Munich
Once again we did the free walking tour with New Europe Tours – I should mention that this is the company we have been following around as they have great guides, are very informative and give us our bearings in each city, however we seem to be running out of cities that the company goes to!
Anyway, as usual we headed to the walking tour and met our guide. The tour started at the Town Hall in Marion Platz where there is a glockenspiel clock that moves on the hour – similar to the one in Prague, however it goes for a few more minutes than the Prague one – which is how it has maintained its position as being voted the 2nd worst tourist attraction in Europe, after Prague’s Astronomical Clock in first place.
We were then taken to a church, which was apparently made by the Devil as the architect had tricked the devil into commissioning the work so that it could be built faster. The devil agreed to help as long as no more windows were built – little did he know that from where he was standing in the entrance, he couldn’t see the windows already constructed because of the pillars in his way. He thought that without windows, it would be a place of devil worship as there would not be beautiful sunlight coming through stained glass windows, thereby stopping people from ‘seeing the light’. However when the church was completed, the devil came through a different entrance and saw all the beautiful windows, he was furious! Just as he was about to destroy the church with a big ball of fire, the architect stopped him and explained that no more windows had been built, just as promised but the Devil hadn’t seen them from the entrance way and so the Devil had to keep his side of the bargain, but on his way out he stamped his foot in anger so hard that his footprint remains in the floor of the church as proof that this story is true… (other people claim it is the footprint of the architect, as he thought he may die before it was completed as he was getting to the old age of 40)
We were then taken to a square where we were told the origins of the beer garden. Originally they were pubs that had stored their beer underground to keep it cool under the snow in winter, however as the snow melted they had to continue to keep the beer cold, so they planted trees to keep the area shady. After a while people began to see the nice shady trees from the inside of the pub and decided they should enjoy their drinks outside.. this grew and people began bringing chairs with them and eventually tables and chairs were provided by the pubs and so began the beer gardens we know and love.
Also in the square was a very tall Maypole with different branches each depicting a different aspect of the ‘personality’ of Munich. An old tradition for young lovers was that a male would find out about his chosen love’s favourite things, and then would build a Maypole displaying different things about her personality on each branch, he would then sneak into her front yard at night and erect the Maypole for her to see, and then he would hide in the bushes to await her reaction. Once the girl awoke in the morning she would see the Maypole and if she liked the boy as well then she would go out into the garden to find him. However if his love was unrequited, she would instead get a barrel of beer and leave it for the boy at the bottom of the Maypole… So if you got rejected, at least you got some beer to drown your sorrows – Win / Win really!
Apparently the Germans are very proud and protective of their Maypoles, and each city has one displayed. There is also an unwritten law that if one town, steals another town’s maypole, the town who lost theirs must throw a party for the other town in order to get theirs back. So one night every year, the town folk band together, leaving some to guard their own, and send others off to steal someone elses. This still goes on today, and no town has reneged on their duty to throw a party since 1954 (I think)… and mysteriously, the town that failed to throw a party in that year burnt down in a fire not long after…
In 1995, the Maypole in the middle of Munich Airport was stolen… can you imagine airport security scratching their heads thinking… how the hell? And then having to call the police “Hi… errmm Airport security here, someone seems to have got out of the airport with a 15 foot Maypole undetected…”
Although it turned out that it was in fact the police department that had stolen it, in hopes that a party would be thrown for them… cheeky buggars!!
We were also told about the origins for Octoberfest – originally a party thrown by the King to celebrate his wedding, however the towns people had so much fun they asked if they could celebrate the anniversary. The King said he would not pay for a party, but didn’t mind if the people wanted to organise their own shindig.. And so they did, and have done every year since.
Every year thousands of people from all over the world travel to Octoberfest and get very very drunk. Last year it was reported that the following items were found in the clean up – multiple pairs of dentures, 2 toasters, 5 fishing rods and 18 children! People were so drunk they forgot their teeth and the fact they had reproduced! Let alone – why did they need toasters or fishing rods at the festival?? But the number one item that tourists lose – particularly Australian tourists – is their passport. So much so that a special Australian Consulate has to be set up each year to accommodate the volume of people requesting replacements!
