Nicole and I slept in until nearly 10am, which meant I got an absurd 12 hours of sleep. It was grand. For breakfast we found an 8 euro brunch buffet across from our AirBnB. We loaded up on all kinds of breads, jams, and yogurts before realizing that the rest of the buffet was around the corner. Nicole was already full but I enjoyed some fine meats and cheeses from the newly discovered rest-of-the-buffet.
Palace Nymphenburg Our Return
After breakfast we returned to Schloss Nymphenburg, the palace near our AirBnB. The weather was agreeable and we enjoyed a walking tour of the palace and a leisurely stroll through the palace gardens behind it.
Nymphenburg Palace was the primary Summer residence of the Bavarian family. It was added onto several times during its few hundred year existence. The palace and palace grounds were neatly divided in several places by an elaborate system of canals. At one time, the canals connected Nymphenburg palace with the rest of greater Munich through these canals. The Bavarian royal family hired gondoliers from Venice to carry them through the canals in the city.
Marienplatz, Munich
After the Palace we returned to Marienplatz downtown, where we’d met our walking tour on the first day in Munich. Near to Marienplatz is a large outdoor food market called Viktualienmarkt. At the market you can get delicious meats, cheeses, wines, fruits and vegetables. We had a beer in the biergarten there and enjoyed a Leberkäs (frankfurt in loaf form) sandwich with a big piece of crackle. I highly recommend it if you find yourself in Munich.
Biertour
After our snack, Nicole and I did a mini beer tour of the different Biergartens around Marienplatz. At the behest of our tour guide the first day, we visited the Augustiner biergarten next to the Frauenkirche. We also visited Andechser am Dom, at the suggestion of my friend Rob. Of those two, I would definitely recommend Andechser. It was perhaps the best beer I had in Munich. The beer is brewed just outside of Munich in a monastery. I wish we could have visited the actual brewery, its beside a lake, Ammersee, and supposedly a very nice day trip, alas, our time was short and a second day trip just wasn’t in the cards.
After our lazy afternoon, we went for a stroll through the Englischer Garten in Munich. It’s a large park within the city, similar to central park in that it has a little bit of everything in it. The park is massive and includes everything from surfing to Chinese towers. That’s right, surfing in the park. Along the Eisbach river that runs through the park, there are several places where artificial waves are formed and surfers can take turns surfing on these waves. Nicole and I stayed awhile and watched the surfers hop in, ride for a few minutes, then fall back and let another surfer take a turn.
We walked on through the park until we came to our second destination, a giant Chinese tower, called the Chinesischer Turm, or Chinese Tower in German, original I know. The tower is the central feature of a giant biergarten within the park. It’s one of Munich’s largest. Nicole and I tried some of the garten’s strong beer, or starkbier. It was sweet and delicious with a little bit of a bite to it from the higher ABV. We also ordered some sausages and sauerkraut in the park. The sauerkraut ended up being some of the best we had in Germany.
This was the last full day we had in Munich and it was a great day at that. India was a fantastic experience, but it took some work and planning. It was really nice to visit Munich and just be able to relax. We were able to see a lot of sites, but at the same time, we could take our time and not worry about having to see “everything”.
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