Hey all!!
This post is going to be a monster of a post because I spent the last 5 days in Munich, Germany and have lots to share!! This was my first time in Germany and I loved every second of it! I saw and did so many things. I'm excited to share my experiences with you.
Day 1:
When I arrived in Munich, the first thing I wanted to do was find my hotel, explore the city center and get my bearings. My hotel room was the smallest room I've ever stayed in. I had to share a bathroom with all the other rooms down the hall; however, I had my own shower and sink in the room. The room was very narrow with only room for a twin bed and a small dresser. I didn't have a view of anything out of my window, but I didn't spend much time in the room so the room didn't matter too much. Walking around the city center and trying to figure out the metro/ public transportation system turned out to a lot easier than I thought. The maps I had from the hotel were very helpful, and for a European city, Munich had well marked street signs.
The first stop I made was to the English gardens, a 20 minute walk from my hotel through the city center. I didn't walk through the entire garden because being one of the world's largest urban parks, it was huge and I wanted to see some more of Munich before lunch. Here are some pictures I took of the sections I visited:
After gardens, I walked through the city center. I felt Munich was very diverse in the types of food offered, shops, and the types of people, making Munich a lot to take in while walking through the main sections of the city. Here are some pictures of just walking though Munich:
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| Every sidewalk was divided into a pedestrian section and a bike lane because there are so many people who ride bikes! Bike tours of the city are also a popular travel attraction. I wanted to go on a bike tour, but the weather and just exhaustion of exploring on foot didn't allow me to do so this trip. Here is a small glimpse into the amount of bikes parked around the city. |
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| Right in the middle of the plaza, there was a soccer tournament going on
with what looked like club teams from multiple countries. It was
interesting to watch because the games were so different than what I've
seen in the states. I thought it would be like indoor soccer, but this was not the case. Each team only had 4 members on the field at once (a
goalie and three field players). |
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| Gothic architecture in Munich: built in 1874, the New Town Hall Steeple houses the city government |
When walking around, I found a Starbucks and finally got a chance to use the free wifi to check in with family members and let them know I had made it safe to Munich. While checking in, I got a message from friends in Galati saying the police had found my iPhone! I was very excited and hopeful that they had found my exact phone; however, I have gone to the station since I've been back, and it was not my phone. My phone is still officially stolen by a Roma.
Next, I went to the Munich Residenz, a former royal palace to Bavarian monarchs. The Residenz is the largest palace in Germany including 10 courtyards and 130 rooms. On the tour, you are able to go into about 90 rooms! It took hours to go through the whole tour with the audio guide. I like seeing old palaces being as I want to be a princess myself, but what I found interesting about this palace was that many of the rooms had to be rebuilt after WWII because a lot of it was destroyed. It was always a gamble to walk into a room and see if it had original furnishings or was rebuilt entirely because nothing survived the war. This is where I got my first glance at Germany's history during WWII, a history I was very interested to experience while there. Learning about Nazi Germany in a classroom and actually seeing what it left behind are totally different experiences.
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| Entrance to Residenz - there was lots of construction because they were setting up for a concert. |
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| Theater next to the Residenz |
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| This board shows how big the grounds are |
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| The largest room and my favorite room of the whole palace. The paintings over the entire room were gorgeous. This room is also the oldest room in the palace being used for many different purposes, but most commonly used as a dinning room. |
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| Me with the audio guide :) |
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| This chapel was rebuilt after the war. Below are pictures of what it looked like before the war and after the war (before it was rebuilt). Such a dramatic difference, and it made me wonder what the other rooms that were rebuilt had looked like immediately after WWII |
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| Before the War |
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| After the war |
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| This hall was one of my favorite rooms because it was the family lineage room. The walls were lined with pictures of the royal family along with a family tree painted in the middle of the wall on the right. |
When I finished going through the residential side of the Residenz, the other section was the Treasury filled with the crown jewels along with other breath taking items.
Before heading to dinner, I made a stop to a Catholic Cathedral - St. Peter's Church. I love visiting cathedrals because they are so beautifully decorated and you don't see anything built quite like them today.
For dinner I went to Hofbräuhaus. All my friends and family who have been to Munich before said I HAD to go here. I definitely saw why. The place was PACKED! I had a lot of fun there. It's a famous German brewery owned by the Bavarian state government. Where else would you see a state government that owns a brewery? I got the obligatory house beer and traditional bratwurst.
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| Kind of blurry, but this picture shows the live music |
Day 2:
Day 2 was the busiest day in Munich. I started with a trip to Dachau Concentration Camp that is about 10 miles away from Munich, but a 20 minute metro ride. This camp was the first concentration camp to open in 1933 by Heinrich Himmler, and it remained opened till 1945 when it was liberated by U.S. forces. The camp was intended to hold political prisoners, but then expanded to include forced labor and the imprisonment of Jews, ordinary German and Austrian criminals, and foreign nationals from countries Germany invaded and occupied. It was eerie to walk through the museum and the different rooms that were used to torture and kill people. The museum accounted the entire history of the Third Reich rise to power and reign, along with the history of the concentration camp and what had occurred there with pictures and personal testimonies of survivors. I felt the eeriest part to visit was the crematoriums and "showers." The pictures in these rooms were the most disturbing. Overall, I was deeply moved by my visit to the concentration camp. It was haunting to see where truly horrific events in human history have occurred.
