Part II: Sightseeing
As I was already aware from my preparatory reading about Munich, this station - situated under the square of the same name - was one of the busiest in the entire city, being an important interchange for both the S-Bahn and U-Bahn networks on several lines. As we ascended the steps leading from the station into Marienplatz itself, we marvelled at how different the architecture and "feel" of the city already seemed when compared to our experiences of Berlin. The square - which has been the primary such location in Munich since 1158 - was large and bustling, even in a mid-week morning, with a beautiful Marian Column at the central point. This, the Mariensäule, is historically significant as the first such column to have been constructed north of the Alps in 1638, at the height of the Thirty-Years War. Subsequent to the end of the war, such columns would become a common sight in the city squares and plazas of Central Europe. On the north side of the square was the Neues Rathaus (New Town Hall), the centre of local government and administration in the city, a massive building constructed in the Gothic Revival architecture style over the course of the late 19th century. Looking closer to a cathedral than it did a government building, the centrepoint of the Rathaus facade was a giant ornate glockenspiel.
Several times a day, the glockenspiel chimes whilst several statues and models incorporated into the facade move along with the music re-enacting folk stories of Bavaria. To the east of the square, the Altes Rathaus (Old Town Hall) still stands, being used as a venue for meetings of the city council despite having largely been superseded by its neighbour. This building - constructed in the late 13th century - was no less impressive-looking than the newer building, albeit in a different manner; although until this point I had only seen photographs of traditional Bavarian structures, along with the stereotypical images one views in the media, I could tell it was clearly deeply rooted in the construction style and traditions of the region. I was particularly interested to see this building for another, darker reason; the Altes Rathaus had been the site of a dinner held by the Nazi party to mark the 15th anniversary of the unsuccessful Beer Hall Putsch, during which Joseph Goebells delivered a speech calling for an anti-Semitic pogrom which has gone down in history as Kristallnacht.
Marienplatz was only ten minutes walk from Hotel Blauer Bock, where the five of us were booked; I had fortunately had the foresight to print off a map of the immediate area prior to our departure from Northumberland, and as such I was able to lead the way. The hotel had been very-much recommended by Claire's German friend whom she had consulted at length when helping to plan the trip, being well-situated for the S-Bahn and U-Bahn, reasonably priced and located opposite the world-famous Viktualienmarkt. When we reached the hotel, we found that we were still too early to gain access to our rooms, but were nonetheless able to check in and leave our bags and suitcases in a locked closet behind the reception desks, which would make exploring the city whilst we waited for our rooms to become accessible rather more feasible. At the reception desk of the hotel, we were also able to collect free maps of the city centre and of the S+U-Bahn system. We decided that we would first explore the Viktualienmarkt and surrounding environs before making our way back to the hotel, with the intention of parting ways and exploring the city at our own pace before reuniting at the hotel.
The Viktualienmarkt comprises a massive food market open six days a week, covering an area of approximately 22,000 square metres and containing over 140 stalls and shops, from bakeries and fast food stands to delicatessens selling a wide variety of food including exotic fruit, cheeses, game and poultry, herbs and spices and confectionary. In the centre of the marketplace there stands a traditional Bavarian maypole, decorated with figures displaying the various traditional trades and crafts of the region.
Having wandered off from Helly's parents and Claire, the two of us spent some time exploring the marketplace and looking for interesting stalls and shops which could prove useful in the days that would follow. We paid particular notice to a large soup kitchen in the centre of the Viktualienmarkt, Münchner Suppenküche, which we had read about in the weeks prior to our trip and which was highly recommended online, particularly for the quality of their goulash soup. Observing the wide range of soup on offer, we decided that we would not allow our trip to end before we had eaten there at least once.
As we had a few hours before we would be able to gain access to our room, we decided that the best thing to do in the circumstances would be to explore the wider city in order to get our bearings and "situate" ourselves. As such, consulting the free maps which we had obtained from the reception desk of the hotel, we thought that it would provide an interesting diversion to walk from the Viktualienmarkt, via Marienplatz, to the Hauptbahnhof. The most appropriate route, it seemed, would be to walk through Marienplatz and along Neuhauser Straße for approximately a kilometre, before reaching Karlsplatz. At this point, we would continue on along Bayerstraße for another 500 metres or so until we reached Bahnhofplatz, the road on which the Hbf was located. A walk of this length would generally take us no longer than a quarter of an hour, but we intended to take our time and get a feel for the city.
The first portion of this walk took us along a pleasant but very busy pedestrianised shopping street filled with shops, restaurants and cafes; the architecture was an interesting combination of younger post-war buildings interspersed with older structures, some of which appeared to be of an age with the Altes Rathaus. The street itself is one of the oldest thoroughfares in the city, being first mentioned in records as long ago as 1293. At the end of Neuhauser Straße, the gothic archway of Karlstor - one of the last remnants of the original medieval fortifications of the original city centre, and called Neuhauser Tor until 1791 - stood overlooking the square of Karlsplatz. Along with a large ornate fountain, this is also the location of the Karlsplatz (Stachus) S+U-Bahn station; the latter portion of this name denotes the fact that the residents of Munich prefer to call the square by the colloquial name "Stachus" after a popular pub demolished during the construction of Karlsplatz in the 18th century. As one would imagine due to my well-known interest in medieval history, I found the sight of Karlstor extremely interesting. The remaining walk through the city centre en-route to the Hauptbahnhof took us through a much-more modern-looking collection of office blocks, modern shopping centres and apartments.
