Last weekend we decided at literally the last minute that we would go to Munich for the weekend. We booked train tickets at 3pm for a 5pm train, so there was a mad dash to get packed and get a hotel room booked. Plus, the S4 train that is literally steps outside our doorway that conveniently takes us to the Zürich HB for catching any train out of town is shut down for the next 3 weeks for track replacement. We also had to hurriedly find an alternate route to the HB on a tram or a bus.

After a mad dash, we made it with a few minutes to spare. For the record going forward, a 4 hour train ride is too long. Anything above 3 hrs and it should be a flight.

We arrived in Munich at 9pm and quickly discovered that booking a hotel rightacross the street from the HB is not the best idea. First clue was the fact that the remote was in a plastic sleeve. There wasn’t much we could do about it at 8pm, while searching for a universal adapter for our electronics, AND trying to find a place to eat that wasn’t also offering us a lap dance, so we just grabbed some McDonald’s, found a guy selling used Nokia phones and used watches who also had electronics adapters, and slept on top of the duvets. I booked us a different hotel first thing in the morning.

We survived the night, and the next day we walked around Marienplatz, which is the old part of town. The old building with the flags is the Munich Rathaus. There was some sort of rally going on, which I photographed and took video of because they kept ringing cowbells when they were happy. It felt like a pep rally. I don’t know exactly what they were on about, but it had something to do with the treatment of wolves.

We walked by the Bavarian State Chancellery building (Bayerische Staatskanzlei), which is near the edge of the English Garden. I’m not entirely sure what the significance of the English Garden is, but the German language apps that I used referred to it in conversation an awful lot. It was really pretty.

We had lunch, and my apple strudel was delicious. Then we found our new hotel, checked in, then went back to the first hotel to collect our stuff. The new hotel was right by Sendlinger Tor, which is the cool brick arch thingy.

Breakfast at the new hotel was quite nice. They let us order it ahead and had it prepared and waiting for us when we came down at our assigned time (9am). Not pictured are the scrambled eggs and bacon that were even more freshly prepared as we sat down. After breakfast we decided to go visit the Olympic Park, so we got on the U-Bahn. This particular U-Bahn train looked like it should be in a museum. The doors had to be opened manually.

There are a ton of pictures of Olympic Park, from when Munich hosted the Olympics in 1972. It was a really pretty day to walk around outside. The third picture is back toward some of the athletes’ villages, and the 2-3 story apartment building over to the far left is in the vicinity of where the terrorist attack took place during the games. The really old ticket booths really made me laugh - it all looked like it was a Disney Epcot version of Future World. We paid 3.50CHF to go inside the main stadium and walk around. You could even pay extra to zip line from one side to the other. The seats inside the stadium were plastic, and there were parts where there weren’t any kinds of railings.

You can also go visit BMW World (BMW Welt) while you’re there, as their main HQ are right there. There is also a large aquarium in the area and some other family oriented places within walking distance.

That was all we had time to do/see in Munich last weekend. I found out that Oktoberfest was supposed to be in its second weekend then, but it was canceled for this year. They were still out in their lederhosen and dirndls drinking and celebrating though - just no beer tents in sight.

Our last meal before catching the train - liter Cokes, something they called meatloaf that looked more like Spam, and more apple strudel!