Thursday, August 27, 2009

Germany Trip... Part 6 - Munich

Saturday 8/15

(This was supposed to be our last full day of vacation...) Saturday, we woke up sweating! Our whole vacation, the weather had been overcast and cool. Locals had told us that it was unusually cool this time of year. The weather is normally hot and dry. Well, the clouds disappeared overnight and we woke up to blinding sun coming through our open windows. The cool breeze was very relaxing after a long day. We kept our windows and, when we had it, our balcony door open during the night. (There were no AC units! We Southerners can't live without Air conditioning.) For the rest of the day, our hotel room was so uncomfortably hot, we turned the shower on and ran cold water full blast just to get a little relief.

After breakfast, we headed for the train station and got on a double decker Gray Line city sightseeing bus. (Here's a picture of the bus) (Munich sightseeing guide). We got a seat on the top of the bus for a better view. (The bus tour guide spoke German & English.) (Here's a map of what we saw - Orange Line) It was a good day to do it, just really hot! Here's some of our pictures from the bus tour. I had to stand up on the bus to get most of them because the top deck of the bus had windows. (I don't know why they weren't removed)

The front of the train station.

The streets in front of the Train station.


Taxis lining up at the train station. (They were mostly BMW's)

Thought this house looked cool... (Taken through the window of the bus)

Nymphenburg Palace. This is the summer home of the Bavarian Rulers. This was a very LOOOONG palace.(Panoramic view) It's a massive museum now. We didn't go inside because frankly, we were tired of walking. We sat on the bus (because we didn't want to lose our seats) and watched the swans in the ponds dive into the water. Their little butts stuck straight in the air. It was quite humorous...







The bus took us to Olympiapark, home of the 1972 Olympics. Again, we didn't get off the bus. The roof of the main building/structure was very odd and kind of ugly. This is the site where Mark Spitz won 7 gold medals in swimming events(only to be broken by Michael Phelps).



The BMW Headquarters building (next to Olympiapark).


More scenes from our bus tour.



The Frauenkirche (Church of our Lady). (Interesting tale about the "devil's footprint on the linked page) This is the church we can see from our hotel room. However, as you can see, it's being renovated..... yeah.






The tour guide said this cafe was the first in Munich to allow service to women who were alone (without their husbands/fathers).

This is the access point to the US embassy. That guy was sporting a mean looking machine gun.

The big fountain. This is the entrance to the pedestrian zone. (Marienplatz)

After our bus tour, we stopped at the train station for some German junk food to take home (chocolate, gummy bears, etc). Wes absolutely loved "Mezzo Mix," a drink made by coca cola that consisted of coke and orange soda mixed. We brought home two one liter bottles.

We had some time left in the day, so we decided to go to the Andechs Monastery near Munich. We had to take a train and then a taxi to get there. (Not many English speakers around and the bus schedule posted was very confusing). The taxi dropped us off at the entrance and we had to walk up this really steep hill. (We were both tired and cranky, but didn't want to waste the day) Wes had a beer and I had "Lemonade" (It was sprite I think).
This is the inside of the church. It was really decorative. Very decorative. Almost distracting. But very beautiful. (Wes really wanted to see a monk. No such luck.)




The hymnals.




Excellent views from the Beirgarten area.


This was our dinner. (We ate at the monastery.) I think it's Pork Shoulder. Wes had some type of rib. The pretzels were good, just really hard on the outside.


After dinner and the train ride back, we called it a night early so we could pack. This is the view from our room. As you can see, the church is covered with scaffolding....
Our room... Germans really believe in duvet's. Each hotel gave us these. Wes didn't like them. They were too hot.

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