Achte Tag

Day 8-Pretty much our last day to do anything else we wanted to do. We started at St Michael’s Church since this is where King Ludwig II and all the other important family members are buried.  The crypt of this church, is just full of tombs, from a babies tomb, to the elaborately decorated tomb of King Ludwig II. 

After this, we went to BMW Welt/Museum next to the Olympia Park.  The architecture on this building is pretty amazing and has the same wacky designs as the Olympiastadium itself.  BMW Welt is a working car dealership, so we kind of ignored it and went to the  BMW museum instead.  The museum was alright, and they showed all the engines they had made from their beginnings in 1919 in the aeroplane industry to their 2010 stuff.  They showed different motorcycles, different race cars, and the history of the different classes of BMW’s cars.  But it’s a very innovate looking museum, so BMW obviously had to show they can make a top class museum as well as cars. Except the gift show was terrible, and the one t-shirt there that sucked.

After this we ended up in Marienplatz, to look for somewhere to eat, preferably not German.  So we ended up at an Italian restaurant near Saint Peter’s church. It was manned by Italian waiters and stuff, so it was pretty legit. The outside area is kind of small, but the weather was perfect, but the interior of the restaurant was deceptively huge.  Some Italian construction workers came and sat by us, and the waiter looked like he was thrilled to be speaking Italian to his fellow Italians.  After this, we walked up the tower of the Saint Peter church, for the “best view” of Munich.  You get an outstanding view of the Marienplatz, and other landmarks, but if you were a little bit higher, you could see over the top of some buildings.  It still made for a great view, and showed us how far we had to travel to other locations, and how good Munich’s public transportation is since it can you get places really fast.   

We walked around Munich some more, and walked around the new Congress building (well it's actually old) and saw the Maximilian statue.  From there, we went to the Asamkirche, which isn’t that well maintained since it was privately owned but opened to the public.  The interior design here is crazy, and it was extremely decorated in there!  I did some shopping for some soccer clothes on my way back to the Marienplatz/Karlplatz, and after that, was done for the day.   

We went to the Augustiner Keller for dinner for the last time in Munich, since it is after all, the best beer in Munich.  Had a Weissbier  for dinner, and some suckling pig, and a giant pretzel to finish the night off. We ate at the restaurant side of the place, but the beer garden here is pretty damn big.  Augustiner's beer is so good, my mom even drank it And it was filled with tons of locals, who were getting off work, and drinking their steins of Augustiner edelstoff bier.  

Siebte Tag

Day 7-Today was the day we went to Castle Neuschwanstein.  The fairy tale castle, Walt Disney fell in love with.  We went with a tour group, and it was like a 2 hour train rideto get to Fussen.  We had 3 train cars booked exclusively to us, but the train was so packed, that some American and Chinese tourists invaded our cabin.  Our tour guide Jeff, was very knowledgeable about the story of Ludwig and other members of the royal family during the train ride.  Our cart was full of Americans from California to Ohio to Texas.  We ate a shack his friend runs once we got to Füssen because it was very fast service.  It was storming outside, and we were given the option to walk up the hill or take a bus to get to the Marienbrucke, or bridge that overlooks Neuschwanstein. We decided to walk, and our legs paid for it dearly.  It was raining hard at the time, the hill was a non-stop uphill on some sand/gravel/dirt path, so the traction was decent.  It was also hot as hell wearing a jacket trying to hike up the hill. But once you got to the Marienbrucke, the view was absolutely gorgeous.  That view made up for the pain the legs felt, but they became rejuvenated after that view.  We got another view of the other castle, Hohenswangau, where King Ludwig II spent his summers as a child.  (NO THAT'S NOT A BOOGER, JUST A PERFECTLY PLACED RAINDROP! LIKE, COULD IT GET ANY MORE WELL PLACED?  BAD TIMING ON THE PHOTO DAD)

We then went to our guided tour of the Castle.  They’re very strict about when you can come in, and it really is every 10 minutes. It sucks that you can’t take any photographs in there, because some rooms were insanely decorated.  Ludwig II only completed 1/3^rd of the rooms before he died, and they stopped building after that. My favorites were the throne room, and his bed room, which were both beautifully designed.  I bought a guide book just for interior photographs of the castle.  A lot of the artwork is dedicated to Richard Wagner's operas, and his bedroom was full of Tristan and Isolde artwork. The tour itself was pretty short, and only lasted  around 30 minutes.  It’s funny, that once you get down, you go through a gift shop, then the former kitchen, and then another castle gift shop. 

