The breakfast here at Hotel Mirabell is fantastic. I almost don’t need lunch. We met Ralph and Teri in the lobby and asked Google Maps to walk us into the center of town to meet Noel who will lead us on a 2.5 hour walking tour of the city. We met at the Glockenspiel at 10:45 a.m., which is the bells and animated church steeple thing that we saw last night at 5pm (17:00 here). They all use the 24 hour clock system which is pretty normal after a week or so. Noel was from Ireland but has lived here 23 years and still has a nice Irish accent and talks pretty fast, mostly because he has a lot to tell us in 2.5 hours.
He explained the Glockenspiel and the families who ran the country, why Bavaria seems like a different country, various former kings and other royalty, and quite a bit about Nazi Germany and Hitler. He took us to places where Hitler stood and gave speeches. He pointed out which buildings were bombed and which ones were not and why during World War 2. This was a free tour but the expectation was to tip him whatever amount you thought his tour was worth. We had 30 people or so and he does this twice a day so I think he does okay. He also teaches adult English classes and gives beer tours and food tours. Ours was the Munich Walking Tour.
After the walking tour we tried to find lunch but a lot of places are closed on Sunday so we decided to head to the English Garden. We ended up at the Chinese Pagoda Beer Garden where there was plenty of beer and plenty of food and 6,000 seats so no problem finding a seat. It was very fun and it seemed the majority of people here were locals with their family and friends.
We next walked back toward the historic district via the huge English Garden. We saw the place on the river where people can surf a continuous wave. There were actually a couple of places you could surf the river like this.
Next stop was the Toy Museum which was not too expensive and not too big. They did have some very old toys but it seemed barely worth the admission. And they had kinda creepy old dolls!!
We looked for Asamkirche, the church Noel had mentioned as worth a visit, but it and others were closed for Saturday night mass. So back to the hotel where we got a recommendation from the hotel receptionist for dinner just around the corner. This turned out great as the food was very good (Lebanese) and it was an easy walk in the rain. Our dogs were barking since we had walked basically all day. Back to the hotel and off to bed.
No comments:
Post a Comment