Munich continued

Day 7 (Sunday 1st July 2007)

Sunday was an interesting day for me, but not much to write about. I basically just walked around Munich exploring the city. There are a great many massive old churches in a range of styles that all have huge clock towers. At one point standing in one spot I could see three churches at once that would dwarf any Cathedral I've seen in Australia.

I found the Residenz, a very attractive palace in the centre of town, although it's not open to the public so I only saw the outside. I found the Haufbrauhaus which is the most famous of the beer halls. Many of the tables have large signs above them proclaiming which Stammtisch (Group of friends who regularly meet at that table) the table belongs to. Blow-ins like us get served out of glass mugs, but the regulars use their traditional ceramic ones, which they store securely locked up in a metall rack in the beer hall.

Day 8 (Monday 2nd July)

I was originally supposed to check out Monday morning, but I told them on Sunday night I would stay an extra day as there were more places I wanted to see and I was considering a day trip to Dachau. However when I got up Monday morning rain was pounding down, so I spent half a day hanging around the hotel and reading before it let up enough for me to venture out in the afternoon. I had intended to check out the Schloss Nymphemberg, but the long days tricked me and by the time I got out there it was 15 minutes to closing time and they refused to sell me a ticket.

The grounds are open much later though, so I spent a pleasant two hours wandering through the gardens and along the watercourse.

About 8pm I headed back to town and went back to the Haufbrauhaus where I met three guys my own age, engineers for BMW, who had just arrived that day to do a few months work there. One of the three spoke very good English, and another spoke some, so I spent a friendly evening chatting with them until about midnight, when I wandered back to my hotel.

Day 9 (Tuesday 3rd July)

This was a virtual repeat of day 6, this time catching the train back the other way from Munich to Berlin. I arrived at 6pm and had a cold wet walk to my hotel, which fortunately is less than 1km from the main trainstation, the Hauptbahnhof. I rang Anna and Julia, the two german exchange students who lived with me last year, and we arranged to meet at a subway station across town for dinner and drinks. They took me to me a very nice pub/restaurant that's for locals rather than tourists, where they shouted me to a traditional german dinner.