The Hauptbahnhof was a massive and very modern-looking building, having been rebuilt and expanded on many occasions; the largest such development having taken place in the years following the Second World War, which had inflicted severe damage on the city as a whole and left the Hbf more or less a ruin. As one of the primary upsides of the German train system as opposed to that found in the United Kingdom appears to be the consistent designation of particular train platforms to a specific service - to the point that the platform a service will depart from is marked on the timetable posters found throughout a station - one of the ulterior motives we had for walking to the Hbf was to explore the station prior to the various journeys which we would be required to take over the coming week, to discover which platforms we would require for each service and most importantly to work out where each platform was located within the station. This would prove particularly important for our journeys to Stuttgart and Innsbruck, both of which were long-distance trains we had booked in advance to avoid the more expensive "walk-up" cost and which were both early morning services; for this reason it was imperative that we arrive at the platform for each journey in plenty of time.
Whilst at the station, we also took the opportunity to discover what food stands and shops were located on the main concourse - this would allow us to pick up snacks where necessary prior to our longer journeys, something which is always useful when travelling to collections and cities with which one is unfamiliar and where obtaining food in a hurry may or may not be feasible. One location which we paid particular notice to was a bakery called
Rischart; this was one of about a dozen such locations scattered around the city, being a very popular and successful chain native to Munich and - having been founded in 1883 - is still managed by the same family, the current director being a fifth-generation member of the Rischart family. We had previously noticed two branches of the chain in Marienplatz; a very large take-away bakery and patisserie, and a sit-in cafe which, we gathered, served somewhat more high-end products than the standard bakeries in the chain did. We picked up a selection of both sweet and savoury products from the branch on the Hbf concourse for our lunch - including soft pretzels, cheese breads, apple strudel and quark cheesecake - and set off once again for Marienplatz and the Viktualienmarkt, eating as we walked.
When we reached Viktualienmarkt, we found Helly's parents and Claire finishing a meal at a restaurant located opposite the Hotel Blauer Bock. We sat down with them and discussed what we had seen and done thus far for a time, before deciding to enter the hotel and gain access to our rooms. The Hotel Blauer Bock, as the name would indicate, had as its logo a blue ibex; the ibex theme was found throughout the building in ornamentation, paintings and the decorations within our rooms. In point of fact, even the metalwork of the bedside lamps within our rooms was adorned with brass statues of ibexes leaping into the air.
Helly and myself found this ongoing theme quite attractive, and rather appropriate considering we stood to see Alpine Ibex at several locations over the coming week. Our room itself was spacious and pleasant, with a shared bathroom down the hallway; Helly's parents and Claire had elected for the more expensive option of en-suite rooms, but as we did not intend to spend an excessive amount of time within our room other than to sleep we were quite happy to have a more basic level of room. As the others planned to visit museums and continue sightseeing after getting unpacked, with the intention of meeting up with us once again in the early evening to eat somewhere, Helly and myself sat for a time in our room discussing where we wanted to go in the following few hours.
Having looked once again at the maps with which we had been provided at the hotel reception, we decided that a walk in the Englischer Garten would be a fine idea; this large and wooded area of parkland stretches from the city centre to the northeastern limits of the city, and at 910 acres is larger than Central Park in New York or Hyde Park in London. Due to the sheer size and scale of the park - covering 5km from end to end, and including approximately 80km of footpaths and bridleways - we decided that it would be best to restrict ourselves to exploring the southern portion of the Englischer Garten; the park being more or less divided in two by a major road approximately one-third of the way up, with bridges and tunnels connecting the two halves. Both halves contain numerous creeks and lakes, many of which feed into the Isar River; this major river flows south-to-north through Munich and is the second-biggest tributary of the Danube within Germany.
We decided that we would catch a U-Bahn north to the Münchner Freiheit station, which is located about five minutes walk from one of the entrances to the Englischer Garten. On arrival into the Garten we would gently walk south through the parkland, enjoying the view and keeping our eyes open for wildlife, before leaving through the southern exit and walking back to Marienplatz through the north-eastern district of the city centre. The Englischer Garten was - as expected - very peaceful despite the large number of people who were spending time within the park, many of whom were drinking within the numerous beer gardens scattered throughout.
