After a very cold night, it was great to see the sun shining in the morning to warm us up!
We headed into Munich centre for a bike tour which we had included as part of the package at the campsite. We started in the same place as our self guided tour yesterday however we went in a different direction which was fantastic as we felt like we thoroughly explored Munich.
We learnt a few interesting facts about the city and visited some very significant buildings in relation to Munich and Germany’s history, such as:
- The city name Munich (München) means ‘House of the Monk’, as monks were the first inhabitants of the town.
- The big beer culture comes from the fact that Munich used to have unsafe drinking water and so the monks brewed beer which was safer than water. Munich now has the 6th cleanest water in the world but of course the beer culture remains!!
- Otto Von Wittelsbach was from Bavaria and was actually the first king of modern Greece. The letter 'y' is not used in German but is commonly used in Greek - the y in the German world 'Bayern' (‘Bavaria’) was added by Otto due to his love of the Greek language. Further, the Greek flag uses the white and blue colours which are the same colours as in the Bavarian flag!
- We visited Hitler’s former office and the surrounding gardens. These are one of the only parts of the city which were not bombed in WWII as the Allies wanted to preserve the area as they thought there would be important documents and information in the building.
- We saw many reminders of WWII with damage to some buildings still visible from bombings - these have been intently left as "wounds of remembrance". 80% of Munich was bombed during WWII so much of the city has been rebuilt.
- The towers of the Cathedral of Our Lady are 99m high and the city of Munich prohibits any building which is higher than the towers. This means that the city of Munich is relatively flat compared to some other European cities with no skyscrapers in the inner city. This makes Munich quite unique and appear to still have a "town" vibe.
Towards the end of the tour we cycled through the English garden which was very beautiful and then made a stop at the Chinese Tower near the middle. This was our lunch stop and one of Munich’s biggest beer gardens is right next to the tower, where we shared a beer and tried the hendl (half roasted chicken) and weißwurst (white sausage). It was all delicious!
We then made our way back to the starting point, stopping at the standing wave we saw yesterday before finishing the fun 4.5hr bike tour!
After the tour, we decided to walk to Oktoberfest (without our lederhosen and drindl on today). With it being a Monday it was noticeably quieter and we decided to go on the Ferris wheel. It is the largest moveable Ferris wheel in Europe and at approx 65m high, gave us a fantastic view over Oktoberfest and Munich!
We then made our way back to the campsite for some drinks and cards before walking out to explore the area around the campsite. We walked for about 30min down the road and decided to go into KFC for dinner - as everything else was closed! It was the first and last time on the trip! We then headed back to the campsite to get some rest in preparation for a big day tomorrow.Read more
Germany
