Munich - Land of Castles and Beer!

Neuschwanstein Castle

After leaving Austria we headed to Munich. In Munich we stayed in a 6-person room at the hostel and got to meet interesting people. The first set of roommates that we had were a mother and son from Russia. They were in Munich attending an intensive German course. They showed us where they lived (Angarsk) by the deepest lake in the world and talked about how it took 3 days on the train from Moscow to their home.  We never really met the second set of roommates because they came in drunk around 3 am our last night and were sound asleep when we checked out the next morning.

Erin and Daniel inside a Munich Church listening to the organist practice

Munich Church

In Munich we went around town and poked our head to as many churches as were open. Two of them had organists who were practicing when we came in, so that was fun to listen to.
Then we went to Marienplatz to watch/listen to the Glockenspiel play at 5 pm.

Town Hall where the Glockenspiel played

Afterwards we headed to the famous Hoftbräuhaus because David wanted to see the beer hall and have a glass of beer there. We ended up having dinner there and listening to the band play German folk music.  One time a guy even cracked a whip in time with the music!  (Reservations are normally required in the second-floor festival hall, but we asked and found out there were a few seats left!)

Hoftbräuhaus

The next day we went through Füssen to Hohenschwangau to see the Hohenschwangau Castle and Neuschwanstein Castle. We walked up to the first castle, but wisely took the bus to the second one (a 40 minute walk uphill is not my idea of fun!  We got to walk over to the Marien Bridge which has great views of Neuschwanstein first and then see the castle itself. It amazes me that the interior is only about 1/3 finished, but the parts that are finished are beautiful!  King Ludwig had good taste!!  We ate "fast food" for dinner -- sausages and fries -- and then came back on the train.  The kids have gotten pretty good at pinochle on this trip because we generally play it any time we are on a train at least an hour and have a table. 

Hohenschwangau Castle

Our last day in Munich we slept in a bit and then headed to the Deutches Museum. It is like the German Smithsonian for science and technology. There are a ton of wings and exhibits and we only got around to a few of them. We saw some of the aeronautical section, a bit about microscopes (and saw a demonstration on a scanning electron microscope), and the spent some time in the section on musical instruments. Finally, we stayed in the special exhibition on the innovations of Leonardo da Vinci until the museum closed. That exhibit was interesting because people had taken da Vinci's designs and created working models of them and then talked about whether it would be something that would work given our current understanding of physics and engineering. 

Harpsichord at the Deutsches Museum

Next we walked toward the English Garden which is a park in Munich that is much larger than Central Park (New York). On our way we stopped in a Lutheran church (our first non-Catholic church!).  It had been bombed (like many others), but they had chosen to put back only what stained glass had been salvaged and then outlined the figures that had been on the destroyed glass. (The front of the church appeared to have the original stained glass.)  We had fun looking through the hymnal and seeing what songs we knew. Then we took a leisurely walk through the park. 

The first thing we saw in the park was a bit disconcerting -- surfers were surfing in the river!  Apparently there is part of the river they divert underground and where it reemerges creates some sort of undertow and wave that resembles a perpetual surf wave. So surfers take turns jumping out there on their board and try to ride the wave without getting sucked downriver (amidst many signs that warn of drowning death possibilities).  

"Surfers Wave" in the English Garden Park (note the tip of the board of the last guy who got sucked under right before this guy jumped out onto the water).

Later we saw the Chinese Tower and beer garden. We decided to eat there and had fun people-watching. We even got Bavarian doughnuts (what we often get at fairs called elephant ears).  It was good!!!

Chinese Tower

Geese we saw in the park

After returning back to the hostel we packed up in preparation to head to Kira's in Pforzheim....