The majority of visitors on this sunny and warm spring afternoon were sat around the Kleinhesseloher See, a large ornamental lake located not far from the point where we had entered. I was immediately struck by the number of geese roaming the grass beside the lake, and more specifically the fact that although some were the
Greylag Goose (
Anser anser) and
Canada Goose (
Branta canadensis) found within most parks in the United Kingdom, the majority represented a long-established breeding population of introduced
Bar-headed Goose (
Anser indicus), technically speaking a wild lifetick for ourselves. Much of the avifauna we saw within the park as we slowly walked south through the woodland and pastures of the Englischer Garten were commonplace taxa of little note; however as we moved further south into an area where the woodland and creeks were particularly dense we started spotting more and more
Mandarin Duck (
Aix galericulata), again an introduced breeding taxon but one which we *had* seen in the wild previously, back in the United Kingdom. However, we had never seen wild Mandarin in quite such numbers or density; in some areas there were close to a dozen visible on the water, walking along the paths and sitting in the trees. We exited the Garten at a point next to a large and very striking building which stood on Prinzregentenstraße; the Haus der Kunst. This was an art museum in the neoclassical style constructed in the 1930's and designed by the architect Paul Ludwig Troost as the very first example of Nazi monumental architecture and propaganda - something which was of some interest to myself as my younger brother actually wrote his BA History of Art dissertation on the Nazi Monumentality movement of architecture. In the present day, the Haus der Kunst is used as a venue for travelling art exhibitions, with no permanent collection of its own; as none of the exhibitions present at the time of our visit were of much interest to us, we decided not to enter.
We then briefly walked along Prinzregentenstraße and Von-der-Tann Straße before turning onto Odeonsplatz; a square which contained the U-Bahn station of the same name and access onto the Hofgarten, a 17th century ornamental garden in the Renaissance style designed for the nearby Münchner Residenz, the former royal palace of the Bavarian monarchs of the House of Wittelsbach. The Hofgarten is now in effect a reconstruction of former glories; having been significantly altered in the 19th century and almost entirely destroyed during the Second World War, the garden has since been rebuilt along similar lines to the original design, whilst retaining certain of the features introduced in the 19th century. Possibly the most noteworthy feature within the Hofgarten is a memorial monument to the White Rose movement, a non-violent intellectual resistance group opposed to the Nazi regime during the 1940's and comprised of students belonging to the University of Munich; after a campaign of graffiti and anonymous leaflets opposing Nazism, the group were eventually captured and executed. The Residenz itself comprises a complex of palatial buildings and courtyards, and is the largest extant city palace within Germany, with portions of the palace dating to the mid-14th century. However, our chosen route back to Marienplatz took us only along the outskirts of the complex, and as my historical interest in viewing stately homes is limited we did not plan to return to investigate in greater detail. A nearby structure at the southern end of the Odeonplatz which I found particularly attractive in appearance was the Feldherrnhalle (Field Marshall's Hall); a monumental loggia commissioned in 1841 by King Ludwig I of Bavaria. However, although I did not realise the significance of the structure at the time, the Feldherrnhalle is noteworthy as the site of the final brief skirmish which ended the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch.
We continued south along Residenzstraße - pausing as we reached the square of Max-Joseph-Platz, in order to admire the Nationaltheater München, an opera house built in the neo-classical style and home to the Bavarian State Opera and Ballet. This structure is relatively new, having been built in 1963 as a direct recreation of a previous building on the site which had been gutted by the air raids which hit Munich in 1943.
Residenzstraße eventually ended at Marienhof, a small park situated to the rear of the Neues Rathaus at Marienplatz, and the former site of a number of old medieval structures destroyed during the Second World War. Just beyond here, we once again reached Marienplatz and met our three travelling companions next to the Altes Rathaus, planning to search for somewhere to eat.
Walking east from the Altes Rathaus along Tal - for all intents and purposes an un-pedestrianised continuation of Neuhauser Straße - we soon came across an attractive looking restaurant and pub called
"Paulaner im Tal", which appeared to be owned and run by a local brewery and, although a relatively new building, emulated a traditional Bavarian public house, with location-appropriate food and drink. Not wanting to merely try food we could eat anywhere in the world, we decided this location would be well-worth a try; something which proved very much accurate. Although I very seldom drink alcohol as I have little liking for the taste nor the sensation of inebriation, I had resolved prior to this trip that I would at least try local beer - the reasoning being that if I were to try beer anywhere in the world, Bavaria would surely be an appropriate place to do so. In the event, the beer I selected - from the eponymous Paulaner brewery - went rather well with my food; roast boar in beer gravy with cabbage and a potato dumpling, followed by a gigantic sweet yeast dumpling in custard. The others also enjoyed their meals, although the potato dumplings met with a somewhat mixed reception - however, all was not lost, as I happily ate those dumplings which were not wanted! I would very much recommend this restaurant to any Zoochatters who plan to visit Munich - and although I admittedly have little basis for my judgement, I also thoroughly recommend the range of beer available.
Having enjoyed a very good meal, we made our way back to the hotel, discussing our plans for the following day as we did so. Having been awake since the early hours of the morning, we were very tired by this point as one would expect; as such, Helly and myself fell asleep very rapidly upon going to bed - eagerly anticipating our first zoo of the trip the following morning.
faults in all of them but much to be praised too.
so it looks more likely we'll be doing Hamburg.
