Day Six — On to Munich

Monday, May 6

Today was pretty much a transfer and settle into Munich day.  That said, I did see and learn a lot.

My pre-arranged transfer to the airport came early (which is good, as I’m chronically early) and getting to the one-terminal airport with 90 minutes to spare was nice.  I managed to fit in some shopping in the terminals.  It was a bit odd though, absolutely no one ever checked my passport along the way....  I had it out at every stop and no one looked at it. Yikes.

I took the S-Bahn from Munich airport to Marienplatz, which was a 38 minute trip and landed me right next to (literally!) my hotel.  I’ve never been so conveniently located!   I’m right off the square where the two city halls are and convenient to underground.  My room was ready at the hotel here and I unpacked a bit, threw on another layer (it’s cold here!) and headed out. 

I did Rick Steves’ Munich city tour on my own.  This time I did it audio style on my iPhone rather than read along.  It went well, although the directions were a bit convoluted a few times.  But I learned a TON.

On the main square, there is Old City Hall (Alte Rathaus) and New City Hall (Neue Rathaus).  Except Old City Hall is newer than New City Hall.  Much of Munich was leveled by bombing in WWII, except in the square, the Old City Hall was mostly destroyed while New CIty Hall survived a lot of the hits and the city rebuilt Old City Hall making it newer than New CIty Hall.  A lot to follow, I know.  But several of the churches I visited today were leveled, or nearly so, by bombing and reconstructed fairly quickly, relatively speaking.  It gives me hope that Paris can do the same with Notre Dame which was far less damaged than these churches!  A few of these churches had before and after photos from just after the bombings through the reconstruction and it is simply amazing how they rebuilt here.

The walking tour led me past and through most of the churches around the square.  One was the home church of Cardinal Ratzinger turned Pope Benedict (so now I’ve been in the home churches of both of the previous two popes).  Another had many of the tombs of the German royal families, including King Otto and Mad King Ludwig.  The styles of the churches varied greatly from Jesuit to Catholic, Baroque to NeoClassical to Renaissance.  An interesting side-note is that my hotel is surrounded by 5 churches, all of which ring bells on the hour 24 hours a day.  This ought to make for interesting sleeping.

One of my more interesting stops was to Dallmayr, which is a giant, high-end food hall that caters to the Munich elite.  It has everything from chocolate and wine and spirits to prepared foods, teas and coffees.  Yes, I did some damage there, but I’m none worse for the wear.

The walking tour looped around (but didn’t visit) Residenz, which was the former royal family’s winter home right in the city (Nymphenburg Palace was their summer home) and ended up in the Odeonplatz, which is the square where Hitler and Goering held an uprising, both got shot, Hitler got arrested and spent 9 months in prison writing Mein Kampf.  Right before the square there was a small lane to the left that had a wavy trail of golden bricks through it.  That was the last spot where Germans could duck through to avoid having to enter the square and give a Heil to Hitler on that day.

For dinner I popped into a beer hall across the street that had a fair number of vegetarian offerings on the menu.  It was seat yourself so as a party of one I tried to find the smallest vacant table I could, and that was a table for four, unfortunately.  The server wasn’t pleased by that and she let me know.  The service was not really great but the food was good.  In all the market stalls I passed on the street today, it’s obvious that white asparagus is very much in season right now.  So my main was white asparagus and boiled potatoes with a Hollandaise sauce on the side.  My starter was called obatzda, and it was a blend of three cheeses and some spices and butter into a spreadable cheese that you put on a pretzel or bread.  It was really good.  I had apple fritters for dessert.

I did another loop around the square but at 8:00 it wasn’t even close to dark enough for the buildings to be lit up yet.  Maybe another night...