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| Entrance to Dachau Concentration Camp |
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| This picture is of the thousands of people who were welcoming the U.S. troops who liberated them in 1945 |
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| A picture of what it looked like when it was operational. This particular picture captures the roll call lines that were required every morning to make sure no one escaped and everyone was accounted for. The people were required to stand for hours until the process was complete and sometimes was painful if questioned about the whereabouts of an unaccounted for person. |
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| Outer barb-wire fence and guard station |
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| These cement blocks where once barracks. All the barracks were torn down due to poor conditions, but some were rebuilt to use in the museum. |
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| The beds |
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| This is a memorial built in 1997 to remember those who were at the camp. |
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| Landscape view of the grounds |
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| Catholic memorial |
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| Jewish memorial |
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| Inside the Jewish memorial |
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| This is a small chapel at the back of the camp |
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| Crematorium |
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| This room is where they piled the dead bodies after the gas chamber |
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| The gas chamber |
Following the concentration camp, I wanted to see something more uplifting. Therefore, I went to see the Nymphenburg Palace closer to Munich. Nymphenburg was the summer residence of the Bavarian rulers. Done in the Baroque style, I was reminded of the Palace of Versailles in France. The palace had large, green grounds that were lined with different statues and flowers. The grounds are what reminded me so much of the Palace of Versailles; however, I liked the gardens in Versailles better. The tour in Nymphenburg was not nearly as extensive as the tour of the Residenz, but I loved the main room with the large windows facing the front and back of the house, showing off the beautiful landscaping.
Since this palace was not as large as the Residenz, it did not take long to tour the residential areas and the grounds. With a large chunk of the day still ahead of me, I decided to go the Olympic area to see the Olympic stadiums where the X Games were currently be held and the BMW Museum and Welt. I first went to the BMW Welt since it was immediately off the metro stop. In the Welt, people can interact more with the cars by sitting in them, play simulation games and buy merchandise. They mostly had newer models on display here so it was fun to see the up coming models that I have not seen in the States because some looked really unique. There was a walk way connecting the Welt and the museum, so I followed that to tour the museum. The museum was full of the older BMW models and described the history of the company. I didn't know BMW was involved in more than just luxury cars. They had help built planes, race cars, and was commissioned by the Nazi regime to provide all their transportation. I liked seeing the older models to compare how different the design has changed over the years. I don't know a lot about cars, but if a person is very into cars, the BMW museum is the place to go.
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| BMW Welt |
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| One of the coolest cars, it was electric. The plug is sticking up on the left side of the hood. |
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| They had a display of Rolls Royce cars too. |
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| Inside the Welt |
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| In one of the cars. |
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| Headquarter building behind the museum. |
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| Cars once inside the museum |
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| 1972 BMW Turbo |
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| The wall of Motorcycles |
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| One of the race cars |
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| A collection of the evolution of the engines. At the end, they had plane engines. |
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| 1956 BMW 507 |
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| 1936 BMW 328 |
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| 1963 BMW 1500 |
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| 2001 BMW Gina |
There was also a section that showcased lots of Rolls Royce cars throughout the years. I felt bad because I know there are people like my brother or dad who would have appreciated this section more than me. The cars are nice to look at, but I don't know a lot about them.
After the museum, I headed toward the Olympic park. On the way, I found an aquarium and had to go in. This aquarium as so much better than the couple I've been to in Romania, but the U.S. still holds to have the best aquariums. Following the aquarium, I continued to walk in the Olympic park where the X Games had set up a camp outside the buildings. There were weird games being played by X Game goers like Head ball which is like ping pong, played on a ping pong table, but the ball is softer and bouncy because you hit it with your head only instead of paddles. It was weird but entertaining to watch people play this game. Some others were in blow up hamster balls and put on the nearby pond so they couldn't stand up or go anywhere. I didn't see any formal X Game event, but it was enjoyable just to feel the environment outside the stadiums.
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| View of the Olympic area from the Welt bridge |
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| The Heads game |
When it started to rain, I decided to head back to my hotel in Munich. I was exhausted after walking around and traveling throughout the day. I ended up having to stretch to prevent extreme soreness the following days.
Day 3:
On day 3, I didn't do nearly as much because I was really sore and wiped out. In the morning I went to two art museums and saw works by Monet, Picasso, and Van Gogh. I appreciated the art at these museums more than the one I went to in Bucharest because I had an audio guide that gave me more information about a lot of the paintings. The audio guide made me look at parts of the paintings I hadn't noticed or gave me more background information that made the picture make more sense.
