More of Munich

I met up with Kyle around 9AM the next day as agreed, but first attempted to book myself in for another night of Wombats hospitality, only to be told that there was absolutely no chance of that. Luckily the next two doors down were both hostels as well, and the one next to us, Jagers, had an available bed. I booked myself in there, packed up my stuff back at Wombats and about half an hour later Kyle and I were on our way to Dachau, the first Nazi concentration camp.

After walking through the gate with the ominous sign "Arbeit macht frei", which means basically "Work brings freedom" (hah!), the whole place opened up into a huge (huge!) rectangular area, with a large square horse shoe shaped building that housed the museum section of the memorial site, whilst a hundred meters away or so there were a couple of large rectangular buildings, replicas of the housing structures used by the prisoners during their incarceration. The trip started off with a twenty minute video describing the camp and how it was used, including the details that it was essentially the prototype concentration camp that the rest of them were modeled after. Once the video was finished, Kyle and I wandered around the museum exhibits which contained copious amounts of information (I probably didn't read through half of it) on everything from the types of prisoners to how they were treated, to the human experiments that were performed (I found this the most disturbing), etc. Some of them were particularly brutal, such as "pole hanging" which involved hanging thr victim from a rafter by their hands tied behind their back, and "standing cells" which were cells so small that the victim was forced to stand for days at a time. They had various artifacts such as a uniform that one of the prisoners wore, various chains and whips and the like that were used and many, many quite disturbing photographs. There was also a Christian monument and a Jewish monument both within the memorial site, the Jewish one had an Israel flag and a candle in it, I expect put there by some recently passing through Jews. The whole thing was not depressing as such, but certainly a very sobering experience.

Making it back to Munich proper, I bode farewell to Kyle, who was about to make is way to Nuremberg, put away my bag in the hostel and hurried down the main walking strip of Munich to where a free bike tour was about to start. I decided that this would be the best way to check out the sites, as previous bike tours I'd attended were very enjoyable. After gathering the group, we had an English guide, John, from Manchester take us on our way around the main points of interest. From parliament buildings to where Hitler had marched his attempted coup (Munich was essentially where the Nazi party started), to various grand looking buildings, John was able to explain in very entertaining detail the reason a certain building was there, and how many times it had been rebuilt do to bombings or various other destructive influences. At least 65% of Munich was levelled to the ground during the WWII, and one particular building, I can't remember the name, had been rebuilt no less than three times in the past century.

We continued into the largest park in Munich (and I think the largest in Europe), the English Gardens, which, similar to Zurich, was where the locals went to sunbake and do their beachy-style activities. There is also one section of the gardens which is known as the "Nude Gardens", where the patrons are encouraged to drop their kit and enjoy the sun au naturale. Unfortunately the only members of the community that seem to take this offer up are the elderly gentlemen of the region, which will probably dash the perked up hopes of most of my readers. Nude soccer and other sports are popular, but I was happy just to get through that area with my vision intact.

In roughly the center of the gardens (past the nude bit) there is a Chinese Tower where traditional German music is played in the middle of the second largest beer garden in the city. We paused here for an hour or so to get some food, and of course some beer. I managed to put down a couple of liter steins and a bratwurst before getting back on the bikes, and luckily they didn't have too strong an effect on me to send my bike more than slightly veering along the path. Before leaving the gardens we saw the fake wave that is also quite famous in the city. Basically when the allied occupation was in Munich, a lot of the soldiers from California missed being able to surf, so they put a bunch of large blocks and wooden planks underneath a quickly flowing part of the river to creating a standing wave upon which the soldiers could surf. Apparently the Germans also liked this concept, and the standing wave has been there ever since, usually with at least 4 to 5 people all taking it in turn to have a crack at surfing on a river. They're in full body wetsuits, mind you, as the water is extremely cold.

The bike tour continued for another hour or so, showing us a few different sites, and after it was all said and done, the tour guide tipped (it was a free tour, but you're expected to tip the tour guide whatever you thought it was worth), a few of us then went down to the Hofbrauhaus to check out Munichs most famous beer hall. The place was absolutely packed with at least 3 thousand people, and after having a quick look around and listening to the German band briefly, we found a table and waited to be served. This waiting took a considerable amount of time, and after about half an hour we finally were able to place an order for some beer and food. This then arrived not less than another half hour later, and whilst the beer was good, it certainly wasn't worth the delay. I didn't stay too long in the place, as the waiting and crowds were excruciating, but one of the more interesting parts about the place is that the hardcore locals actually have their own stein and a little locker where they keep it in the place. Another bit of history is that this establishment where Hitler enjoyed to have his beer, and was essentially the place where the Nazi party was founded.

I went back to the Wombat's bar, where live music was supposed to be kicking. This was true, but it was the second band of the two which had been billed as "Alternative Metal Emo", which from the sounds of it wasn't really my bag. They weren't too shocking at the end of the day, and I had a couple of beers and chatted to one of the other people who happened to be on the same bike tour as me. After an hour or two of that, I wandered over to the Jager hostel bar where I ran into a few Irish girls and struck up conversation with them. We had a few drinks, chatted a while and then went next door, back to the Wombats bar, where I got distracted by some other people I'd met earlier. I ended up chatting to one of the girls travelling around with the band, and before I knew it the bar was closing and I had to go back to Jager's, at which point I decided going to sleep would be in my best interests.

I'd decided that the Deutche Museum was my primary focus for the following day, and after checking out of Jager and checking back into Wombats (nothing wrong with the Jager hostel, but Wombats was simply awesome) for my final nights stay, I headed across the city and was walking through the door of the museum about 11AM. I would be there until it closed, about 5PM, and I still didn't get to fully see the whole place. It is simply huge, and the whole thing is essentially a technology museum, a subject of which I am particularly fond. The entire basement area is made to be a mockup mine, with live size puppets and such pretending to drill into the walls and copious examples of the huge pieces of machinery and rail techniques used to do various types of mining. It was brilliant, and felt very authentic, until you tap the rock walls and get a very plastic sound back out of them. I recommend leaving the walls alone!

The rest of the museum included an aeronautics and astronautics section, various mechanics, power generation, an extensive computer science area, a marine technology section and a nuclear physics area just to name a few. The exhibits were about 50/50 in German and English, unfortunately the nuclear physics section was pretty much only in German (a subject that I'd become particularly interested in after hanging with the good people in Freiburg). However the displays and experiments they had running were all fascinating even just to look at, and most had some kind of interactivity available. The whole place was just incredible, and I would definitely recommend anyone heading to Munich to check it out.

After I was kicked out of there I headed back to Wombats to sort out my bed in the room (you can't actually check in until after 2PM), and I met an Irish couple there who were taking it easy with a beer and some music. They were from Belfast and two of the friendliest I've met. We sat around and chatted for a while, after which a young Australian guy who was also staying in our room came in and joined us. He was very drunk, but not in an altogether bad way, and after another hour of shooting the breeze we all went down the bar for a round. The Australian guy didn't last long, and headed back to our room to sleep off his stupor, but the rest of us stayed for another hour or so, met a couple of Americans and generally enjoyed ourselves for the evening.

Munich is an awesome place to go. There is plenty of historical buildings, interesting architecture, incredibly rich history added to the very nice English gardens and the best beer in the world (sorry Belgium, but you're awesome too!). The beer gardens and beer halls are great fun and the food is brilliant. I can understand why the Bavarians are a little bit more rotund than most, but I'm sure if I lived there I'd quickly end up in the same position. I spent 5 days there and could easily do it again, and it would definitely be the best place to go with a bunch of beer drinking buddies.