Our very own Mike was chosen to fill in for a VERY important position, ass man.
Nope, I didn't stutter, Mike was now to be known and respected as "ass-man-Mike", the guy brining up the back and making sure everyone was ahead and accounted for!
Here are our two big and badass bikers, Keith and Mike, gettin' ready to pop some wheelies and take numbers!
Miss Claire was just looking cute and getting the seat to go as low as possible!
We started off in a single file line riding first through the streets and then into a pedestrian zone.
It was pretty challenging to try to keep your place in line, watch out for tourists and keep up with the group. We actually lost one of the guides!
We made a pit stop for a pretty intensive history lesson while our guide pointed out various important buildings. I was impressed with the amount of information included in the "free" tour!
It was a little strange to be part of a tour, listening to a guide while standing with our bicycles. Funny enough, after taking this picture, I lost my balance, and fell with the bike.
And to think I was worried about the rest of the "kids" being too crazy and messing up the bikes. I guess I'm the CRAZY one!
We rode for a while, veering again through crowds of tourists, almost clipping those not paying attention and straying in our paths. We stopped in the middle of Odeonsplatz, another huge square for more history and facts.
This is the very "high Italian baroque style" Theatinerkirche, built for the birth of the long awaited heir to the throne, Max, in 1662.
Off again, we rode through the park in the Residenz, originally a castle and later turned into a palace where Dukes reigned, where many people were out enjoying the lovely day.
There was a lot in the immediate area including this very interesting building that I think is a museum. What I do know that it was bombed during the war (as were most buildings in Munich) and the glass was used to rebuild the bombed parts, at least that is what we were told...
We continued riding on until we arrived at the Englischer Garten, a huge park area considered to be one of the world's largest parks. The park stretches from near the center of Munich, on the side of the river, to the northern city limits.
It looked like the gathering place for everyone during the summer; today with the unusually warm weather it was pretty crowded.
We continued on to the beer garden at the Chinesischer Turm.
The building originally built in the 1700's, and modeled after a pagoda, was rebuilt after it burned down during the war.
Here we are, the stylin' bike riders, just cruising the cities of Europe!
They had us park the bikes and then latched all 30+ together; apparently theft is a big issue! The grouping of bikes was pretty impressive...
Woohoo, free time! First thing in order at a beer garden, order us all up some beer!
I was a tad bit on the freaked out side as just as we arrived I had been chewing gum and one of my crowns popped off. As you can imagine, my sensitivity level was pretty high under the crown and I was trying not to allow any changes in heat/cold in my mouth. I played through, after an initial panic, and solved the problem by drinking with a straw!
What a trooper!
The beer garden was massive, with a capability to seat 7,000 people and the second largest in Munich.
Our tour group took up a few of the tables and the Scottish contingent of the group managed to pound back quite a few beers before we had to be on our way again.
I've been to Munich quite a few times but never had visited this beer garden, I'll definitely be back! They had great beer, nice choices of vendors selling various yummy food items and even a live band playing from up on the pagoda! Nice!
Off again we were now all a bit relaxed, some of the group, you could say, was even a tad bit, well, drunk! Now "ass-man-Mike" had quite the job, trying to keep everyone together.
Our guide led us down a path next to a "river", moving water more like the size of a stream, and it was pretty humorous to watch the inebriated Scots barely keep from falling in.
We came up to a bridge where there were crowds of people standing around. Our guide told us to park the bikes and go closer to the river for a closer look. I was absolutely astounded to see surfers in the river, riding the waves!
Being a California girl for 20+ years, this was quite a sight! Impressive and somewhat strange, I really was astounded by all of the people and surfers waiting their turn!
In case you don't believe the photos, I also took a video just to prove this really was taking place and to give you an idea of the skill of these guys...
We made a quick stop in front of an old statue at the river, probably the goddess of grapes but at this point It was hard to pay attention to our tour guide with the antics of the others of the group and the fact that we were nearing the end.
We were led across the river towards the center of Munich and cautiously through traffic, back to our beginning point.
Once the bikes were all safely stowed away and everyone accounted for our guide invited us to a nearby Mexican restaurant for happy hour and some TALL drinks.
We hung out with the group for a couple hours, getting a chance to chat with some of the others, until slowly, everyone started dispersing.
Being that it was now later in the afternoon and we were so close, we decided it was time to hit the infamous Hofbräuhaus.
...but I'll save that story for the next post! |
Written by roberto on 2008-05-12 23:13:45
WOW! You saved a lot up and it shows!!!
PS I MISS your regular posts!!! |
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