Munich
We got to Munich some time around eleven, I think. Again, can't really remember the train journey so assuming it was uneventful. We walked to the hostel, which wasn't too far away but the pavements were quite narrow and busy, so it was sometimes quite difficult to manouever ourselves and all our bags. Still, we found the hostel with minimum hassle, and checked in again with no problems. The hostel we were staying at seemed to have two names - sometimes it was Easy Palace Hostel and sometimes City Hostel. I think Easy Palace have two hostels in Munich, and the one we were in was called City Hostel. I think. We had a private (woohoo!) double room with our own bathroom. The room was really big - it had a sofa, small table and two big wicker chairs, as well as a double bed - but quite shabby. Pete says this was his least favourite hostel out of all the ones we stayed in, and I think I'm inclined to agree. If we go back to Munich - and we have to since I promised someone I would next time Feeder play there! - I don't think we'll be staying in this hostel again. Still, we were only spending one night there and would be gone for most of the day so it wasn't the end of the world. And really, I've heard of worse places to stay in.
Nothing special.
So after chilling in the room for a little while...
...and by chilling I mean, Pete did this...
...we finally got going. After reading various leaflets and guidebooks we decided a bike tour would be the best way to see the city. The bike tour started outside the new town hall in Marienplatz, so we went there and waited. And waited a bit more. The leaflet we had was very specific - it said in front of a specific fountain, outside the new town hall. And yet... we couldn't see anyone looking remotely bike tour-like. After waiting for about twenty minutes we gave up and decided to do as much as we could on foot instead. Since we were in Marienplatz (the main town square) we started there! The Neues Rathaus (new town hall) dominates most of the square.
The town hall is what houses the Glockenspiel
There's also two churches - St Peterskirche and Heiliggeistkirche.
No idea which one this was. Am ignorant. (Just looked it up: St Peterskirche I think.)
We didn't go in any of these because, as in Vienna, we were short on time. There were also quite a few interesting fountains in the actual square.
From Marienplatz we followed the Lonely Planet "walking tour" guide, and headed up Kaufingerstrasse, a main shopping road from what I gather! As we were battling the crowds up there (it was a Saturday!) we came across a man busking... except, he didn't just have a guitar or violin or anything, he had a huge piano! Amazing. We stopped off to have a look inside Frauenkirche, the "landmark church of Munich" according to Lonely Planet. I think that description has something to do with the funky onion shaped domes on the top of the towers!
Which... you can't really see in this photo.
We did manage to resist climbing Frauenkirche's tower... I know! What's wrong with us?! We carried on wandering down Kaufingerstrasse and had a look inside another church - Michaelskirche - although only after standing outside for ages wondering if we were actually allowed in (the doors were closed, unlike other churches we'd been to). Not far from Michaelskirche was the Richard Strauss Fountain which was a big carved column, which spreads out into a bowl at the top. It was nice and everything, but I'm thinking the football floating in the bowl wasn't part of the design...
Walking a bit further down Kaufingerstrasse we came to the old city gate - Karlstor. Just behind this gate was a really cool fountain area, which was extremely refreshing to stand by given the heat of the day!
Karlstor and a bit of the fountain.
We doubled back on ourselves to head back the other way down Kaufingerstrasse because it was nearly time for the Glockenspiel in Marienplatz. The Glockenspiel happens at 11am, 12pm and 5pm and is basically a fifteen minute show involving thirty two life size figures performing a traditional dance. FIFTEEN minutes! Our Hostelworld guide said that after five minutes we'd wonder what all the fuss was about and... well, it was right.
I kind of think these figures would be scary up close. Especially if they started dancing and shit.
After about five minutes I was kind of bored and I think Pete was too, so we decided to carry on exploring Munch... we'd at least seen some of it!
We wandered down another street running off Marienplatz - Eisenmannstrasse - which eventually lead us to another of the old city gates, Sendlinger Tor.
Sendlinger Tor
From here, we went down another street to find Asamkirche, and boy was it worth it. We'd heard that it was so over-decorated, there was hardly anywhere left unadorned... and it did not disappoint! Mmm, gaudy!
Outside: well, this isn't too bad...
Inside: The first words out of my mouth were "Oh. My. God.". And Pete swore.
We're so good with the religion and the respect thing. Oops.
So, having seen most of the major places around Marienplatz, we jumped on the U-Bahn up to Residenz. Residenz or Munich Residence is where kings, dukes and various political figures lived in the days of old.
Seemingly the only good picture we got of Residenz.
It's really impressive and the gardens surrounding it are just beautiful. Being early evening, it had of course already closed to the general public, but you could still visit the gardens, and there were absolutely loads of people just chilling out there.
After spending some time in and around the grounds of Residenz, we had a stroll in the direction of Englischer Garten which is the largest urban park in Germany. It is huge. I mean, we only saw a little bit of it, but just the bit we saw seemed to go on for ages. First of all we followed a stream from the main road, but soon came to a dead end and realised we needed to be on the other side to carry on following it! So we headed back up to the road to cross over the bridge, which is when we spotted the surfers. Just out from under the bridge there was some sort of natural weir or something that was causing big waves just in that bit of the river. There was a line a people in wetsuits on either bank of the river, and they were taking it in turn to jump in with their surfboards and surf, either until they fell off or felt they'd been there for long enough. It was really cool! We stood watching them for quite a while, as did quite a few other people. There were some complete novices, but also some really impressive surfers.
