I'm headed to Romania but I got a cheap flight to Munich and decided to spend a couple nights here first. It's my third time in Munich so I'm going to try to hit some spots that I haven't seen before.
One thing I noticed immediately is that there is a LOT major construction going on. The biggest project is the redevelopment of the main train station. It's looking pretty sad right now but soon it will be as nice Berlin's, which is a massive and modern complex built within and underneath the train station. It looks like that's what they're going to do here.
Munich has a few great pedestrian shopping streets so I did a fair amount of walking around and gawking at the sites. I went to the Residenz, a sprawling and grand palace of the Bavarian Kingdom. The treasury was worth the price of admission alone.
And I had to visit the NS-Dokumentationszentrum München. It's a document museum and library which details the rise of the Nazi party. What a fascinating museum. The Nazis started in Munich and spread out from there.
And what would a visit to Munich be without going to the Augustiner restaurants/ beer gardens in town. Fortunately my hotel near the train station is also near two of them and I hit them both on the same day. I had a fried pork knuckle (Haxe) at lunch at one and then I went to the sprawling beer garden at Augustiner Kellar for dinner. It holds 5,000 outdoor seats and is one of the largest in Munich.
I was seated at a table with another gentleman and we made fast friends over Nuremberger sausages and a liter of helles. He was quite the interesting guy - Palestinian born but emigrated to Germany in his youth. He got a PhD in physics and then a medical degree. He works for a company that developed the lasers for Lasik surgery. We talked about travel and politics and he insisted on buying my beer.
It was only a short stay, but it was well worth it for the stopover. Tomorrow I fly to Oradea, Romania. It's near the Hungarian border and it's known for it's Art Nouveau architecture called "Secessionist. " These buildings were built in the late 1800's and up to the start of World War 1 when it was part of the Austro- Hungarian empire.
Aug 12–14 in Germany ⋅ ☀️ 86 °F
Traveler
Ha!