Traveling for a Month Part Four- Munich

After our adventures in Salzburg we headed to Munich where we would meet up with three more people.  When we got there we didn't know exactly where we were supposed to be going and confusingly enough, there are three hotels/hostels with the same name in Munich but we didn't know which one was actually ours.  We found the address for one and headed that way.  When we got there he said that they didn't have a reservation for us, which made us a little nervous.  He said he would call the other two places and check with them.  One of the two answered their phone and said they also did not have our reservation.  The third place did not answer their phone, so we decided to venture to the hotel/hostel to find out for ourselves.  It was about a 15 min walk and luckily they had our reservation, although we had parked in the wrong lot and it cost us 7 Euro just to move the car.

Once we had settled into our room, we decided to wander into the city center to find somewhere to eat dinner.  We came across a very big restaurant called Augustiner, which is the restaurant that works in connection with a brewery of the same name.  This restaurant was huge and was full to capacity.  Then when I went to the bathroom I realized there was a room just as big as the one we were sitting in on the other side of a wall.  I would not be surprised if there were more than 500 people there.  It was also a big game for Bayern Munich the local football (soccer) team and there were many people sporting their Bayern Munich apparel.  When we sat down, we were seated at a table that was very big and had another group on the opposite end.  We were given a basket of pretzels which we ended up having to pay for in classic European style, but it was worth it.  Then I looked at the specials menu and they had asparagus everything.  For those who don't know, I love asparagus so I was in heaven.  I think just about every meal I had in Munich included asparagus as did some in Switzerland too.  I ended up picking a steak with white asparagus, béchamel sauce and potatoes for dinner and it was amazing, I ate it all.  After dinner we decided to walk around city center to get a feel for the city.  We ended the night early back at the hostel in preparation for our friends to show up early the next morning.

The other three were coming from Prague on a night bus and arrived in Munich around 7am.  They came to the hostel when we woke up around 9 and we had decided we were going to go visit Dachau.  I guess I do not have much to say about Dachau other than I am extremely glad that I went but it was also a very tough place to be.  They have the grounds pretty much fully open and then have made a museum inside one of the buildings.

One of the many memorials with the triangles symbolizing the markings prisoners had to wear

After Dachau we went back to the hostel and relaxed for a while before dinner.  We had decided to go to Hofbrauhaus for dinner because despite being touristy, it is supposed to be very traditional.  Even though we got there around 6pm, it was already packed and we had a hard time finding a place to sit.  Luckily two older men were just finishing up their drinks and said we could take their table.  It was over in the corner kind of separated from the action, but I think that was better because we could actually talk to each other over all of the noise.  We ended up just sitting around and talking and having a leisurely dinner until about 10:30 when we decided it was probably time to go back to the hostel.  I had a yummy asparagus soup and pork that looked more like a steak, but was just pounded thin.  Again a very good meal, we didn't have any trouble finding good food on this month away.

My yummy dinner

The next morning a few of us wanted to go to the BMW Museum and showroom because the BMW headquarters are in Munich.  The tour of the factory was full by the time we got there which was very disappointing, but we made the best of it and explored the headquarters and museum.  The BMW area is very close to Olympic Park so we headed over there to take a tour.  We ended up getting an audio guide because they hadn't started tours yet, but that was nice because we could go at our own pace.  We also took the opportunity to go up the big tower they had which had views of Olympic Park and all the way into city center.  Our audio guide worked up there and helped us to pick out the important places we should be looking for.

Olympic Village

The big stadium

Roofs of other Olympic buildings

The area on the other side of the lake in Olympic Park

We met back up with the rest of the group at the hostel in the late afternoon and then relaxed until dinner again.  We had decided that we wanted to get Doner Kebabs so we found a Kebab stand and had a nice quick dinner.  We decided to head back into city center to keep exploring for the night and just wandered the streets.  We eventually found an outdoor beer garden so we stopped so some of the group could have a pint.  By the time we were done there it was about 10:30 so we decided to head back because we wanted to leave the next morning at about 7 for Switzerland.