Germany - Munchen (Munich) with the Rommler's

Martin Rommler and his wife Regina offered to take Ben and I to Munchen today, so we couldn't pass up the offer. Munchen is the German name for Munich by the way. The day started with Ben driving all the way up from Stuttgart to Bietigheim to pick me up, then we had an hour drive back past Stuttgart to Martin's house, and no, all the extra driving was not because of my stick phobia, I offered to drive :-) On the highway we saw some interesting traffic, this picture is after exiting the highway and this guy caught back up to us...I bet he was doing about 70-80 mph though.


Next stop after Martin's house (where I had my first soft pretzel of the day) was the train station, which took us to the city center

Karlstor Gate was the first thing we saw and walked through in the city center.

The Rommler's and Ben

A group of kids doing some crazy hand stand stunts and juggling.

Pictures of the Frauenkirche Cathedral

Tomb monument of Emperor Louis IV (he's not actually in there)

Pictures from the Town Hall, everyday at non and 4 I think the characters on the clock come out and do a little dance.

This is the HofBrauhaus house where we at lunch. It is a popular place to eat and drink beer in Munich, and from what we are told, there is not another eatery like it in Germany. There are a lot of large tables in a big hall, outside, upstairs, etc. And you find a table with enough extra seats, and just sit down with whoever is there. This place would be a nightmare to wait tables at.

I took this picture of the wine I was drinking because this is actually glass number two. Not glass two that I drank, but glass two that my first order of wine was put in. It appeared that the waiter was so disgusted that I ordered wine at a brewery, that he slammed my wine glass down on the table when serving it, breaking the stem....so, glass number 2.

lots of people here

Octoberfest area, it doesn't start for two weeks though

And here it is. They set these "tents" up for three weeks prior, then take them down, and pack them up till next year.

King Ludwig I of Bavaria, who reigned from 1843 to 1853, decided it would be appropriate to erect a grand building inside which he could place busts of celebrated Bavarians who had made a name for themselves both nationally and internationally. It is called the Ruhmeshalle. These are "commoners" as well as statesman, there are Kings, Physicists, mailmen, painters, architects, etc.

Then we have moved on to the English Garden, this is the equivalent of New York's Central Park

Fountain outside the University of Munich

We chuckled about this is a bit, we were in Munich, at the English Garden, about the has a beer at the Chinese Tower....lots of cultures in there.

This is apparently how you do a bachelor party in Munich, by taking a cart through the English Garden with a Keg on it. if you will notice, which I did not, all of the people on this cart are on stools, and under those stools are pedals, each person pedals and that's how this thing gets around, pretty cool, work off that beer as it goes down.

This is the Gate of Victory outside the Garden

Next was the BMW Museum

I could see myself in this

Now onto the 1972 Olympic Stadium Olympiastadion

This is the tower that overlooks the site

Views from the top of the tower

This is the top of the Olympic Stadium, very interesting, looks like a big cobweb from the top

This is the view walking up to the stadium, here looks like they are setting up a circus or something

This is the pool where Mark Spitz won his seven gold medals that was the record until Mr. Phelps won 8 last year. This is the point where my camera died, so the rest of these are from my Storm.

These are the apartments the Olympic Athletes stayed in during the 1972 Olympics, and where members of the Israeli Olympic Team were taken hostage, and eventually killed by Black September, a militant group with ties to Yasser Arafat’s Fatah organization, ending the '72' games.

Next onto the Asam Brothers Church which we were hoping to get into before it closed

We did not get inside, it was actually closed for construction, but this is a picture of what we wanted to see

Next was the Paulaner Garden, a popular brewing company

A fountain showing Mr. Paulaner himself in the middle of the Beer Garden

The part of Barvaria I think I like most is that there is a soft pretzel shop on every corner, and yes, they serve wine at this brewery too,. to everyones suprise again. I think I ate about 3 or 4 of these pretzels while we were there.

That was the last spot we visited during our trip to Munich. It is a beautiful city with lots of people, history and energy. We had a great time there, and the Rommler's were excellent tour guides, and hosts. We could not thank them enough.

This was, however, a very tiring day for all of us, we did a whirl wind tour of Munich, and when we were done Ben and I had a 3 hour trip to get home, which has some comedy along the way. Unfortunatly, at this point, my camera and phone were dead, so I did not get any pictures of the ride home, or the truck size diesel pump we tried sticking in our diesel mini van that wouldn't fit, or us trying to pay with the viastore credit card in the van, but not finding the PIN, and the gas station attended going through all of our documentation trying to find something in German we missed.

When I got to the hotel around 2 am, the automatic doors out front were disabled and there was a sign that said push botton to get in. I push it and I hear the bell ringing inside. 5 minutes pass and I ring it a few more times, then I am banging on the doors. Now, because my phone is dead, I am starting to scout out the couches outside to sleep on. They do not look very inviting. So another round of bell ringing and door pounding, and I finally decide that I am going to get in somehow. I was able to wedge my fingers between the auto doors and start to pry it open. When it was open about 5 inches, the door turned back on and opened up for me.

Crisis averted :-)