By Christine Swan

In part one, I described how we nearly missed our sleeper train to Munich but when the drama subsided, continued our journey and arrived at our hotel in the early morning. Here’s what happened next.

Memorial plaque to Prof. Herbert Jensen, architect and city planning officer

The weather was chilly and drizzling when we set off towards the city centre. Munich has many interesting sites and buildings and we soon became familiar with landmarks for navigating to and from our hotel. On our first morning, we headed towards the magnificent Rathaus and Marienplatz, the latter was one of Jensen’s developments.

Marienplatz and the Rathaus (New Town Hall)

The town hall is a stunning building. Every window is brimming with flower boxes, which glowed with colour on this dull autumnal day. The centrepiece is the magnificent animated clock. Every hour, the population assembles, stops, watches and listens.

The clock dates from 1899 and depicts a tournament staged to celebrate the marriage of Duke WiIliam V in 1568. Characters appear, twirls and dance their way around this elaborate mechanism while the happy couple look on. There is a different theme in the evening featuring a night watchman and Brahms’ lullaby for the little ones of Munich. There are a total of forty-three bells in the bell tower and the repertoire of tunes are regularly altered. It is a Munich “must see”, and when you have, go back and see it again!

The wedding scene depicted on the town hall animated clock is enough to cheer anyone – even in the rain!

Walking about in the cold is thirsty work but if you turn around, with your back to the clock in Marienplatz, you behold yet another wonder of Munich, Rischart’s Backhaus.

Rischart’s Backhaus – purveyors of bread, cake and other goodies. The restaurant is upstairs.

Downstairs is a bakery that also sells eatable souvenirs, such as a marzipan Bavarian breakfast. My late mother loved marzipan and this was a quirky gift to try to get home in one piece. Upstairs is the Willy Wonka of cake emporiums. As you wait to be seated, you walk past a refrigerated cabinet full of delicious, elaborately iced cakes, so many that it reminded me of the Generation Game conveyor trying to remember them to order your chosen slice. My German was passable I believed, but many of the cakes were unfamiliar. There was only one thing for it – visit every day and try them all in turn. We tried.

Altes Rathaus – now a toy museum

The old town hall, situated at the end of Marienplatz, dates from the fourteenth century and is now a toy museum.

Viktualienmarkt – a two hundred year old food market

A side turn took us through the two hundred year old food market. In the dull light, the fruit, vegetables and other produce positively glowed. I was tempted by some Schnapps to bring back home. Any flavour in your wildest imagination is available. I purchased two bottles, both award winners. One was smoked pear and I believe that the other was peach. Tasting and discussion was encouraged, fortunately, in English, due to its technical nature. I also purchased some hand made chocolates from the small shops that are also within the marketplace. At the time that we visited, Christmas decorations were beginning to make an appearance along with less seasonal kitsch home decorations.

Maximilianstrasse is a wide stretch in the museum district leading towards the Isar

We headed down the wide and busy Maximilianstrasse towards the River Isar. The buildings are very grand with the Bavarian Parliament building rising imposingly over them all from the far side of the River. My lasting impression was the clarity and cleanliness of the Isar. In the UK, we have tolerated horrendous levels of pollution that have rendered some rivers biologically dead, including parts of the River Wye, not too far away from where I live. The Severn is not much better. We expect rivers to be be a murky green/ brown hue so, to see one so clear and pure, with numerous fish appearing almost stationary as the clean water flows over them, is quite affirming. This is how a river should be. The bed is grey pebbles and although it does not appear deep, I have read that other sections of the Isar are perfect for wild swimming.

A tranquil scene reflected in the Isar. This is the Praterinsel exhibition hall.

The crystal clear River Isar in autumnal colours

Munich is famous for Oktoberfest and Oktoberfest is famous for beer. We were visiting during October but the “fest” had finished a few weeks previously, much to my son’s disappointment. However, the Munich beer halls are an experience all of their own at any time of year. I should add at this point, that I don’t drink beer. I have tried but am not partial to its bitterness. As we walked back through the old town district, in search of beer, I considered what substitute I would enjoy. Mr Schwarzenegger not only has all the good lines but also, all of the good suggestions. For those who are not familiar with Radler, it is the ideal beer drink for the non-beer drinker. A mix of beer and lemonade it approximates to the UK drink of shandy. It allows everyone to enter into the unique spirit of the beer hall which is a sociable drinking and dining experience.

The famous Hofbrauhaus

Visiting a beer house is an essential part of the immersion into Bavarian culture. Tables are arranged to be shared. During our stay in Munich, we met a lovely couple from Australia who were touring Europe, and, on our second visit, a couple from Las Vegas. The oompah band punctuates their set with drinking interludes where everybody sings along and has a swig from their stein. After a short time, everyone is the best of friends. Even if you don’t speak the same language, having a good time together is universal.

The interior of the Hofbrauhaus, Munich, complete with resident oompah band

You are encouraged to join in – make mine a Radler!

