East of the Isar

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Since the weather was really nice today I decided to walk around and see a section of Munich that I haven’t seen yet. We’ve had a huge storm blowing through Germany earlier this week, but yesterday and today have had beautiful weather. I went to the east bank of the Isar River and found almost all the sites that I had looked up and written down earlier. I took the U-Bahn to the East side of the river and got out at Max-Weber Platz. From there I walked west towards the river. The first sight I had planned was Maximilianeum, the seat of the Bavarian government. It’s in a huge walled enclosure and the building towered over the rest of the street. I walked along Maximiliansbrücke (Maximilian’s Bridge), which had a few cool statues. Halfway along the bridge had a great view in both directions. I could see the Saint Lukas Church and the amazing weather and sun had brought a lot of people out to the banks to enjoy the day or sun bathe.

All along the river are bike and walking paths, which make it a really fun way to spend the day. I think technically this part of the East bank is part of the Englische Garten so it’s dotted with parks and different nice fields to lay down in the grass or relax. I walked south along the paths, passing a neat smaller bridge and going under another until I came to my next stop, which was Müller’sches Volksbad, the first public pool in Munich. I didn’t go inside, but the outside had a cool clock tower and I liked the overall architecture of the building. I walked a little bit more east from there into town to see Gasteig, where Georg Elser attempted to assassinate Hitler in 1939. Gasteig has now been turned into a cultural center, but was still interesting to see. The Nikolaikirche (Church of Nikolai) is a small chapel next to Gasteig so I stopped by to see inside. It was small, but beautifully decorated and had some wall paintings. I stopped for lunch in a Bavarian restaurant near the river and planned my next move.

I had started in the middle area of sights, then walked south, now I still had to see the northern part so I got back onto the path next to the river and walked north. After crossing a few fields I came to Friedensengel (Angel of Peace), a tall, golden statue built to commemorate the Franco-Prussian war. From there I walked east towards the U-Bahn stop that I would take home. On the way I stopped and saw the Museum Villa Stuck, which was home of the painter Franz von Stuck, but is now a museum. Outside was an interesting statue of a woman warrior riding a horse and the top of the building was decorated with more statues.

The last thing on my list to see was right next to the U-Bahn station and it was the Prinzregententheater. Since the clocks went backwards an hour a few weeks ago it’s been getting so dark so early. The sun is usually all the way down by 4:30 so I got finished just in time. Hopefully we’ll have a few more good days of weather before Winter hits. I hear back home that they’re having a really nice, beautiful Autumn. I love the Fall season, it went by way too quick in Munich. All the leaves have already fallen and the trees are bare. At least it’s not too cold yet though!

By the way, I moved to a new place, again. The other one was basically falling apart. I wouldn’t have really cared about all the other stuff, but the internet (an extra 30 euro a month for 1mb of bandwidth...) almost never worked and I’ve barely been able to talk to my family at all. Now I’m in a different residence and there’s free internet, but it’s also slow. Luckily though, there’s a t-mobile hotspot in the building so I signed up for a month and it’s super fast. Hopefully I’ll be able to talk to my family and friends more now. The bad news is that there’s some business fair coming up in two weeks and for those two weeks I have to move in with a host family, then I can move back here. Oh well, at least now I have internet.




Things I have left to see that you'll be hearing about soon:

*Olympic Stadium
*the three Pinakothek Museums
*Schloss Nymphenburg
*Asamskirche and Michaelskirche
*Weihnachtsmarkt (the Christmas Market! One of the biggest in Germany)
*Ammersee (a lake)
*Linderhof Castle
*Herrenchiemsee (a lake)
*Schloss Schleissheim
*Schloss Blutenburg (Schloss/Schloß means castle in German)
*Hirschgarten (biggest beer garden in Munich)


There's probably more, Munich is pretty big.

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Photos

Maximilianeum
the seat of the Bavarian government

Mueller'sches Volksbad
tower of the Volksbad near the Isar. The volksbad was the first public pool in the city.

Munich skyline
from Maximilianeum

Munich Skyline
from Maximilianeum