Ber Lin and Pania Take a Look Around Munich

Saturday September 11th

It was bright and sunny when we all woke up today and Ber Lin was feeling really keen to have a look at Munich. He still needs help with the English so Pania went along with him. Mary and Alan were expecting it to be not quite as vibrant in town today after the entertainment last night. How wrong they were. A whole lot of tents had sprung up in Marienplatz and all the emergency and helping agencies were having a demonstration. There were fire engines, ambulances and associated organisations everywhere, and people!


The Viktualienmarkt is one of the must visit tourist places in Munich. There are over 140 stalls selling regional products from Bavaria and exotic delicacies from around the world. It is a very picturesque market and there were many places to eat and drink. The Bavarians love their beer and they were out drinking at 10am in the morning. Mind you it is getting very near Oktoberfest and this is a popular and famous beer garden. There were fantastic flower and florist stalls with a huge range of flowers available which you could buy individually or in bunches. Wreaths made out of fresh hops were for sale, obviously part of the Oktoberfest celebrations. It was all a very pretty and busy scene.


From here they went back to Marienplatz to see the world famous glockenspiel clock. Every day at 11am, 12am and 5pm the mechanical dancers in the tower of the Town Hall come to life when the clock chimes. The whole show goes on for five minutes and is really fascinating. There are even knights jousting on horseback and the second time around one knocked the other off and the crowd all cheered.


The next visit was to Frauenkirkirche which is not a cathedral but is the largest Gothic assembly building in Southern Germany. It was built between 1468 and 1488. It dominates the skyline with its twin onion domed towers. According to legend, the church builder made a wager with the devil that no window could be seen within. When you stand on the spot where the devil made his footprint only a wall of pillars can be seen.

A walk down to the old city gate, Karlstor, revealed a huge fountain playing that the night before had all been covered over with a huge stage. It looked completely different in daylight. The gate is one of the remaining parts of the old city wall that no longer exists. It got its name from Elector Karl Theodor who had the old town wall pulled down in order to allow the city to expand. The gate has been rebuilt several times.

A walk back in the other direction along a very expensive shopping street took them to the Asamkirke. This is quite a small church only 28 metres long and 8.8 metres wide, the size being dictated by the small piece of land available at the time it was being built. But every last part of it is richly decorated in High Baroque style. It is breathtaking when you first walk in. It was built between 1733 -46 and designed, funded and executed by the Asam brothers, the most famous builders and decorators of the time. It is a theatrical illusion of another world. The nave has really low key lighting and seems rather dark but is full of striking architectural details, rich stucco and masterpieces of fresco painting. Being so small it was difficult to photograph or video but they did their best.

From here they walked on through one of the other town gates still intact, Sendlinger Tor, although it has had to be modified to cope with the increasing amount of traffic that now passes through here. A quick ride on the UBahn took them to the English Garden which is huge. At 373ha it is one of the largest urban parks in the world so they walked around the lake area and back to another UBahn stop so that they could visit the Olympic Park.

Munich hosted the 1972 Olympics and developed an old airfield as the park. They created an artificial lake and built hills using rubble removed from the city after WW2. The roof construction is like a giant tent made of glass and has become a Munich landmark. There are lifts that take you up the 290m tower and the view from up there is amazing. It is 360° all over Munich.

Directly beneath the tower was another building that turned out to be part of the huge BMW complex. BMW Welt is the BMW adventure and delivery centre. Here they have al the current model BMWs on show and you are free to climb in them. It is a giant show room but much more. It has a restaurant, coffee bar, gift shop, hands on games of kids and adults. It is the complete BMW experience and is free to enter. It is a very modern and innovative building. Tours through the actual plant take place daily. There is also a BMW museum which they didn’t visit. What they did see was fascinating. There were plenty of staff on hand ready to take your order. There was even a special room where you could order your customised car and all the leather pelts were hanging up so that you could chose the colour for your upholstery. This was all located in the same area as the Olympic Park so the Ubahn was close. They took it back to the main station so that they could buy an English newspaper and read some news.

The idea had been that Alan would read the paper while Mary got on the internet. Seeing free interent at a cafe at the station they decided to try there instead of getting another train back to where they had been yesterday. Unfortunately it was another TMobile hotspot and you need to sign up and give credit card numbers so they can start robbing you at the rate of about €8 an hour once your free hour runs out . Also you need an address in Europe. So they gave up on the internet idea and after coffee caught the train back to camp. Tomorrow they will go back to The San Francisco Coffee Company which is no fuss straight on.