Munich, Germany
When planning this trip, I was thinking about the sort of things I'd like to see and do, and for some reason more than any other place, these things seemed to revolve around Munich. Unfortunately for you that means an extra long blog! It's an interesting city in many ways - close to the alps, a bit of a hub of German engineering, hosts the biggest beer festival in the world, and on a more grim note - is the birthplace of the Nazi movement.
The first night I arrived I got chatting in the kitchen to an English guy called Darren who's working in Munich; Really interesting guy and we got on really well throughout the week.The kitchen seemed to be the place to socialise. I often had breakfast the same time as either some Aussie girls or an American girl and her Dad, met loads of English and Italians who were there for work, and one night, a group of four Russian guys. We got chatting, and they said they said they were on holiday for a week or so around Europe, and had spent nearly the same amount of dosh in that time boozing it up, as I'd spent on my whole trip so far! Naturally they had vodka and offered me shot - I obliged despite it being 6pm, followed by a pancake they'd just cooked, filled with Russian caviar. Living the life eh!
The first full day in Munich, I had quite a bit to sort out - boring stuff, like banking, emails, planning, booking, finding flights etc etc - and decided to write the day off to get stuff sorted in one hit. After lunch I nipped out and get my first haircut in a while which was interesting in itself - the guy didn't speak as good English as I initially believed, so I was given some hairstyle picture books and had to pick out the one I wanted - a bit like buying a haircut from a catalogue. The upside after was that because of the language issues there was no boring small talk at all!
How's this for a lucky chance:
At 8pm that night, I Googled 'gigs in Munich this week'.
At 9pm that night, I was at a gig watching DJ Shadow!
Shadow is a very innovative and skilled US record producer and DJ who you've probably never heard of but whom I've been a fan of for years, and was doing a DJ set at a club just down the road. I went along on the off chance they had tickets available, only to find they did, and spent the next couple of hours watching him flick between hip hop, soul, funk and dance music in a way I've never seen before.
The next day I headed into the city to the city museum. I had no interest in a lot of it, but because I paid I looked anyway - but finished with the bit that I went for - a section on Munich's role in the Nazi era. Basically Hitler rose to power in Munich - it was both the birthplace and capital of the Nazi movement. I didn't learn about WWII at school so my knowledge is really patchy, but I'm quite interested and want to learn more, and where better than Germany. The nation is completely ashamed with it's past, but has moved forward whilst being quite open about what happened. The museum showed this era in detail, with many original documents, propaganda posters and pieces of Nazi memorabilia. There was little gore in the exhibition, but I felt pretty uncomfortable by the end of it.
Having heard many good things about Couchsurfing recently, I became a member of the website, which allows you to arrange to stay with locals in different cities in exchange for people staying with you one day. I've had no luck at all with finding hosts so far, but I saw there was a social meet up for travellers and hosts arranged in Munich that evening, so thought I'd go along and see what it was all about. Most people hadn't met before so there were no social barriers, and it was quite a fun night - just a couple of beers in a nearby bar, chatting to some French, Czech and Polish people.
I seem to have been to quite a few museums on this trip, which admittedly sounds a bit dull but they've all generally been good in different ways. Wednesday was one of the best - a trip to the Deutsches Museum - the biggest museum of technology and science in the world - it was quite incredible, and I learnt tons. And so huge I only saw maybe a quarter of it in a whole day - mostly on engineering machinery, metals, photography, green energy and space travel. Every day's a schoolday on this trip.
Thursday was BMW day. Munich is it's founding place, and home of it's main factory. I started off in BMW Welt (world), which is a showcase of everything about the company in a stunning building. I then went across the road to look around the rather large and impressive BMW museum, and finished up on a factory tour. As a car lover it seems I'm on a bit of a car pilgrimage on this trip - this was now my fourth car factory tour, and I must say probably the best. It was very professional, walking on overhead gantries around the plant, and unlike the other factories, they let you see right inside the sprayshop whilst robots apply the five layers of paint.
Munich was not only the home to the Nazi movement, but also where their first concentration camp - Dachau - was established, which became the brutal model for many others around Europe. I decided to do one of the guided tours, which was a good idea as the guide gave a very good insight into just how bad it was, going round a replica of the dormitories, the crematorium and the prison. The camp in a nutshell, was a place that the Nazi's collected anyone who wasn't part of their plan, treated them appallingly, and worked them to death making things to further their war effort whilst lining their pockets. The camp was eye opening, slightly disturbing, and left me wondering how people could possibly have behaved like that to other humans.
