More Castles & More Beer in Munich

The next leg of our journey led us to Munich, Germany. Here we lived it up the German way and made sure to stuff ourselves whenever possible with plenty of beer, brats and homemade hot-out-of-the-oven bretzels. Of course, we also made sure to toss in a few castles, some river surfers, a Glokenspiel, and of course a trip to an iconic beer hall complete with music and, it goes without saying, more beer!

One thing we learned the hard way is when traveling trough Germany with a EuroRail pass is always have the pass cover with your pass. To give you a little back story, when the three month railpass arrived before we left, Matt and I both expecting some kind of plastic card or in the least something laminated. I mean for the price we paid and for the sheer fact that we were going to be shoving it in our money pouch for three months straight you’d think it would be, I don’t know, a bit durable. This was not the case. When it arrived we were both shocked to see that it was just a basic flimsy paper ticket with this equally flimsy paper cover/log. It says right on the ticket that that it is invalid without the paper cover but unfortunately we accidently left ours with our friend in Paris by mistake. Since they mail it to you ahead of time it isn’t easy to get a replacement. So she was going to mail it back to us once we returned to the US. The incentive for doing this is that once you’re done and mail it back, the EuroRail company will send you some kind of swag. The main purpose of this cover really is so that the company can track where travelers are going and what train services they are using. So, we made sure to track all our train trips in our journal if we were ever to run into any problems with a ticket agent.

It had all been gong fine and dandy until we got to Germany. The strict German train conductor stereotype didn’t falter with this one. Even after calmly trying to explain our circumstance of our missing cover and showing him our temporary itinerary log in our journal, he still wasn’t having any of that. In fact, he was convinced we purposefully threw it in the trash just for fun. It got borderline scary when at one point he was even threatening to charge us a 100€  fine each, plus the full cost of the current train tickets, then kick us off the train at the next stop, detain us and if he had it his way I was fully sure he’d deport us too. After quite a bit of sweet talking and explaining, we were finally able to convince him into letting us slide by just this one time, if and only if, we promised that at the next train station we immediately went to the EuroRail folks and obtained a replacement cover (We didn’t. Ha!). Word to the wise –  when traveling on German trains with a EuroRail pass, always carry your passcover and try not to piss off the ticket agents because a kind smile and the “I’m a stupid American” routine won’t convince them into bending the rules. I think we just got lucky!


NEUSCHWANSTEIN CASTLE



Our first outing in Munich was to go see the Neuschwanstein Castle. This castle is best know for the fact that its fairytale look inspired Walt Disney himself in designing Sleeping Beauty’s castle in his Magic Kingdom.
What made our visit even more magical was that all of the fall leaves had just turned, creating a colorful, almost painted backdrop to this picturesque castle.

The view of the surrounding countryside from the castle walls

Neuschwanstein Castle was built by King Ludwig II of Bavaria and who was also known as the fairytale king. His love for Richard Wagner’s operas, stories, and characters were Ludwig’s main inspiration for the castle and many of the rooms inside. In fact, Neuschwanstein translates to “New Swan Knight” in homage to the Swan Knight of one of Wagner’s operas.

My favorite, and probably the oddest room in the castle, was the cave room. There is a hallway that Ludwig made look like an actual cave complete with cave formations, cave lighting and decorative bats. I told Matt I wanted a cave room in our future house… he didn’t seem all too excited about that.

On our hike down from the castle we came across a little old man doing miniature color pencil drawings of the castle on leaves. I was kind of shocked that everyone seemed to be walking past him as his art seemed quite good. I’m a sucker for local street artists and will usually stop to appreciate what they have to offer. I’ll walk right by someone just standing there with a sign waiting for a handout but It is my personal belief that if someone is willing to offer up a bit of their talent, I’m willing to shell out bit of cash. Hey, you never know you could be walking past an original Bansky.

