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Published: December 22nd 2010
I finally got to see some of my family again. They were able to come visit me for Christmas and I’ve been showing them all around Munich. I think they really like it so far! My brother, mom, uncle, and grandpa were able to come and my grandpa is the only one who’s been to Europe before. My mom and uncle have been to Canada, but other than that they haven’t been out of the United States at all, so this is a really exciting trip for them. I’ve been trying to keep it really interesting and we’ve got a lot of sights lined up.
They got here Sunday morning and we were all pretty tired. I was really tired too, because I wanted to meet them at the airport and the airport is pretty much the farthest S-Bahn stop from the city center that you can possibly reach. Not to mention it was early morning so all the buses barely run and I had to jog to an U-Bahn station to get to the Central Station. When their plane finally arrived we decided to save money and just take the S-Bahn back into town instead of a taxi. Their
Munich and the Alps
Great view of the Alps from Saint Peterhotel is in an awesome location, right in the city center next to Marienplatz, which makes getting around much easier. Sunday we rested a bit and napped, but we were able to see a few different things like the Neues Rathaus, Theaterinkirche, Feldernhalle, Hofgarten, and the outside of the Frauenkirche. We also had lunch at the famous Hofbräuhaus and had a really good dinner in the hotel restaurant.
Monday we went inside the Frauenkirche, which they really liked, but unfortunately the catacombs and the towers are closed during the winter. The guard told us that Saint Peters Church is the only church with a tower open during the winter, so we made our way there. I’d already been up twice, but this third time was great too, because I got to see the Christmas market from above and also the lighting over the Alps was awesome and made them really stand out. We then went back into Saint Peters Church to see the inside. My family had a lot of questions I didn’t have the answers to like “who designed these statues?” “how old are these?”, so I ended up finally finding a (guard? – a guy that worked
Olympia Park
the tower and olympic stadiums there, not really a guard) and asking a few of the questions in German. He ended up giving us an awesome tour of the whole church! Of course, it was in German, so I had to translate for everyone and ask their questions, but it was really nice of the man and he gave us some really great info! Everyone really enjoyed it.
Today, Sunday, we started with the Spielzeug Museum (toy museum), which is actually a private museum so it carried a ridiculous price tag of 12 Euro!! It was really small for such a high price, but I guess since it’s basically located in the Altes Rathaus that drives up the price too. It was a really interesting museum though and had some really cool toys. It’s so interesting to see how much toys have changed in time, from basic stuffed animals, tin soldiers, and china dolls to computers, video games, and stuffed toys that move like…tickle me elmo!
After the toy museum (which was a new site for me too), we went to another new-for-me site, which were the Olympic stadiums. The actual architecture of the stadiums was really innovative for the time it was
Nightime
outside the hotel restaurant built, the roofs looking like huge tents/nets over the stadiums. Unfortunately, the Olympic tower was also closed for the winter so we couldn’t go to the top, but I heard that there’s a revolving restaurant on top too. A lot of the stadiums, tracks, and the swimming pool are still used by the public today. It was a nice walk and the weather wasn’t too bad at all.
It was particularly chilling to think of the tragic “Munich Massacre” of 1972 when the Israeli Olympic team was taken hostage by a terrorist group called Black September. The terrorists ended up killing 11 of the athletes and coaches, a police officer, and even lost 5 of their own in a hostage negotiation situation at the Munich airport. The games were continued later, but many team and players left Munich, not wanting to play after such an awful event.
Some of the things we have planned for the rest of the week:
*Tour of Dachau Concentration Camp (Thursday)
*Castle tour - including Linderhof, Hohenschwangau, and Neuschwanstein (Sunday)
*Third Reich Tour (Monday)
*Deutsches Museum (Friday?)
*Schloß Nymphenburg (Friday?)
*Tollwood festival and Saint Paul's Church (Friday?)
*and maybe the Sound of
Music tour in Salzburg, Austria (Friday?)
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Congratulations, on your first Featured Blog. :)