Germany had another crazy leader in the 19th century - Ludwig II - but thankfully this one was harmless; spending his time building wacky castles instead of murdering people, so on Saturday I took the train south to Neuschwanstein Castle in the foothills of the Alps to see one of them. The train journey was very nice with a great view of the mountains along the skyline, but because of it's popularity the castle was absolutely packed with tourists, and all you can get is a forty-five minute rushed tour late in the afternoon. After a stroll around a lake, both waiting for the tour and escaping the thousands of tourists, I wandered up to a viewing point of the castle, and as I rounded the corner it was one of those moments that just hits you; absolutely spectacular. Inside it was just as grand, but unfortunately for old Ludwig, seventeen years into building the place he was sectioned, then died before it was finished.
When planning this trip, I was thinking about the sort of things I'd like to see and do, and for some reason more than any other place, these things seemed to revolve around Munich. Unfortunately for you that means an extra long blog! It's an interesting city in many ways - close to the alps, a bit of a hub of German engineering, hosts the biggest beer festival in the world, and on a more grim note - is the birthplace of the Nazi movement.
---
The first night I arrived I got chatting in the kitchen to an English guy called Darren who's working in Munich; Really interesting guy and we got on really well throughout the week.The kitchen seemed to be the place to socialise. I often had breakfast the same time as either some Aussie girls or an American girl and her Dad, met loads of English and Italians who were there for work, and one night, a group of four Russian guys. We got chatting, and they said they said they were on holiday for a week or so around Europe, and had spent nearly the same amount of dosh in that time boozing it up, as I'd spent on my whole trip so far! Naturally they had vodka and offered me shot - I obliged despite it being 6pm, followed by a pancake they'd just cooked, filled with Russian caviar. Living the life eh!
The first full day in Munich, I had quite a bit to sort out - boring stuff, like banking, emails, planning, booking, finding flights etc etc - and decided to write the day off to get stuff sorted in one hit. After lunch I nipped out and get my first haircut in a while which was interesting in itself - the guy didn't speak as good English as I initially believed, so I was given some hairstyle picture books and had to pick out the one I wanted - a bit like buying a haircut from a catalogue. The upside after was that because of the language issues there was no boring small talk at all!
---
 |
| DJ Shadow |
At 8pm that night, I Googled 'gigs in Munich this week'.
At 9pm that night, I was at a gig watching DJ Shadow!
Shadow is a very innovative and skilled US record producer and DJ who you've probably never heard of but whom I've been a fan of for years, and was doing a DJ set at a club just down the road. I went along on the off chance they had tickets available, only to find they did, and spent the next couple of hours watching him flick between hip hop, soul, funk and dance music in a way I've never seen before.
---
The next day I headed into the city to the city museum. I had no interest in a lot of it, but because I paid I looked anyway - but finished with the bit that I went for - a section on Munich's role in the Nazi era. Basically Hitler rose to power in Munich - it was both the birthplace and capital of the Nazi movement. I didn't learn about WWII at school so my knowledge is really patchy, but I'm quite interested and want to learn more, and where better than Germany. The nation is completely ashamed with it's past, but has moved forward whilst being quite open about what happened. The museum showed this era in detail, with many original documents, propaganda posters and pieces of Nazi memorabilia. There was little gore in the exhibition, but I felt pretty uncomfortable by the end of it.
Having heard many good things about Couchsurfing recently, I became a member of the website, which allows you to arrange to stay with locals in different cities in exchange for people staying with you one day. I've had no luck at all with finding hosts so far, but I saw there was a social meet up for travellers and hosts arranged in Munich that evening, so thought I'd go along and see what it was all about. Most people hadn't met before so there were no social barriers, and it was quite a fun night - just a couple of beers in a nearby bar, chatting to some French, Czech and Polish people.
---
I seem to have been to quite a few museums on this trip, which admittedly sounds a bit dull but they've all generally been good in different ways. Wednesday was one of the best - a trip to the Deutsches Museum - the biggest museum of technology and science in the world - it was quite incredible, and I learnt tons. And so huge I only saw maybe a quarter of it in a whole day - mostly on engineering machinery, metals, photography, green energy and space travel. Every day's a schoolday on this trip.
 |
| BMW Factory & museum |
 |
| Dachau former concentration camp |
---
 |
| Neuschwanstein Castle |
On my final day in Munich, I decided to hire a bike to explore a bit. I cruised round the Oktoberfest site which they were dismantling, stopped at the Deutches transport museum for a couple of hours, went to the Olympic park from 1972, and finished at the English Garden - a large and very beautiful city park. Autumn is in full swing here, and with leaves falling everywhere the park was beautiful. It seemed like everyone was out walking round - I've never seen a park so busy, and one of the busiest and most exciting points was on a fast flowing river where people were actually surfing. Very unique.
No comments:
Post a Comment