To start off my weekend in Munich, I had breakfast at the hostel I stayed at, Wombats City Hostel, before taking a free three hour walking tour that my hostel provided. During the walking tour of the capital city of Bavaria, we learned all about Munich’s history, cultural heritage and beer-brewing legacy, while walking between the central squares of Marienplatz and Odeonsplatz. We also visited historic landmarks like the Old Town Hall, Frauenkirche, St Peter’s Church, and the English Garden and admired the architectural wonders of the Munich Residenz, the largest city palace in Germany that was once the former royal palace of the Wittelsbach monarchs of Bavaria.
During the tour our guide also delved a bit into Munich’s dark past and the birth of the Nazi ideology. We discovered some of the sites that provided backdrops to Adolf Hitler and his followers as they set about founding the Third Reich, giving Munich its title as the ‘Capital of the Nazi Movement.’ One of the most powerful spots that we visited was a golden cobblestones alleyway known as Vicardigasse that was used to avoid having to give a Nazi salute. Following 1923’s abortive Beer Hall Putsch, and the subsequent rise of the Nazi party, the Feldherrnhalle became a monument for Hitler’s movement, with pedestrians expected to salute when passing by, but the nearby Viscardigasse alley provided an alternate route for those that refused to show their support.
A highlight of the tour was coming across concert festivities happening in the city center of Max-Joseph-Platz in celebration of Munich’s National Beer Day. All six of Munich’s top beer companies ― Augustiner, Hacker-Pscho, Löwenbräu, Paulaner, Spaten, and Hofbräuhaus ― were there giving out free pitchers of beer for people to enjoy as they watched the concert!
After the walking tour I went with a girl I met on the tour named Jessica (she’s from Switzerland!) to the Hofbräuhaus for a typical German lunch where we met four German men who were part of the band and dressed in traditional German outfits!
After lunch Jessica and I went our separate ways and I went to the Residence museum. Highlights of the museum were the Antiquarium (Hall of Antiquities), the largest secular Renaissance hall north of the Alps, the early 17th-century rooms, including the Reiche Kapelle (Ornate Chapel), the Steinzimmer (Stone Rooms) and the Trierzimmer (Trier Rooms), the magnificent Rococo Rooms (Ancestral Gallery and Ornate Rooms by François Cuvilliés the Elder) and the neoclassical Königsbau (King’s Tract) created by Leo von Klenze.
On my last day in Munich, I grabbed breakfast near my hostel at California Bean where I had their morning breakfast special of buttermilk pancakes with fresh strawberries, peaches, powdered sugar, and vanilla custard along with a side of scrabbled eggs and some Orange Juice. It was absolutely incredible and certainly sustained me on my six hour journey back to Maastricht!
Sarah's European Voyage 