European Escapade 5: Barvarian Beer-Drinking & an Excuse to Eat Sausage!

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Munich, Germany: August 6th - August 8th

Day 12 - Our arrival in Germany at 7am brought the first real rain of our trip, & it was also quite cold & a bit breezy, & we realised that we hadn’t really brought enough warm clothes for our trip. The station was large & had heaps of amenities, & we took our time finding a map while we looked at all the nice German pastries (apple strudel & all that jazz). We walked the short distance to our hotel but they weren’t ready for us to check in, so we left our bags there & headed out into the city, which was just on the other side of the main train station. It had stopped raining by then so we were able to have a wander through the main shopping/pedestrian area, which was made much easier by the fact that it was still early & the shops weren’t open yet. There were mainly ‘high street’ stores (chain stores) but also some good local foods were available. We found this to be even more so as we strolled through the main square, called Marienplatz, past the huge glockenspiel cathedral, & into an outdoor market area that was just starting up for the day. It was fantastic to walk around in all the smells of fresh food - mainly bakery & meats, but a few knick-knack, fishmonger & fruit/vege stalls. It was actually quite amusing, as the meat shops/stalls outnumbered everything else by about 5:1 - we noticed this pretty much everywhere in this part of Europe. They sold all kinds of things imaginable, from steak, roasts & chops, to 30 varieties of sausage (bratwurst, etc)! Never forget how much the Germans love sausage.

After a nice slow meander through the market we went for a walk up to the Englischer Garten (English Garden), which I must say, was a but piss poor at the time. I guess it didn’t help that everything was saturated, but it was a bit boggy considering it was summer (what would it be like in winter?), & there were lots of mosquitoes & other bugs flying around. The grass didn’t seem very nice/soft & was full of weeds. I am sure it looks nice in the spring however, but it didn’t do much for us at the time. We walked around some flowers beds & a fountain, & just people-watched for a while, but we were feeling quite tired & couldn’t wait for a shower & some fresh clothes. We headed back towards the hotel & stopped back at the glockenspiel clock (which is actually a ‘neo-gothic’ cathedral called Neues Rathaus, apparently), which chimes only twice a day - we were just in time! Not only do the bells toll, but a huge glockenspiel (think xylophone) also plays a tune, while characters revolve up in the top of the cathedral (kind of like some types of cuckoo-clocks you might have seen when you were younger). The moving characters sort of told a story & there were heaps of people gathered in the square to see it by then. I noticed that many of the stores sold different types of cuckoo clocks, & also decorative beer steins with fantastic art on them - they really looked like a lot of hard work had gone into them, although I’m sure most of them were mass-produced. It was nice to see something so cultural though, & Munich, although a large city, seemed small enough still to maintain some of its originality. We had a bit of a laugh at some of the guys wearing their ‘lederhosen’ (German overall things), but that too was kind of nice to see. We got back to the hotel feeling like Germany had quite a nice feel about it so far.

After checking in, a hot shower & a short rest, we were feeling OK enough to venture out for a bit more of a look around. We decided to visit the famous Munich palace, called Schloss Nymphenburg, so we figured out the transport system (huge but easy to negotiate) & jumped on a tram towards the grounds. The buildings itself was so massive (taking up a large ground area, not so much tall) & quite awesome from the outside. The gardens were extensive & took up hundreds of acres out the back - I couldn’t even see where they ended & it was very impressive. We decided to pay to go inside the palace, but immediately regretted in once we got past the first room, as it was deceptively boring the rest of the time. The front room was a huge welcome lobby, with renaissance (Michelangelo-style) on the ceilings - this was combined with a bit of baroque gold gilding around the edges - a fantastic room! Shame the rest of the place was a dump! It was falling apart & we were only allowed to see about 7 rooms, all of which were only filled with overstuffed chairs & that was about it. When I tried to see behind one wooden shutter that was open, I got told off by a big burly security guard (in German), even though I hadn’t touched anything - yes, I know, I’m a trouble-maker. We got out of there & had a bit of a laugh, but the weather wasn’t the greatest so we headed back to the central city.

We weren’t sure where to go for dinner so we used the Lonely Planet Guide once again to help us choose a location, & decided on Hofbrauhaus, the largest beer hall in Munich. It’s a real shame we lost our camera, as the photos we got of this place were incredible! It was so busy, noisy & exciting, & it seemed that no one kept a bad mood after passing through the front door. The place was huge & divided into about 5 sections (1 for families, 1 for yuppies, & the rest for the general rabble). The tables were all huge, with big benches running down each side, fitting about 10 to a table, or more if you tried. There were about 3 bars & a gift store, plus an area for the ‘oompa band’, who were all wearing their ‘lederhosen’ & belting out hits from the 60’s, 70’s & 80’s, as well as a few traditional songs - the band consisted of an accordion, a saxophone, drummer & trumpet (I think), & I never thought I could get into that kind of music at all, but it was just so fun - they would play a song (very loudly) about every 6 or 7 minutes & then you had time to talk in between. Beer was only really served in 1-litre mugs, which were impossible to life with one hand when full. Everyone seemed really jolly (especially the drunk Chinese businessmen who kept standing up, toasting each other & dancing to the oompa band) & we found seats at a table next to a couple from Kent (greater London) who were OK to pass the time with. The whole place must have seated about 2000 people - it was so massive, & it had a real carnival feel to the air. We stayed for quite a while, just soaking up the atmosphere, but decided to leave when the couple from Kent were replaced by a group of people from Leeds, who complained constantly about pretty much everything - typical whinging Poms. It was an excellent night out, & after the disappointment of the Schloss Nymphenburg & the Englischer Garten, it was great to see that Munich still had a lot to offer!


