Munich!

(Munich photos here - https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B0IJtdOXmJuFtyh)

After a few days in Berlin we were ready to head to Munich. It was a rather quick 6 hour train trip that consisted most of countryside and autumn colors. Munich was a fairly easy city to get around in and a quick 10 minute bus ride later we were at our next apartment. Since we got in fairly late - around 5pm we went out for dinner and called it a night.

For our first day in Munich I woke up and went out for a run in the English Gardens - an expansive park that is much larger than Central Park and was only about 8 minutes walking from our apartment. There really is nothing better than being outside before most people are up and out of the house in the morning! It was still quite peaceful but towards the end more and more commuters were walking through the park - what a great commute! Most of our day consisted of a trip to Dachau Concentration Camp, about an hour outside of the city by public transportation. We took an audio guide throughout the grounds and it was a haunting reminder of the events that happened only 70 years ago. One of the most interesting facts I heard was that they had built a gas chamber but never actually used it. Nevertheless we heard horrifying stories especially about the human experiments that were conducted on the prisoners there.

Day two in Munich actually was spent in Salzburg, Austria. It was about a two hour train trip and before we knew it we were in Salzburg. Since we only had a few hours we visited the Fortress which sits atop of the city - great views as it was nearly blue skies (again). We had lunch at an "Austrian" restaurant (I had a pumpkin burger so not sure how much that was Austrian but oh well). We wanted to take a river cruise that came with our day pass but first we visited Mozart's Residence. This is where he grew up and became the famous composer that we all know. One fact that I found quite cool was that growing up his family traveled around Europe for 3 years while the two siblings played music for royal courts and more. I can only imagine that same trip today would probably only take 1/3 of the time, if even that long. After a quick hour river cruise we stopped at the most impressive Christmas ornament shop that I have ever seen. It was all egg shells decorated in Christmas, Easter, and other holidays. Once I got over my fear of bumping one and causing them all to fall, I settled on a wooden ornament and I knew it would have a better chance of survival throughout the next three weeks. Had I been traveling home after Munich - so many Christmas egg shell ornaments would've been purchased! On our way back to Munich we encountered the most realistic account of the refugee crisis that I've seen. We were not allowed to board a train for Germany until we showed our passports and at one station in Germany we saw nearly 50 refugees getting escorted off trains and into welcome tents by several police officers. It really was an eye opening experience that we really haven't felt in the US. It seems that in media we are always hearing about the negatives but I wish I could share with you the images I will always hold of these groups, families, and individuals who all had warm winter jackets, maybe one or two bags, but most importantly they had hope in their eyes - and that was something I wish our media would cover more.

Day three was another day trip outside of Munich - it was time to see some castles! We took a guided trip first to Linderhof Castle - which King Ludwig II built for himself as he was a recluse. Unfortunately we were not able to take photos of the interior but it was extravagantly decorated with gold, chandeliers, and mirrors - a bit too intense for my taste but he seemed to enjoy it. Next up we went to a small town that made famous wooden Cuckoo clocks, ornaments, and more. Since I still realize that I have a lot more traveling to do, only some small goodies were purchased. Our last stop (and the one I was most looking forward to) was Neuschwanstein Castle aka the Disney Castle, or the castle that most people believe Walt Disney replicated for the main castle in Disneyland. Unfortunately the castle was hidden behind a light layer of fog so we were unable to see the whole castle but from the images online I can only imagine how gorgeous it would be on a summer or snowy day. We finished the day with our bus ride back and we watched the movie Rainman - both Rachel and I had never seen it.

Day four - Happy Halloween! Today Rachel and I went out to a brunch place and I had some tasty French toast and eggs, I was getting a little tired of my quiche and roll at the cafe by our place. We visited St. Peter's church. It had a tower that you could climb and the views over Munich were worth all 300 or so steps! With the bright blue sky Munich looked like the cute historic city that I was hoping for after the more bleak Berlin cityscape that we saw a few days earlier. After the tower we met up with Joe who had flown in and we rented bikes and rode around the English Gardens that were right by our place. We stopped at a large beer garden along with hundreds of others and then made our way around the entire park until we were getting a little cold from the setting sun. For dinner we headed to a famous beer hall called Augustine-Keller and had some German food and beers and made our first set of German friends who kept talking to us in very broken English - it was pretty entertaining to say the least!

Day five in Munich was a bittersweet one as a Rachel headed home. Those three weeks went so quick! Joe and I headed up to the BMW Museum which was only about 20 minutes the city. I didn't realize how big BMW was in motorcycle engines, so I thought it would be more about cars but it ended up showcasing more of the engine developments throughout its history. I did learn that BMW made boat and airplane engines - a fact that I didn't know. We walked over to BMW World which was right across the street and showcased the new developments for the company. Since we were in the heart of the Olympic area for the games we walked all around the campus of the former sight. It was cool to see the sights still being used and it was impressive! We finished the day up with a walk around Marienplatz and had dinner at Hofbrauaus, the most well known beer hall in Munich. I can't even imagine this place during Oktoberfest! We headed back to get all packed before our trip to Prague, Czech Republic in the morning.

Berlin!

You could immediately tell we were in the former East Germany by the architecture. It was very uniform, bland, and depressing. We were in a 9 story building that had a communal park/green space in the middle ant at was shared by the other 3 buildings that along with ours basically formed a square around the green space. I later found out that this was a common design in East Germany so the mothers could watch their kids from upstairs.

