Wolfratshausen/Munich DAY 2

With the exception of our last day heading into Munich, we managed to miss the train by moments every morning when heading into Munich, luckily they have a train every 20 minutes so we never had to wait long. Saturday was the official start of Oktoberfest, and it starts with a parade of the 6 main families that brew beer in Munich. They ride on a decorated horse drawn carriage, with the entire family waving and drinking beer. So, with us missing the first train and getting ready too slowly in the morning, we didn’t get a good spot to view the parade. I tried to take some pictures for Julie to see, but I didn’t have much luck either. You know, large crowd so everyone shoots their arm in the air to take a photo and comes up with other arms holding cameras and the tops of people’s heads. Anyway, after the parade was done we made our way to the column in Marienplatz to meet up with our tour guide Travis. Julie and I were about 10 minutes early, and at first, the only two there. Travis is from Brisbane, Australia, has been living in Munich for 5 months and is an artist (which I guess is why he is doing these tours), he also had a pretty crazy appearance (bicycle mustache, glasses, red hair, lederhoze and a hat) and was a great guide. The only thing we knew about the tour was that it was free and we had to meet someone in a red shirt at 11:45am at the column in front of the Glockenspiel. There is a tour agency called New Europe that provides great tours for free in some of the larger cities. We learnt that they do these tours in Berlin, London, Edinbrough, Paris, Amsterdam, and Munich – we heard they are trying to set one up in Madrid, so I am keeping my fingers crossed for that one. The walking tour took us through many of the most important parts of Munich, with a history lesson on each part. It was roughly 4 hours long and was well worth the money…...we tipped Travis as that is the only way he gets paid. The tour started in Marienplatz and we learned that the new town hall is actually older than the old town hall due to the war (most of the city was destroyed). After that brief introduction, we watched the amazing glockenspiel come to life; it wasn’t actually that entertaining especially since the bells weren’t working due to it being under renovation. After its triumphant finale (what every coo-coo clock does…) we made our way into the beer garden of the old town hall and sat to listen to another history lesson, this time on Munich’s beginning. Did you know that Munich means Monk? We walked to Frauenkirche church which was built in 13 months (a record for church building over here) and looked pretty unimpressive, the only interesting thing was the story of the foot print at the front of the church. Basically, the devil helped build the church so fast because he thought it was dark and depressing, he only thought this because he couldn’t see the windows from the entrance he stood at. When he came in the proper entrance and saw all the light coming in, he was naturally upset for being tricked and stomped his foot leaving his footprint. We guess it was the architect’s footprint. Remembering the other stories we’ve heard about the devil and churches, Julie and I started wondering how much of the “devil” is left behind in churches? Once again we made our way back to Marienplatz to hear the history of the column we had met at earlier. Then he took us over to St Peters church, where there is a good place to climb up to have a view of the city (we didn’t get the chance). Near the church was another market where we stopped for lunch. Julie and I had currywurst and beer (Julie had a Raddler). We met back up with the group after our 20 minute break to continue the tour, this time to the Haufbrauhaus. Unfortunately for me, it was just a walk through the busy, famous beer hall, into the beer garden to stop just outside of it on the street, to hear about the famous failed beer hall putch led by Hitler. It was from here that we made our way to the most expensive and exclusive street to shop at in Munich, Maximillianstrasse. Apparently there is a coffee shop that sells coffee for 12 euros a cup and it’s not the coffee that’s good, but rather it’s being seen drinking a coffee there that’s good. I saw a Ferrari parked next to the sidewalk, so it was worth the walk (probably the café owner’s car). We made our way to Maximillianplatz where there is the Opera house and the Residenz, the royal family’s place of residents, but now turned into a 140 room museum. Apparently this building is interesting because it displays different architectural periods on each side. We then ended our tour at the Feldherrenhalle and learned that this is where 11 bullets missed Hitler, but hit his bodyguard, during the beer hall putch. Hitler was sent to jail for this attempt at power by force. What’s odd is that there aren’t memorials regarding these historical occurrences, I guess they have them, but they are hidden in plain site – if you know to look, you’ll see it, otherwise you walk right over it, or by it. It was like that for all of Munich. The tour was over, and we were stuck with what to do next. I suggested a walk through the English Garden, as a change of scenery and in hopes to see the surfing thing. Julie figures I wanted to go to the English garden to see naked women sunbathing, as they allow nude sunbathing in this particular park. The English garden is so large, that we missed the surfing thing because we were tired of walking after the tour and we had already spent roughly 2hrs wandering this park without any idea where it is (what’s German for manmade surfing thing?). So we gave up our pursuit and went to another smaller park just outside of Marienplatz to access free internet and try to get caught up on emails and to view our blog for comments. This was sort of hit and miss, as we were able to view our emails and facebook, but were unsuccessful with the blog. Julie was ready to head home to the van at this point as we were both very tired. Unfortunately, I wasn’t. This caused an argument only because I was under the impression that we were heading out to Batchesgaden on Sunday night, it was Saturday night and my second time in Munich, and it looked to me as if I was going to miss out again on the most famous beer hall in the world, the Haufbrauhaus. Julie reassured me that she didn’t know I intended on leavin on Sunday and that her intentions were to take me the following day and spend another night in Wolfrathausen before making our way to Batchesgaden (I think it’s pronounced “Ba-Tis-Garden”).