1st Day in Munich, Germany

St. Nepomuk Asam Church.
see all photos »

We slept in a little, packed our bags, checked out of the hotel, booked a pension (small apartement) for the next three days in Munchen or Munich, and then went to the train station, which was right next to the hotel. We played some travel Yahtzee on the train and had some beers we had bought in the train station. The train ride was nice with some great scenery. We arrived in Munich and had about a fifteen minute walk to our accomodation. We dropped off our bags, got a map from reception, and went out to find a place to get some dinner. We walked to Marienplatz, where there were lots of tall interesting buildings surrounding the square. The biggest and most interesting was the New Town Hall (New Gothic Rathaus) built in 1909 and had a Glockenspiel, which was a clock with wooden dancers that would play at 11:00am and noon everyday. On another side of the square was the Old Town Hall built in 1474 and was not as large and impressive, but still pretty cool. There were also a few churches you could see from the square or at least the large spires on them. One was a the Church of Our Lady, which is a very famous church with two large clock towers and had green domes on top. Other churches included the Holy Ghost Church and the Peter's Church which were on the opposite side of the square from the New Town Hall. We walked around a bit and found the Vikualienmarkt, which was a small market and beer garden, but it was closing up since it was getting dark. We then found the Hofbrauhaus, one of the famous beer halls in Munich, and decided to get some dinner and of course a couple of large beers. Marcy only had the 1/2 liter, since the beer she wanted only came in that size, but I got the huge 1 liter of the Hofbrau beer. I got the mixed sausage plate that had four different types of sausage, sauwerkraut, and mashed potatoes. Marcy got two meatballs, which also came with mash potatoes. The food was pretty good, but I really enjoyed the huge beer. We then took a walked down Maximilian street, which was lined with high end clothes, jewerly, and other shops, like rodeo drive. We walked by the Residence Theatre, the Royal Residence, the Feldherrnahalle, the Preysing Palais, and the Theatine Church. We took a short walk through the Hofgarden and then decided to start heading back towards our hotel. We stopped at this really cool resturant on the way back to have a beer. The beer we got came out of this small wooden barrel, the size of a pony keg. We got to watched them change one out. First they removed the empty one, put a new one up on the stand, removed the plug and hammered the spout and a vent into the barrel. It was ready to serve and fresh cold beer flowed from the spout. The beer was really good and not too expensive, so we had a couple before we went back to the hotel.

The biggest and most interesting was the New Town Hall (New Gothic Rathaus) built in 1909 and had a Glockenspiel, which was a clock with wooden dancers that would play at 11:00am and noon everyday.