I have no idea how to surf, but it looked like so much fun!
Anyway, after watching the surfing for a while, we headed down the other side of the river and came out into this huge field, where we just sat and chilled out for a while.
Hello dark circles under eyes!
Given that there was a restaurant right next door to the hostel (later we realised it was actually affiliated with the hostel and we probably could have got a discount or something) and we really weren't in the mood for trying to pick out a place to eat, we just went there. It was an Italian hostel and the kitchen was open and in the middle of the restaurant, so you could see your pizza being made. These pizzas, they are huge. Enormous! They gave us plates bigger than steak plates, and still the pizzas overhung! And! We had one each! Madness. We hadn't really had a lunch as such, so we both managed to make good inroads into our pizzas... but I think we both ended up with leftovers. We ate late, so just went to bed when we went back to the hostel.
Around three in the morning, I woke up with stomach pains. I've had this before - back in May - and when I went to the doctors afterwards he said it was probably gastro-enteritis. That first episode happened after an excessive amount of pizza, so really I should have known better. It did mean I knew exactly what it was straight away though. I went rummaging for some paracetamol, knocked them back then climbed back into bed again, not expecting to get any sleep for the rest of the night. Turns out, when you've been travelling for two weeks and are that exhausted, NOTHING will stop you from sleeping, not even those pesky stomach cramps! That was kind of a relief, because possibly the worst part last time was not being able to sleep. So I actually managed to get some sleep until about six, and by that point I didn't mind too much if I couldn't sleep anymore. Sat around reading for a while waiting for Pete to wake up, and then slowly we began to pack up our stuff and get ready. This was when I discovered the evil shower. I have never in my life been in such a violent, powerful shower. Seriously, when I first turned it on I lost control of it and basically soaked the whole of the bathroom. It was not a good shower. Pete didn't believe that it was that powerful, and thought I'd just been messy... but I showed him! Or, more accurately, the shower showed him. He didn't drench the place like me, but he agreed it was so powerful it hurt! We ended up using all the towels in the bathroom to try and soak up the water on the floor... took a while though!
Since I was feeling decidedly crap, I didn't want any breakfast. So after we had checked out, I stayed in the foyer area messing around online, whilst Pete went to McDonalds to get some food for himself, and a small orange juice for me. In retrospect, I don't know why on earth I thought drinking orange juice with a jippy tummy would be a good idea. But I did. Pete got me a large because there was no other option, so I spent the next two hours taking the tiniest sips. I said I felt okay enough to do a bit more sightseeing before we had to leave, so we caught the U-Bahn over to where the Olympia park complex was. I felt horribly nauseated for the whole journey, but wasn't actually sick. As soon as we emerged from the underground station it started to rain, and by the time we had wandered over the bridge into the main complex, it was peeing it down. We took refuge under the overhang of a building (I think it was the swimming pool) for a while. Eventually we gave up on it stopping and decided we weren't that bothered about seeing the whole complex, so we headed back to the U-Bahn. Pete wanted to see Bayern Munich stadium because apparently it changes colour according to who is playing there... or something. So we went over to there, me feeling more and more nauseated as time went on. When we got there we spotted the stadium from a bridge running from the U-Bahn station... it seemed to be slap bang in the middle of an industrial estate, and we didn't feel like navigating our way through all those factories so we just looked at it from the bridge.
View from the bridge.
I had to keep bending over to stop the nausea which I'm sure looked very odd. When we went back down to the station to wait for a train back to the hostel, I had to sit by a bin because I really did feel like I was going to throw up. I didn't. We got on the train back and I made sure we got an empty carriage (it was the start of the line) so that if I was sick, nobody would have to watch. Of course, I started throwing up just as we pulled in to the next station where someone chose to get into our carriage. I think I managed to do it discreetly though! We'd thrown away the McDonalds cup, so I had two choices: throw up on the floor of the train or in the tiny little bin by the seats. I decided the bin was probably the lesser of two evils... although I still feel horribly guilty about leaving my bright orange sick slopping around for someone else to discover later on in the day!
We got back to the hostel, picked up our bags and caught the underground to the train station. I felt a bit better after my throwing up episode, so wasn't overly concerned about the train journey to Innsbruck. (I'd also got some plastic bags out just in case I was sick again on the train!).
We had even less time in Munich than we did in Vienna or Salzburg, but again it seemed just about enough to see most of the main sights. Again, I would like to go back if only to explore at a bit more leisurely pace, and maybe see some of the things we missed. I'm trying not to let the fact that I got ill there taint my view, I know it's not Munich's fault... or even the restaurant's fault! Just my own for not recognising that pizza is just not something I can eat loads of. If and when we go back I would definitely look for a different place to stay though, and since there seem to be loads of hostels in Munich I'm sure that won't be too hard!