Europe Trip 2010, Part 2: Munich

We arrived in Munich, Germany, after 18 hours of flying, one layover at Heathrow, and zero volcanic ash delays. We were SO happy to be there.

Actually our flight there was not bad at all. The highlights of the trip included: sleeping, the copious amounts of food that was served to us by American Airlines (I forgot what it was like to eat on a plane), the "Great British Food" and Harrods at Heathrow, and our British Airways pilot telling us the weather is Munich was "not too pleasant" (I love how blunt Brits are).

After our plane ride we took a train to the Munich central station and tried to walk to our hotel, the Le Meridian. But we walked the wrong way about three times. We ended up finding the hotel after a long walk and some crazy blisters from the ballet flats I wore (more on that later).


We checked into our suite (SPG upgrade, yeah!), took showers, blew out the power in our room with my American hair straighter (ooops!), and then went out for some late night food and drinks.


Our first day in Munich we did Mike's Bike Tour.

We met the group under the Old Town Hall.


We rode all around the city, learned a lot of Munich history, met lots of cool people, and drank beers together at the Chinesischer Turm Beer Garden in the Englischer Garden.

70% of Munich was destroyed in WWII, so they rebuilt a lot of buildings with facades like this one...


The Mr.'s favorite part was seeing the river surfing in the English Garden.


Note: I don't have many pictures from Mike's Bike Tour or our trip to Dachau because of a camera tragedy involving me accidentally deleting a memory card. It still makes me sad, so I don't want to talk about it.

I loved visiting all of the various "platz" and "strauss", the best being the Marienplatz.


Mike's Bike Tour was fun! I highly recommend that you do it on your first day in Munich.

After Mike's Bike Tour we went to the Augustiner Bierhalle for delicious weissbier and lots of German sausage. Yum!


Can you tell it was COLD in Munich? It was. Drizzly and in the 40s and 50s. Reminded us a lot of Seattle in March.

After that we did some bar harping around Schwbing. Went to a way trendy hookah bar, a Soccer (Football) bar, and what we think was a College bar that served buckets of mixed drinks. It was definitely not touristy in Schwbing, so it was fun to see how Germans spend their Saturday nights.



On our second day in Munich we went to the concentration camp, Dachau. I don't have pictures from there, but I was a very somber experience. Sad, informative, and chilling. We did the audio tour and saw the the barraks, bunk beds, crematory, gas chambers, famous gates, commemorative art, and the museum. Very somber and grusome place. It reminded me visiting the Holocaust museum in Washington DC. It was a tough thing to see, but I'm glad we went.

On our final day in Munich we visited the Viktualienmarkt but I started to rain on us, hard.


So we retreated to the beer halls.

First, the famous Hofbrauhaus...


We spent hours at Hofbrau drinking giant beers...


Eating German pretzels...


Listening to traditional music..


And eating giant pieces of pork hip and potato dumplings...


Next we did a little bit of shopping and then stopped by Schneider Weisse for more weissbier.


Yes, we drank a lot of beer. But give us a break, the beer in Germany is often cheaper than the bottled water!


Next up? Neuschwanstein castle and Oberammergau!

Just joining the Europe recaps? Start here!