Day 13 - We woke in the morning to find the weather was still a bit off/on. I wasn’t sure what we could do with our day other than visit Dachau, the site of a former concentration camp controlled by the Nazis in WWII. It seemed like a bit of an important trek, so we caught the metro & then a bus to the site, which was about half an hour or so out of the city. Dachau was the concentration camp that all other concentration camps in Europe were based on during this time, although the gas chambers there were never used - no one can explain why this was. Many men were kept here, not because they were Jewish, but because they were ‘troublemakers’, that threatened the German cause. Most people in this camp (generally men) did not in fact die through execution, but through malnourishment & disease, which was rife throughout most camps. When we got there it wasn’t too busy, & we made it in time to watch the English version of a documentary about the camp, which was sad but interesting. It didn’t upset me like I thought it might, but Vaughan was very quiet during our whole visit - of course, it’s hard to imagine the brutality, smell & conditions that the men lived in every day during the war years. There was a large administration building which now houses the museum - we took some time going through this & I felt like I had learned quite a lot by the time I came out, although it was a bit much information to take in at once. We got to see some of the barracks as they had looked at the time, the training/roll call yard, the crematorium & gas chambers, & the single-person cells, where some men were held in rooms so small that they could not sit or lie down. It was quite a humbling experience, especially around the crematorium area, as we had seen many pictures of all the bodies piled up outside that exact building, the soldiers unable to keep up with demand at the furnace. Most of the barracks are now gone (there must have been about 30 in all) but their foundations still lie there for people to see - thousands of men lived in this camp at any one time, & of course, it was also overcrowded. The property itself is really quite massive, with these buildings/remains taking up less than half of the camp. The other section is where the SS Guards had their barracks, administration offices & training ground, although this section is not open to the public. I felt a bit drained when I came out, but it was really interesting & I was glad I went!

After Dachau, we went over to the Olympic Stadium, the site of games where the Israeli team were kidnapped/killed in 1972. These days it is used for large events, recently including the World Cup (soccer). The whole area had been refurbished & we did not realised that a fun fair was operating on some of the grounds, so we had a good look around there. The whole complex was quite huge, with about 5 large stadiums/courts/buildings in all, some of it under this crazy shaped plastic roofing, which you could climb & run around on, on a special guided tour (weird!). I went into the main stadium for a look & to take a few photos, which was kind of cool. We headed back to town & milled around for a while, managing to catch up on some email using the free internet computer in the lobby of our hotel. It was a great place to stay with a decent free buffet breakfast which included all those sausages I talked about earlier, among many other tasty items & beverages.

In the evening we decided to visit the main beer hall that the Lonely Planet guide recommended in Munich, which was on the main pedestrian street. When we got there it didn’t seem half as much fun as the place we had been to the night before - very quiet crowd, with yuppie-type people sitting around sipping coffee, & generally very un-beerhall-like & kind of boring. We flagged going into that place & headed back on over to Hofbrauhaus (yay!) which was about 10 minutes walk away. It was already rollicking when we arrived, & we searched for room at a table for quite some time, before approaching these young German people to see if we could sit at a part of theirs. They gladly let us sit there & mostly kept to themselves for a while, but I could see the guy sitting next to Vaughan constantly looking over at him every time we were talking - I knew it was because we were speaking English, but I wasn’t sure if he was thinking that it was a good or bad thing. The girl next to me started up a brief civil conversation, & after finding out we were from New Zealand & making a few amusing jokes about Frodo (yes, Lord of the Rings was filmed there, blah, blah, blah), we suddenly had some new best friends. Her name was Nicole & the guy sitting next to Vaughan was called Marc - his English was not so good but we managed to communicate fine, especially with Nicole to help, who’s English was quite good. Marc’s cousin & cousin’s wife were also there but it was harder to talk to them as they were at the other end of the table, & the oompa band kind of overrode them most of the time.

In the end Nicole & Marc just talked to us & the others left - I felt a bit bad for them but I guess it wasn’t our fault. Nicole was from Frankfurt but lived & worked in Munich, & Marc was her friend from back home who was down to visit her. It was great to enjoy the beer hall with actual Germans, & they explained all the German drinking songs to us, & all kinds of things about the culture in the beer hall, as well as having a laugh about lots of things in general. We had a great meal (tip-top food as well) & ended up staying for about 6 hours - Nicole & Marc loved improving their English, & they were great to pass the time with. We leant quite a lot about Germany & even had an offer of a place to stay anytime in Munich, as well as an invitation to stay in Frankfurt, where Nicole goes to visit her friends & family at least once a month. They seemed quite keen for us to come, & have been in contact with us since our return to encourage us to return next year sometime - really, really nice! Vaughan seemed to enjoy learning all the drinking songs (of course), & Marc even bought the band a round of drinks to play a specific one that he had been talking about earlier - it was a real crack up & we really enjoyed ourselves! What a fun, good-natured night out with a ton of other people doing the same. I can’t imagine it being that enjoyable during Oktoberfest, when the whole city is overrun by drunken tourists, & everything costs 3 times as much. We were both really glad we made it there when we did & I thoroughly recommend it to anyone, even people who don’t drink beer, like me. Excellent! The thing that cracked me up the most was that everyone kept thinking Vaughan was German (apparently he has ‘that look’) so we would get people randomly approaching him to ask or say something, but he had no idea what they were saying. The look on his face was always priceless!

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