Salty pretzels

As a clever marketing ploy, the serving staff circulate the hall with baskets of huge pretzels. These are the perfect accompaniment to your stein of beer however, the salt that is liberally sprinkled on top, is tasty but thirst-making, requiring more to be drunk. The serving staff are superb. How they remember the orders of their section of the hall, I couldn’t work out, but I was very impressed.

The menu is a work of art

Time to go back to the hotel

There is only so much lemonade one can imbibe and so many pretzels you can eat. We walked out into the Munich night to return to the hotel. On our way out we saw some happy punters literally being carried out by their companions but the atmosphere was exceedingly good-natured and friendly. We walked through the crisp night air, past the town hall, beautifully illuminated like a fairy castle, to the strains of a busker, playing on, of all things, a grand piano. Munich is indeed an exceptional place.

The new town hall at night

Unfortunately, the weather had not improved the next day but we still had plenty to see so we boarded the U-Bahn train to the Allianz Arena, home of Bayern Munich. Whilst waiting on the platform and chatting away in English, an elderly lady approached us and spoke in a clipped English accent. She asked if we needed any directions and that it would be her pleasure to help us. She explained that she had been an English teacher and loved speaking it. I am similar with my love of trying to speak French so I do understand her motivation. We chatted for a short while until the train arrived. In this area of Germany, it is not uncommon to find people who don’t know a great deal of English. This did result in me pointing to cakes in Rischart Backhaus that I either didn’t know the name of or my pronunciation was so off, it rendered it unintelligible.

Quite a long way from anywhere – the Allianz Arena

The journey was about a 30 minute ride and we arrived to a blustery open space with the famous arena looming in the distance. It is very much set up for drivers, with plentiful car parks and situated close to a motorway junction. The exterior skin consists of plastic “bubble” sections that were installed and inflated to produce the textured skin. Each section can be illuminated from underneath enabling the displayed colour or colours, to be controlled. Usually, the displayed colour is red.

Bubbles

The tour around the ground was interesting. I have to confess that I am not a great football fan but willingly went along with my son as it is his passion.

Even when the sun doesn’t shine, the grass can still grow

Very red home changing room

The tall corridor from the visitors changing rooms is designed to intimidate. The narrowness adds to the illusion

This is the player entrance to the pitch. It was raining so we walked down the stairs……..and then back up again

Impressive trophy cabinet

After a long walk around the ground, backstage areas and museum, we returned to Munich city centre. We ate in the Spatenhaus an der Oper which is a traditional Bavarian restaurant and fortunately, had vegetarian options. I was drawn to the beautifully painted ceiling but the staff were very friendly and fortunately spoke English well so could explain the ingredients of the dishes. I felt rather awkward trying to take a photo in the restaurant, so I did the next best thing, and took one through the window as we left. You can just about see the beautiful painted ceiling.

Through the window of the Spatenhaus an der Oper

The following morning we decided that the best way to see the sites around the City was by bus. In keeping with many other European cities, Munich has a plethora of tour buses with hop on-hop off tickets.

First stop Schloss Nymphenburg

Approaching Siegestor

The bus tour was very productive, Although we didn’t disembark, it gave us a really good view around Munich, including BMW World, the Olympic Stadium and other parts of the city.

We returned to the starting point and descended the steps of the bus ready to pack in a few more visits. We visited the Oktoberfest museum and then sought a craft beer store to buy some gifts for my son’s friends.

Inside the Oktoberfest Museum

Rare! A Richmond edition Smart Roadster – they only made 100

The famous towers of the Frauenkirche. A very useful landmark for finding your way around Munich

The hotel had kindly looked after our bags all day but we returned in the early evening ready to depart to catch our OBB Nightjet to Cologne. Fortunately, the return journey took place without incident and we enjoyed breakfast while our train was speeding along the bank of the Rhine. As I looked out, eating my pastry and drinking coffee, I saw a white fairytale castle. This vision stuck with me.

A fairytale castle on the Rhine

I’m a huge advocate of rail travel, not just from an environmental standpoint but also because of the richness of the travel experience. Rail travel involves more than just A to B. I believe that travellers miss a great deal by flying short haul and it isn’t a huge time saver. Sleeper trains somehow manage to combine the excitement of a camping trip with the magic of going to sleep in one place and waking up somewhere else. You can feel virtuous about your carbon footprint and that you are saving the price of a hotel stay and travel by combining the two.

So I’ll raise a stein of Radler to marvellous Munich – bis bald!

All photographs by the author.

More information

Munich tourism – https://www.muenchen.de/en/tourism

We stayed at the Hotel Metropol – https://www.hotelmetropol.de/

We travelled with OBB Nightjet Cologne to Munich return- https://www.nightjet.com/en/reiseziele/deutschland/muenchen

We travelled Brussels to Cologne on DB ICE – https://int.bahn.de/en

The London to Brussels leg was on Eurostar – https://www.eurostar.com/uk-en/destinations/brussels