We then had to race downhill to make sure we would reach our bus stop in time.  The train ride back was pretty slow, and I could eavesdrop on the conversation this kid was having with an old lady because he was trying to speak German to her.  Once we got back into Munich, we ate at an Italian restaurant nearby our hotel, which was a welcome relief to all the German food.  We cruised the Statue of Bavaria again and the Theresienwiese (Oktoberfest area) because it was nighttime. Tons of kids also go long boarding down a hill there and carve and do that crazy power stop around the statue.  I guess on Monday nights, it's skate night in Munich (roller blades that is), and thousands of Munich citizens go roller blading and meet behind the Statue. I had never seen so many roller blades my entire life.  Apparently you can rent roller blades for free with a valid id, or you can make a 2 euro donation and get a free beer when you return your skates.  I had the same awesome concoction of Paulaner Wheat beer topped with Coca Cola at the hotel bar before the night ended

 

Sexte Tag

Day 6-Today was a nice relaxing day in Munich. Because it’s Sunday, all museums are 1 euro.  We started off the Alte Pinotek, or old picture gallery.  Because it hosts Flemish, German, Italian art and stuff, none of that stupid impressionist/modern crap.  I’m not really familiar with German artists besides Durer, but they had like 6 of his works, including his famous self-portrait so that was cool. They had a lot of old Reubens works, and it’s weird seeing how different his style of painting evolved.  They had some Da Vinci’s and some Raphaels, but they had an awesome room dedicated to Tintoretto, Titian, and other people from the Venetian School of Art. 

After that, we saw some Rembrandt’s and then decided to take off to the Glyptotek, or the museum of Greek and Roman statues.  This museum, was more for me then my parents, so I thoroughly enjoyed the collection here, even if more than half of it was only bust’s of heads.    The Barberini faun was a really neat piece, as were some of the animal pieces. They had a special exhibit on the Frieze of some Temple, and it showed how the top of the temple was decorated from plaster marbles to the original thing. This area outside the Glyptotek was a huge area for Nazi rallies, that standalone temple in the middle was a thing that used to glorify the Nazi regime.

After this, we went to watch the surfing at the English Garden. It wasn’t very impressive, it just looked like they were jumping onto one of those fake wave similar things, except you have to keep turning left and right  very fast, and the water is more freezing than California’s.  But it was a beautiful day, so lots of people jumped in, further upstream.   

We then left the park trying to find a restaurant to eat at, but most were closed because it was Sunday so we were on the hunt for any open restaurant and ended up a French club/bar place that served food. I had to labor through a Octopus type salad thing, but food was food #survivalmode.  I then walked down to get a picture of the Angel of peace for Munich before going to the Bayerisch National Museum. 

They had a lot of stuff here, fancy china, to  house decorations, to armor, to furniture, to porcelain, and even some statues.   Then the other part was mainly bronze figures, and church pieces from relics to tapestries depicting biblical scenes.   

After we finally got through this, we rested at the hotel for a bit before we went to  Loewenbrau’s beer garden.  I had the helles beer, and an excellent bbq burger. I was beyond stoked to finally eat a good burger, and it was satisfying.  There were lots of English tourists, and some Italian tourists waiting for the England-Italia game in the beer garden. I watched the game at the hotel bar, with some depressed English fans after they lost to Italy in PK’s. They also this drink called a Cola-Weizen, a Paulaner wheat beer, topped with Coke.  Was delicious.