So, I started looking through his work and one of his paintings buried at the bottom of a giant pile caught my eye. I asked the man how much and he told me 5€. That seemed like a bargain for an original piece of hand drawn art so I handed him my choice and told him I’d take it. He then hesitated once he saw the one I picked. He kindly took it from my hand and looked at it. I could tell it was one of his favorites. He took a moment, looked at me, I smiled at him, he smiled back at me and then he did something I didn’t expect. He took one last long look at the drawing and then kissed it goodbye before he sealed it in an envelope and handed it back to me. He then told me he knew it had a good home and that he was ok with saying goodbye. It’s people and moments like these that make the world beautiful! I now have a little piece of that artist’s love to treasure for the rest of my life.

After selling us the drawing he also gave us some insider instructions on a more romantic hike down from the castle. We, of course, took him up on his advice.

  

We ran into a few historical re-enactors taking pictures which only added to the romance

  
On the hike we came across a small beach alongside the river that was cluttered with little rock cairns. I’m not sure why they were there but it is my guess that someone started it one day and tourists have just been following suit. I left my mark and added one of my own as Matt took pictures.

A real log flume! Castles and log flumes… where have I seen this before?

Say what?

We finished the day on a high note with some fine German Beer and Bavarian food!






















MUNICH

The next day we spent the day exploring the sights and sounds of Munich.

  

We made sure to be down at the city center to watch the Rathaus-Glockenspiel at 11:00 and then just wandered around to see what we could find.

A fun fish sculpture on a fountain in the city center that both Matt and I really liked

Take note of the Exklusiv Mango. I’ll take one of those with a bit of extra klasse too

A knitted bike… you don’t see one of those everyday

Not exactly sure why I thought this was a good idea but it seemed like a fun thing to do at the time. When in Munch… put your head in the mouth of the giant fish sculpture. Yeah… that seems logical… I guess

We were told by our hotel host to make sure to go see the surfers. At first I thought I was hearing them wrong… surfing… in Munich. But it turns out that the river surfing scene is rather big here. I didn’t really know what to expect but it was quite entertaining to watch and they were really talented. We watched them for about an hour.



   



Before we left for the trip, my dad gave me a Heisenberg sticker that he had picked up on our trip home from the ABQ. You Breaking Bad fans will understand. He thought it would be fun to put just a touch of ABQ pop culture somewhere in Europe. I thought about where to put him throughout most of our trip… on a hostel wall in Scotland, in an Amsterdam cafe, behind a park bench in Paris but none of these places seemed right. It wasn’t until I was talking to a few German travelers and fellow Breaking Bad fans in Greece when they said he belonged in Munich. Of course put Heisenberg in the home of the original Heisenberg. So when we came across the surfers I only thought this was the most fitting of spots. Say my name… B****!








   

We took time to enjoy the falling leaves in the park too

A fun piano trailer we found outside of the opera house

One of my must do’s in Germany was to get one of those giant beer steins and of course it only seemed fitting to do that at the famous Hofbrauhouse!

   

The Hofbrauhaus is one of Munich's oldest beer halls

We even got to take in some traditional Bavarian music

   

For dinner I had the half roast chicken with hot potato salad and Matt had the suckling pig with dumplings. Of course it wasn’t complete without bretzels and strudel for dessert. And beer… of course! 

The place was absolutely packed so we shared a table with a few Russians. Word to the wise, do not get into a drinking competition with a Russian. I was only half way through my liter, and feeling it, when they were already ordering  their third round. I honestly don’t know how they were still functioning. They were some nice folks and even shared with us some of their pistachios and dried fish they brought in with them to complement their liquid diet.

About that time I thought it would be a good idea to take a video. Mind you, anyone who knows me knows I’m quite a lightweight when it comes to alcohol, so do not judge my state of mind at this point. Or my camera skills for that matter! But, no matter what, as Matt, the Russians, and the rest of the Hofbrauhaus were my witnesses, I was going to finish that stein!




And here’s the proof! Matt let me buy that stein. I dubbed it the trophy stein and lugged it around with me in my suitcase for the rest of the trip. I am very proud of it!

Thanks Munich for all the fun times even though I did have quite the headache the next morning.