Munich

gateway to Marienplatz

such a strange fountain  Water is coming from his mouth on to the boy

Rathaus complete with an elaborate Glockenspiel which plays three times a day

I loved the flower baskets on it

at the nearby Viktualienmarkt full of market stalls and restaurants. This Munich soup kitchen' was a Rick Steves' recommended lunch place. Huge bowls of tasty soup, I had the 'hochzeit' wedding full of dumplings and cut up pieces of crepes. Steve liked his gulasch Later he got more wurst whereas I had some sort of onion cheese pudding. Oh and beer too.

their maypole

Assam kirche

this tiny church was chock full of decorative elements. Rick Steves thinks it was more a display case for other churches to order decorations for their church which then the Assam brothers would provide

lots of cute statues on many corners

this is the ceiling of the huge Hofbrau, their biggest and oldest beer hall. Later I read it is where Hitler staged his infamous beer hall putsch in 1933. He was arrested but came out stronger than ever. So the Nazis started here. The first concentration camp, Dachau is nearby.

Hofbrau 

lots of lingerie on their main shopping street

they eat horses (PFERD) and donkey (esel) too. Surprised that the emblem for a horsemeat market is this pretty draught horse. Works for years and then is turned into wurst.

We stayed at the Art Hotel full of cute art

I liked the face chairs

the lobby bar

We arrived in the Hauptbahnhof quickly in Munich, a sprawling, ugly mess of tracks and multiple levels with poor signage. It was a chore just trying to find the right exit to get to our hotel. We returned later to rehearse our trip to the airport as we could afford no mistakes as our time was very tightly scheduled. We had bought a 'bayern' pass for two which theoretically would allow us to use any form of transportation within Bavaria for 24 hours. I didn't understand that it would not be good for our next day trip to the airport until I read the fine print (in German, no English: can't use before 9 am) so had to buy a separate ticket for rush hour travel. But it would have been a good deal if we had decided to stay in Bavaria longer, which is a huge area with lots of cool places. This was my biggest regret, not having our vacation longer though we would have been tempted to go to Vienna instead (much more expensive place than Munich).  Another rule that I found personally useful, if an establishment serves beer, its restrooms are open to all, not just customers. This made finding bathrooms much easier. Apparently Munich had open urinals lining its streets but when they hosted the Olympics years ago, they eliminated these as it was classless. But what to do during Oktoberfest when the minimum order was a liter of beer (now downsized to a half liter)? They could pee in any bar. We missed Oktoberfest which is probably why tickets were especially cheap for us.

Our cutsey hotel was nearby. They let us check in early. It was less than a mile to the Marienplatz where most of the attractions I decided we should see were. And still we missed a lot that I had planned on plus no time to go to the nearby Residenz, one of their palaces.. But we enjoyed our time there. Lots to see and again, we had perfect weather. We waited around for the Glockenspiel show, which was sort of a disappointment. I finally had German gelato, Sacher torte flavor full of pieces of chocolate, cake and apricots. Yum.  We spent too much time back at the train station to ensure the next day went smoothly, which it did. I was afraid we would miss breakfast though they said if we told them the night before, they would prepare a care package. We had twenty minutes to eat, not nearly enough for Steve who spends that much time drinking a half cup of coffee. More than enough for this speed eater, which I keep telling myself, slow down..no prizes for speed eating. I threw some pretzels in my bag for him to eat on the train

All of our connections went smoothly though if I knew that we had at least 5 security checkpoints (versus one in Amsterdam last spring) to clear, I would have been more anxious. We settled into our very long flight to Atlanta, me with my wine which I was hoping would make me sleep. Not a chance. I had exhausted all the American movies I would like. On to foreign ones:
Rocca verandert der Welt
Rocca changes the world which I could even pick up on a lot of the dialog. Very cute uplifting movie which I am told is on Netflix. And a Chinese rom-com which was interesting. Forgot its name.

We were in Atlanta too long though we got to Detroit in record time. A good trip