Munich

Wednesday:

Flight out was on Iceland Air, which was a new experience for all of us. Overall it was fine, nothing to complain about. The plane was a new-looking Boeing 757, and the seats were not too bad. The in-fight entertainment was a weird mix of Icelandic films and TV shows (with English subtitles) and regular American films and TVs. When you turned on the TV set it would make you watch a sort of promotional piece, five minutes of advertising to inform you of all the wonderful things you could do in Iceland (and encouraging you to book a flight with a multi-day stopover).  We got to Rekjavik airport around 2am Boston time, went through customs, and made it into the next leg of the flight to Munich. The Rekjavik airport is small by international standard but very sleek and modern looking.

Thursday:

Got to Munich at 1pm local time; very warm! Mid eighties. We had booked seats on the Lufthansa bus, so we took that to the main train station in town and walked to the hotel from there.

ART hotel Munich is maybe a three or four block walk from the train station-- good central location. The "art" in question is mostly of the modern variety -- posters and sculpture sprinkled around various place in the hotel. It's a nice place to stay; comfy rooms, A/C, and a nice breakfast.

We sort of muddled through our first day, since everyone was pretty jet-lagged. Once we had a chance to shower and get unpacked, we headed out for an expedition to see the Victualienmarkt, the an open-air market in the city center. It was nice -- good looking produced and baked stuff, not to mention a smallish beer garden. We poked around the shops for a while and then eventually sat down for a bit on some of the benches.

Marienplatz -- here is the famous Glockenspiel:

On tour:

A closeup:

Your truly:

I thought this was an interesting mini-statue, so I snapped a picture of it. [We learned later on from our bike tour guide that the smallish angels on the side of this statue are supposed to be represented as attacking various sins/scourges -- the snake that this one it turns out to be a representation of the evil Heresy (a.k.a. the Protestants)]

Stopping at the biergarten:

In Victualienmarkt:

Dinner was at Zwickl, a cafe quote close to the market. The specialty was a kind of meatball ("Pflanzerl"); Amy ordered a vegetarian Planzerl plate, I had veal meatballs, Ethan had Osso Bucco, and Lydia had a pasta dish. Food was good; very tasty (Amy's dish was the most interesting). After that we slogged back to the hotel (20 min walk or so) and collapsed into bed. Whew.

Friday:

Amy and woke up around 2:30, then tossed and turned for a while and finally got back to sleep and woke again at 7:30. Kids slept through until 4:30, then spent a while in their room and went down to breakfast at 6:30. Lydia tells me that they definitely enjoyed the breakfast (she told me that "Ethan went back to two of everything"). We made our was over to the train station around 9:30 to collect our bikes for a bike tour with a local outfit. Tour started at 10am; it was mostly Americans with a few Irish folk and others mixed in. On our way through the train station to find the bike rental place:

Getting kitted out:

We asked for helmets, but the rental place wasn't really set up for that -- they scrounged around and found a bunch but they were all too small for our heads. This was kind of a problem for me, since I had expected to have a helmet to keep the sun off my bald spot. I improvised with a bandana (looks ridiculous, but prevents suburn effectively):

On the tour:

There were two themes for the tour: King Ludwig of Bavaria (who built many of the interesting buildings we saw) and Hitler (who used Munich as a base for his operations, and who came to power while living there). This path runs past a Ludwig-constructed art museum and across a square that Hitler used for book-burning of all things:

The bikers:

The bikes were good -- city bikes with good tires and internally geared hubs. Not cheap.

This fellow on the statue looks as though he is calling out for something or someone...

We later encountered this statue... same guy as before? In which case, perhaps he had been calling out for his horse?

Lydia looking laid-back and urban:

Schwalbe tires, some of the best you can buy for urban biking:

This was a memorial to the victims of the Nazis:

Found this in the middle of a city square. "StadtLesen.com" could be translated as "City Reading" -- and that is indeed what was going on.

Interior of a church just off the same square:

The royal residence (interior portion):

A photo while riding:

Entering the English garden (which is quite large and very nice):

Selfie while biking:

Still in the English garden:

The Chinese Tower -- this is next to one of the biggest beer gardens in Munich -- has more than 7000 seats.

Ethan on the wheel:

The main river running through the city is quite cold and swift, and there is a section where they channel it through the park -- due to a lump on the riverbed it has a standing wave, which of course attracts surfers:

The Bavaria administrative offices:

The last bit of the tour took us to the Hofbrau house, which I wasn't really all the interested in seeing (we walked in and walked back out in about 20 seconds). A shot on the inside:

Amy taking photos outside:

Our group was cycling along back to the train station when we encountered a van with this graphic -- very eye-catching for some reason:

The tour finished up successfully; we decided that we would extend the bike rental for a few more hours, have a quick lunch, and then zoom back over to the English garden to swim in the river there. We snatched a few sandwiches from a kiosk at the station and brough them back to the hotel, lock our bikes, and had lunch in the kids room. Ethan and I got our bathing suits on, then we headed out.

Alas, this is where things started to go off the rails a bit. We discovered after riding for maybe 1km that Lydia's bike had a flat tire -- yikes. At that point Amy decided she would take Lydia back to return their bikes to the rental place (Lydia had really wanted to relax back at the hotel as opposed to more biking); Ethan and I continued on.

The swimming was terrific -- in the park they essentially have channels or offshoots of the main river that flows through town. The current is very strong and the water is cold but not totally freezing. The way that it works is that you hop in at a certain point and just get swept along by the current for a good bit, then you hop back out, walk back up the river, and repeat. Photos:

Definitely one of the best "inner city" swimming experiences I've had. Meanwhile, the main grassy parts of the park were absolutely covered with sunbathers -- very popular on a Friday afternoon.

Ethan did a couple more river transits, then we cycled for a bit more and located an ice cream stand. Ice cream is weirdly inexpensive in Munich -- all you need for a small cone is a couple of euros (good deal less than at Rancatore's in Lexington).

We eventually made our way back to the train station, returned our bikes after getting the "ok" from the owner, walked back to the hotel. At that point I found out from Amy that the bike rental folks had told her that they were unable to offer her a refund without having my credit card (she had returned their bikes early, and we had paid by the hour). So I trudged back to the train station and waited in line again to talk with the rental guy. At this point he said, OK, I can give you a refund -- let me just give you cash, that would be easier (apparently there weren't actually any "credit card problems" after all). He gave me some euros, I walked back to the hotel again, and then when I talked with Amy I discovered that she had returned the bikes two hours early, whereas the bike guy had refunded me only one hour's fees. Grumble.  At that point I decided it would not be worth the extra hassles... score one for the rental guys...

After showers and some down time we took a cab back over to the Virtualienmarkt and did some shopping, then had dinner at "Buffet Kull", a seafood place.  We were a bit warm (our table was parked partway inside and partway outside), but the food was good. Amy and I had "charfish" (very tasty, served with grilled scallions and tomatoes), Lydia had "gilthead", also quite good (served with a nice big plate of sauted spinach, right down Lydia's alley). Ethan had a chicken dish of some sort.

 We then walked our way back to the hotel, window shopping along the way... long day.