For our first night we walked to a grocery store and bought some items and cooked at home. I had my first taste of schnitzel (it was a vegan one but still). Pretty tasty but I'd take a few other items before I had it again back home :)

On Saturday (our first full day) we bought a Berlin Pass, which is something we have done at most places where you get free admission to many places along with free public transport. We took a bus tour around the city and of course had to be touristy and visit Checkpoint Charlie which separated the US occupation area of West Germany to East Germany. They had a small museum that had enough text to probably take up, well I can't fathom how much text I actually saw, but it was definitely a lot. The most entertaining items were the escape stories. At the same time it was a very sad reminder of the attempts that did not end on the West Germany side.

After taking a total of two photos at Checkpoint Charlie it was time to get some lunch. Now after about two weeks in Europe I had pretty good luck with finding vegetarian food everywhere we went (now of course we were looking at menus before entering) but I thought it would have to end eventually. Well, it didn't end in Berlin. We found a place called Cha Cha which was like an Asian fusion restaurant but with a health-conscious menu. So needless to say, more vegetarian options woo! But seriously it was super tasty and would have gone back in a heartbeat.

We finished our day up with visits to the Communication Museum followed by the Museum of Natural History. Both were quick visits but we saw what we wanted. We ended our day with dinner at Plater Garten which is a beer hall in a very college-age area of Berlin. It was about a mile north of were we stayed. It reminded me of walking through Capital Hill in Seattle or anywhere "hip" - and don't worry, we fit in just fine. I got my first beer hall experience and was super excited to have some vegetarian German food. I'm not sure exactly what I had but it consisted of a salad, steamed spinach (Popeye time) and warm, bread flattened roll type things. I don't know what it but it had great flavor! Of course I had to try both the light and dark beer and well I think I liked the dark beer better because it had better flavor. Just a side note - tap water at restaurants is non-existent in German restaurants so your choice is like 8-12 ounces of bottled water for about $3 or 16-20 ounces of beer for $4-5. Clearly I know where my priorities lie.

Our second full day consisted of more adventures. We took a 5 hour bike tour of the Third Reich. We had a great tour guide from Ireland who took us to different sits including: the Jewish Ghetto, Humboldt University where they took all of the communist books and burnt them outside, we saw the Synagogue that was spared from being burnt by a police officer (rumors are rampant of why he saved it but one of the reasons is he had business interests in the area...or he was just a nice guy), we went through the Tiergarten (big park) and saw the parliament building and a zillion other things that I'm just forgetting. We stopped for lunch at other beer garden type place and before we knew it we were back on the road. After lunch we stopped at the former train station that took thousands of Jewish people off to concentration camps. It was interesting because this was also the main train station for those who were leaving for a weekend trip, so our guide was saying that you'd have lines of Jewish people on one platform and then those going on holiday standing right across from them. It's still incredibly hard to believe that all of those people what no idea what was happening. The last two stops were to visit a long stretch of the Berlin Wall and then to the spot where Hitler had finally realized defeat and took his own life. I'd never heard this story but our guide was saying that Hitler had started to question the loyalty of his second in command (I believe) who had given them cyanide tablets to take. Hitler started to question his loyalty so he was unsure if the pills would work so he decided to test it on his "beloved" dog. Needless to say, the dog died so Hitler knew they were real. The bunker itself where all of this happened was obviously destroyed and all that remains was a parking lot.

That took up most of our day so we went to the Berliner Dom (Protestant Church) where you could climb 262 steps to visit the outdoor terrace that wrapped around the entire building. We caught it just at sunset so it was especially beautiful.

Our last full day in Berlin started with a visit again to the Dom to see the actual church as it was closed when we went the night before. It was gorgeous and definitely as elegant as the ones we had visited in the UK.

After this Rachel and I parted ways. Rachel wanted to visit Potsdam and I wanted to see more in Berlin. With that we headed our separate ways. I first visited the DDR museum which featured items from East Germany/GDR. It basically gave an entire overview of life under the communist rule and made me incredibly thankful I grew up in the US. This is where I found out about how where we stayed was designed for convenience for the mothers. Probably the most entertaining idea of the museum was how they showed the two classes of people (contrary to the idea of communism) - the workers and those in the government/those that held power. You could see the difference in vacations the two groups took, the different food and especially fruit and vegetables available to them, housing options, among others.

After the museum I got a tea and snack and then visited the St. Nikolas church which is the oldest one in Berlin dating back to the 12th century. Unfortunately my audio guide didn't work so I didn't get the full history on the museum and whether it was fully destroyed during the war (my guess is that it did based on everything else in Berlin). Next up was a river cruise - this is something I always look forward to wherever we go because I swear everything looks prettier from a boat. It was gorgeous outside with blue skies and temperatures near 50-55. Most of the sights from the river I had seen before but it was a great way to spend about 90 minutes outside in the sun! After the river cruise I went to a park I had seen from the boat and sat there with my beer, music, and book just to absorb the remaining rays of sunlight. When the sun hid behind the buildings I knew it was time to go. So I visited the Pergamon which is the most famous museum in Berlin. I walked around a bit but really enjoyed the second level which consisted of the Islamic Art Museum. It was a new kind of art that I really have never had the chance of seeing much in other museums. That basically sums up the last full day in Berlin.

Before our late morning departure to Munich I put on my running shoes and ran around our area with the intent of finding a juice shop! My adventure was a success and I got this smoothie from chocolate heaven - oh my gosh it was tasty. I can't remember what was all in it but a few types of chocolate and veggies. After that we found our way to the Berlin main train station and headed to Munich!

https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B0IJtdOXmJuFtyh <- pictures can be found here!