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| Monet |
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| Van Gogh |
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| Van Gogh |
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| Van Gogh |
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| Picasso |
Nearby the art museums, I found more museums that housed Italian and Greek statues and pottery, and buildings that were, as a man I asked for more information said, "Hitler buildings." Turns out he meant that the building now used as a theater was Nazi headquarters in 1933-1945. By the building I found a map of buildings that were marked as significant during the Nazi regime in that area. If I had more time that day, I would have liked to go see some of the buildings it identified.
With a little time left in the day, I went to see the Maximilianeum, the seat of the Bavarian Parliament. I didn't go inside, but the outside of the building was beautiful. I can only imagine what it looks like on the inside.
Day 4:
"No Kangaroos in Austria." This saying was on a t-shirt that was sold at souvenir shops and I thought it was perfect and hilarious. I spent day 4 in Salzburg, Austria. I was looking forward to this day trip most because I am a big fan of the Sound of Music, and since the movie was mostly filmed here, I was booked to go on a Sound of Music Tour. My love for the Sound of Music really goes much deeper than just liking the songs or the story. I have been watching this movie my whole life because it is one of my mother's favorites and she has also been to all the movie sites. While watching the movie, my mother did not only sing all the songs, she also pointed out in every scene throughout the movie, every time watched it, that she had been to that location by saying, "been there!" This was a huge motivation for me to see all the movie locations just like her, so we can both say, "been there!" when we watch the movie together. :)
I left on the 6am train to make it into Austria before my 9:30am tour. The train took 3 hours and we had to switch trains halfway through. Apparently, Germany and Austria are more relaxed about traveling to and from Munich and Salzburg because we did not need to get our passport stamped. Once in Salzburg, the company picked me up from the train station and took me to the company's meeting spot. My tour bus had the words Sound of Music Tour splashed in huge lettering across the entire bus, making sure not to mistake it for anything else. The only thing I was disappointed in was that the house that they used for the front shots of the house was in a residential area and the neighbors did not want tours constantly driving through their neighborhoods. With 300,000 people a year going on this popular tour in Salzburg, I understand the neighbors concern, and I wouldn't want 300,000 people going near my home every year either.
The first stop on the tour was to the gazebo where the song "16 going on 17" was filmed. I learned that they had moved the gazebo from the front of the house (the one in the residential area) to the near by public castle so people could still visit it, and that they had to build a larger replica on a Hollywood set for the dancing scene because the original was too small. After we all took our pictures, the tour guide even made us all sing the song to get into the sound of music vibe.
In between stops the guide gave more background information mainly on the real Von Trapp family, and explained the differences between their lives and the movie. In addition to these facts, driving through town offered more opportunities to see more of Salzburg and more locations where the Von Trapp family had been through their story including the church where the real Maria and Captain got married, the train station they used to get away, and the abbey Maria was a member of. I also was able to see the mountain featured at the end of the movie, where they climbed to escape the Nazis; but in real life, Germany is on the other side of the mountain, making that scene a good ending for the movie, but incredibly false.
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| The building with the red top was the church where they actually got married. The fortress on the right is also a big tourist attraction, but I did not have time to visit this. |
The other parts of the tour included seeing the house that was used for the back yard scenes and the church where they were married in the movie. The church was up in the mountains, allowing for that drive to show more of the Austrian country side that was so beautiful it looked fake. I couldn't believe I was in such a gorgeous location. Also on the ride up to the church, we saw 3 out of 70 lakes in the mountain region and rode alpine slides. I really recommend taking a trip up into the mountains in Austria, they have the most beautiful views and the best ice cream I have ever tasted.
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| Back of the Sound of Music house |
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| About to ride on the alpine slide |
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| Beautiful view while on the alpine slide |
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| The church where they were married in the movie |
The tour was limited to those few sights because some of the scenes were in "residential" or "pedestrian" areas and the bus could not go there, so I found them after the tour was over. This included the gardens and steps where they sing "Do Re Me" and the fountain she splashes while traveling to the Von Trapp house for the first time.
Once I found all my Sound of Music locations, I just walked around the city center. I found myself in Mozart's square, a beautiful church, and other interesting spots around Salzburg before heading back to Munich.
Day 5:
Having spent the last 4 days doing lots of walking and standing, I only spent two and a half hours at the Deutsche Museum on day 5. This museum was the largest museum I have ever been to. Just think all the Smithsonian museums together in one building and you have the Deutsche Museum. It is also the world's largest museum on technology and science having over 50 exhibits spreading over 6 floors. It was very overwhelming, so I could only handle 2.5 hours worth before I decided to finally see Disney/Pixar's Monsters University. I have been wanting to see that movie since it came out on my birthday. Luckily, there were English showings in the Munich theater.
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| Views from the top floor of the Deutsche Museum. |
After watching Monsters, it was about time to head to the airport and go back to Romania. I had a great time in Munich and would love to go back and visit some things I didn't get to see. I was absolutely exhausted after walking around for 5 days and am looking forward to a more relaxing week in Galati.