We were told various other stories and facts about Munich, its royalty, and its beer and ended the tour with some history about Hitler and how he began to gain support in Munich before moving to Berlin. Both Munich and Berlin were heavily bombed during WWII, so many of their buildings were destroyed. Unlike Berlin however, a lot of Munich has been rebuilt in its original styles and is quite a beautiful city.
After the tour Sara and I wondered around until we found the English Gardens – similar to Centennial Park back home. We stumbled upon a big Chinese Pagoda which was the centrepiece for an enormous beer garden. There were people everywhere, and a band was playing “oompah oompah” music from inside the pagoda. We decided to stop there for lunch and it was so nice to just sit at the tables with a bit of sun and people watch. It was also the first really sunny day we had seen in a while that we could actually feel the warmth… Summer was definitely on its way and the people were out in droves to enjoy it. The park was absolutely packed with people having picnics, playing games, busking and walking along tightropes that had been attached between trees. We even found a section of the lake in which there was quite a fast current, which produced waves as it came out from under a particular bridge. Here were a group of surfers riding the waves for as long as they could, before being swept downstream and then hoisted themselves back onto land to do it again. I suppose in a city with no beaches, this place was perfect for surfers.
The next day we joined a tour and we were taken about 2 hours outside of Munich to Neuschwanstein Castle. This Castle was built by King Ludwig, also known as the fairy tale king, the swan king or the lonely king – as he spent much of his life alone, while he invested in building fairy-tale style castles, in which swans were heavily depicted as this was his favourite animal. This Castle in particular is the one that Walt Disney himself used as the base for drawing his Cinderella Castle, also the castle found in each Disneyland around the world.
As we walked up the hill to reach the castle, our guide told us all about the King and his life. When we reached the top, the view alone was mesmerising, but the Castle itself was amazing. We were then taken inside and shown the rooms that had been so intricately decorated that it took so long for the place to be built, unfortunately the King died before all the rooms were completed, and only actually got to live in the castle for about 6 months. There were swans absolutely everywhere, they were on the door handles, on the chandeliers, in the paintings on the walls, carved into the wood of the bed, everywhere! The King had also built an artificial cave inside his quarters, and so when you closed the door it looked like you were inside a rock cave – he was actually quite famous for his artificial caves as he had them in most of his castles. It was absolutely unbelievably gorgeous – and a nice change as I’ve felt a little castled out lately.
On the way down the hill Sara and I got a horse and cart which was fun, once it actually got going. The guy spent 20 minutes having a chat, then getting everyone’s money and then giving everyone their ticket – buddy we don’t need a ticket you’re the driver and you’ve seen who has paid and we’re all sitting in our seat waiting for you! But we made it down and were able to meet our group and head back on the train to Munich.
On the way back our guide was finishing off his stories about the castle when a woman got on the train and sat in front of us. At first she just sort of huffed a little, in between standing up and ripping off a page at a time of her newspaper and placed it in the overhead bag shelf. But as the story continued she eventually stopped our guide to complain that she has “very musical ears” and therefore they are more sensitive than most people, so could he keep his voice down.
Our guide politely toned down his volume a little and she continued to rip of pages of her newspaper at full volume. Again she asked if he could keep it down and he tried once again to speak softer… I understand that we were on a public train and all, but when we’re obviously in a group of 12 people with one person telling a story, isn’t it easier for you to move to another seat? Our guide told us that sometimes he had had members of the public come up to him after his story to let him know they enjoyed it on their train home after work.
Anyway, after a while, she went to the front of the train, opened the driver’s door and, we assumed, complained about us. She must have been told by the driver to just move seats, which she did – and started a new pile of ripped newspaper – but eventually another member of the public complained to our guide on the woman’s behalf, probably because he was sick of hearing her whinge so he stopped the story and finished it on our next train.
That afternoon we asked about train times for the following day to get to Zurich and headed back to our hostel to look at accommodation… the cheapest hostel we could find in Zurich was 50 euro per person per night!!! We’ve been paying anywhere between 3 and 20 euro so this was way out of our budget. So we decided to go to Nice instead, so we booked some accommodation and assumed we could just head to the station in the morning and get a new timetable for our train…
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