The City of Munich!

(read this as if it were written on Sunday... when I actually started it, then saved as a draft)



I saw it twice today. Which means I've now taken a Munich city tour four times in my life. Not bad...

TUMI held a city tour at 10 this morning for the exchange students. It was a three-hour walking tour... something they neglected to mention. We started in the Inner Stadt (Read: city center and heart of the original city), saw the Old and New Courthouses (Alt Rathaus and Neu Rathaus) as well as the Mariensauele (the large column with the gold-painted statue on top). The New Courthouse was built to show off Munich's wealth. It's famous because at 11, 12 and 5, it's like a cuckoo clock and life sized people come out of the tower and dance. The entire square gets crowded with tourists to see this. We then headed around the city to see the Hofbrauhaus, Munich's very own local brewery... located directly across from a Hard Rock Cafe. We saw the square of multi-architectural history. Ludwig I liked to travel and show off. So he went to Rome and saw something he liked and built it. Then he went to Florence... then France. This resulted in a square with a building stemming from each of these styles on each corner. One of the above is a large yellow church (visable in a picture), another is the place where Hitler took control of Germany. Then headed to the English Garden, which is absolutely great. It's one of the largest urban parks ever, even bigger than Central Park. It's easy to get lost in but really pretty. One of the pictures is a view of the tower tops of Munich from an overlook. People flock out in the grass to lay and sunbathe. There's a nude section, but it was so cold that there was only one person taking advantage of the sun. Don't worry, that's across the river. The Chinese Dome is also there, which is a large tower in which bands play Bavarian music in the middle of a beer garden. Then there's the surfing... yes, surfing. A stream runs through the garden with ice cold water. In spite of this, surfers in wet suits take advantage of the really rough wave/rapids created at the start (and ignore the CAUTION: NO SURFING signs) while dozens of people look on. This happens every day. The tour then took us around the other side of Munich to the Frauenkirchen, the famous church of Munich. We saw two of the three gates to the city (from the olden times). Following this tour, Nicole and I broke away to go eat lunch and then met up with Erika and her friend, Charlotte. Then we did it again...

Actually, only half of it. We only went as far as the English Garden. Once we got there we kinda chilled in the grass for a while since it was a beautiful day and it was warm enough TO TAKE OUR COATS OFF! It was GREAT!

By the end, I think Nicole and I were extremely tired of walking. We stopped for "supper" at an Eis (ice cream) Cafe. Because it was a "warm" day today, everyone was eating ice cream. Ice cream is actually one of the things that is CHEAP in Munich. A cone for 1 Euro. The ice cream is really good, too... a little closer to gelato. Anyway, we decided to take advantage of the fact that it was in the mid 60's, so Nicole and I split an Eis Pizza (ice cream pizza). The thing about these cafes is that they love to be elaborate. They have these great creations of fruit, nuts and ice. Ours was a vanilla ice cream crust covered with all kinds of fruit. Kiwi, apple, pineapple, honeydew, etc. The first fruit since I've been here... oops!

Anyway, home again and trying to upload the pictures. Ready to not walk as much tomorrow!

Pictures:
Mariensauele (column with gold painted statue)
Alt Rathaus (the more impressive of the two, with the gothic style)
Frauenkirchen (the two large towers on the church)
View of the tops of all the towers in Munich from an overlook in the English Garden
Sendlinger Tor (one of the three gates in Munich)
Hofgarten (the palace garden in the city with a church in the background)