After we made it to Munich we had an hour or so guided tour of the Pinakothek der Moderne (museum of modern art). The tour was completely in German, which was great. The woman leading the tour, however, was pretty long-winded and pretty soon I was getting annoyed and stopped paying attention. Instead of stopping at providing context and background information for a painting (which is great since it makes it possible to appreciate and understand it better) she continued to go on about how the style, colors, etc. were so expressive and so on - at that point I just got tired of trying to concentrate on what she was saying.
exterior of the Pinakothek der Moderne
After the tour was over, we had nowhere to be until 5pm so our group split up. Anya, Erwin, Heather, Kaci, Leigh, Lutz (our Resident Director) and I left the museum pretty quickly since we were tired of standing around and were getting pretty hungry. From there we went on foot to the Altstadt part of Munich where all of the food/touristy stuff is.
an obelisk on the way to the Altstadt
more buildings (and Heather)
more buildings (and our Resident Director Lutz Hügl and Erwin)
Altstadt finally
After we got to the Altsadt, we left Lutz to do his own thing and managed to grab some food (overpriced, just like everything else in Munich). After lunch and a quick stop at a nut stand, we split up further - Kaci and Leigh wanted to do some shopping and the rest of us were feeling kind of touristy so we were going to check out Frauenkirche, which was on the next street over.
Erwin, Anya, Heather, Kaci, and Leigh in front of the nut stand (they're not making faces, just chewing)
Frauenkirche (undergoing renovation/restoration work)
inside Frauenkirche
statues inside Frauenkirche
After we looked around Frauenkirche for a bit we decided to head to Marienplatz and then Viktuallenmarkt, an open-air market. At this point it's probably a good idea to note that it was really cold and really windy in Munich. For the last week or so, Regensburg has been pretty nice - usually somewhere in the 20-30s range, maybe a little breezy sometimes. Munich felt more like somewhere in the low teens, much lower when the wind blew (pretty much always), so we, of course, were going to spend the next 4 or so hours just wandering around the streets, stopping occasionally to thaw out/consult the map/ask for directions.
Marienplatz is home to the Neues Rathaus (new town hall) and also the Altes Rathaus (old town hall). Oddly enough, I'm pretty sure the Neues Rathaus is actually older than the Altes Rathaus since the old Rathaus got destroyed in WWII and was subsequently reconstructed.
Marienplatz (Neues Rathaus, something, Altes Rathaus)
Erwin, Heather and Anya being touristy/freezing to death in Marienplatz
Neues Rathaus with Frauenkirche in the background
a statue on the fountain in front of the Neues Rathaus
fruit/veggie stand at Viktuallenmarkt
the center of Viktuallenmarkt
Anya taking a picture of a pickle she just bought
After wandering around Viktuallenmarkt, we decided to go to Hofbräuhaus, a touristy brewery. Unfortunately, it wasn't where we though it was, so we spent about an hour wandering around looking for it. While we were lost and going numb from the cold, we managed to get some nice sight-seeing in.
The Altes Rathaus, which also contains a toy museum (Spielzeugmuseum). You can see the Neues Rathaus in the background.
heading away from Viktuallenmarkt
an interesting facade at Marstallplatz (?)
Spatenhaus (a restaurant)
building along Maximilianstrasse (not to be confused with Regensburg's Maximilianstrasse)
Government building - I'm pretty sure this is the main building of the Bavarian Parliament
Tourists: Erwin, Anya and Heather
Statue on Maximilianstrasse
A church we stopped at to warm up
Inside the church
When we stopped at the church, Erwin asked for directions and we found out that we were nowhere near Hofbräuhaus. A twenty minute or so walk later, and a few more stops to clarify that we were going the right way, we managed to find Hofbräuhaus, which was actually only about a block from Marienplatz, where we would need to meet everybody else in a little over an hour.
Hofbräuhaus manages to be at once a ridiculously touristy and yet somehow authentic Bavarian restaurant/brewery. Hofbräu is a pretty large Bavarian beer company - I'm not sure how widespread it is but it's certainly not a microbrew. The restaurant itself is huge, open, and loud, with big wooden tables and band that plays German folk music. The staff dress in Lederhosen/Dirndl and they of course serve Bavarian food (Weisswurst, pretzels, beer, etc.). Surprisingly enough, there are people there who aren't tourists - there were quite a few old Bavarian guys decked out in Lederhosen, hats etc. eating there too. We just got pretzels and some beer, or actually I should say a lot of beer - they sell it in 1 liter mugs.
By the time we had worked our way through that, it was time to get back to Marienplatz. There, we met up with the group and then hopped on the bus and headed home.
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