Embracing the journey.
Not including cows 🙂
To try to make up for there being no BMW Factory tours available while we are here, today was Dave’s Day. We took a train ride into the country, visited an airplane museum, and ate pizza for lupper (kinda lunch, also supper). Below, find the selection of photos he feels represents the highlights.
Today was Sunday. Rest day in Bavaria – all stores closed, and the city is out and about. So we packed the picnic we bought last night and headed for the park.
Englischer Garten is a huge park, blocks from our hotel, in the heart of the city. It features weaving streams for swimming or floating, trails for all manner of human-powered transportation, a lake, grassy fields, shading trees, a couple of monuments and several beer gardens.
So we walked! Then sat beside the river under a tree. Jen swam. Then hit up the beer garden for beverages, pretzels with a cheese ball called obatzda, a tomato and bocconcini salad, and their version of a beavertail (Dave didn’t catch what it was called), all to the sounds of Schlager (traditional bier garten music).
All in all, we put on more than 20 km on a day that reached 29 degrees, and loved it.
Yup, technically another schloss on the books! Partly original, partly reconstruction (post-WWII) the Residenz was the seat of power for the Wittlesbach dynasty. The official description reads “the Residence Museum presents the art and culture of the Bavarian Court from the Renaissance to Early Baroque, Rococo and Neo-classicism. Precious reliquaries, bronze sculptures and East Asian porcelain are on show.”
After three hours in the museum proper, we broke for lunch across the street. Then, it was on to the Treasury, displaying the most precious artifacts and symbols of power.
Last was the theatre, which is still used for concerts. It was lovely.
After completing a full museum day, we wandered downtown a bit before ending up at “the most famous tavern in the world,” the Hofbrauhaus. Dave had a litre of the Hofbrauhaus original with käsespatzel, and Jen enjoyed Weisswurst and a pretzel.
We wrapped up the day at the grocery store, as tomorrow is Sunday and everything will be closed. A surprisingly tiring day!
Today was about one thing: the world’s largest science and technology museum, the Deutsches Museum.
Today we visited the main museum – there is also a land transportation focused museum and an aviation museum – from opening at 9:00 am until they kicked us out at 5:00 pm. It’s an excellent museum, pitched at a higher level than science museums we have visited in North America, and the exhibits are extensive. We didn’t get to see everything, due to time restrictions and exhibit closures for a renewal they have underway.
After the museum we grabbed a quick meal, wandered beside the river, checked out some new streets in old town, and made our way back to the hotel.
Our adventures today began just by getting to our destination – somehow Dave talked Jen into renting electric scooters and they rolled their way along bike lanes for fifty minutes. Dave declared it fun, Jen hesitantly calls it type II fun because the learning curve was stressful.
We finished the ride at a canal framing the entrance to Schloss Nymphenburg, the summer palace, and where the head of the former royal family still has his primary residence. And what a spectacular place – a huge palace with impressive park grounds, complete with four pavilions. King Ludwig II grew up here, and you can see how it could have inspired him.
We started by touring what is open in the main castle. A beautiful grand ballroom, and historic bedroom suites.
Next, we wandered some of the formal gardens before heading to the associated Milchhäus concession for pretzels, salad, and a refreshment.
Then we hit the trails, about 6 km in all, to see the pavilions, fields, forests, pump house, and more. It was beautiful out but hot, so the shaded woody paths were our favourite.
The last schloss stop was the transportation museum – preserved carriages and coaches from a more over-the-top time.
It was now late in the afternoon, so we stopped in at a bakery for delicious tomato and (fresh) mozzarella sandwiches and ice cold pop. Then we took a streetcar downtown, then wandered our way towards Englischer Garten. We even shopped en route, finding new sun “adventure hats” (Jen has been wearing her rain hat and Dave’s has seen better days). For those counting, it’s a hat trick!
Englischer Garten was absolutely packed with swimmers, sunbathers, and pretty much the entire city. We walked along the river to the Biergarten at Chinesischen Turm, where we enjoyed cold refreshment, half a chicken, and fries.
This morning we left the alpine countryside, and travelled by train to Munich. After checking in to our hotel, we went to a local dumpling shop. We both enjoyed a rice noodle, cucumber, carrot, edamame and peanut sauce to start. Then Dave had a spicy chicken dumpling, and Jen had pork, shrimp, and ginger. The former were not bad, the latter great.
We then did a fast walking tour of town, including the outside of the Residez palace, Odeonplatz, Marianplatz and the glockenspiel at the Neue Rathaus, Viktulenmarket (where Jen bought some fresh figs), Hofbrauhaus, and finally a local grocery store for refreshments.
An early night so we can start detailed exploring.
The day was warm but dreary, with clouds lying low in the mountains and rain in the forecast. A good day for low elevation hiking, so we travelled west towards Hintersee and got off the bus at the Wimbachweg trail. We had two objectives: explore the Wimbachklamm and enjoy our final hut refreshments at Wimbachschloss.
Wimbachklamm was first – a narrow gorge in the river with a walkway to view the power of the water below. Pretty neat.
Climbing out of the gorge section, we then followed first the stream and then the alluvial fan in the valley behind Watzmann. It was a wide, gravel trail – and we learned both why it is so and how they get the beer to the huts, as a delivery vehicle went by.
At the hut we enjoyed beer, a random non-alcoholic drink that was halfway between sparkling water and sprite, and topfenstrudel, which was a cheese curd / cheesecake type filling.
We retraced our steps, caught the bus back to town, grabbed an early dinner, and retired early.
We discovered that the incredible 9 Euro pass (covering every bus and local / regional train in the country, all month) even gets us to Salzburg, Austria – so who are we to say no to an adventure?
Salzburg is a big city, and known for it’s baroque architecture style. We wandered the distance between the Hbf and the Hohensalzburg fortress that was our main destination, taking in city streets, cool buildings, a formal garden, the all-pedestrian shopping district, and the river.
One stop Dave insisted on was McDonald’s – he wants to compare Big Mac meals in each country.
Eventually arriving at the fortress, we took the funicular up to the courtyard, then started climbing stairs, enjoying the panorama walkway, the top of the tallest tower, museums, restored rooms, and more. An absolutely fantastic medieval attraction.
After thoroughly visiting all there was to see, we descended a level to a patio restaurant, appreciating the view with dinner.
After dinner, we walked along the river to the train station, enjoying the scenery. We took a train to Bad Reichenhall where we were able to get a bus that brought us to the door of our hotel. Convenient end to a long but satisfying day.
Today was forecast to be very hot, and true to forecast it hit 33 Celsius. We decided that was too hot for hiking, so we took the (air conditioned) train to Bad Reichenhall to see the Old Salt Works and wander the town.
The “white gold” has been mined intensively here for hundreds of years, with evidence of salt harvesting going back to 2000 BC. The Old Salt Works hauls up brine from many springs, using two huge waterwheels 13 m in diameter, which have been continuously operating for more than 150 years. there is also an underground 2 km canal to carry off fresh water that was accidentally tapped. The temperature below ground was 12 degrees, so it was a perfect activity for a hot day.
After the Salt Works we found a great lunch and wandered the historic core of town. As it was Sunday things were deserted, but it was nice to have quiet streets.
We also found the Bad Reichenhall spa garden, including a massive passive cooler made of branches and brine. It is recommended that someone in poor health walk around it for sixty minutes a day. We suspect the walking sixty minutes a day will do as much for you as the evaporating brine, but it was a very pleasant temperature there and the sound of the trickling was very soothing.
The heat made an early end to the day advisable, and we grabbed Döner mit Käse to eat in our room. A quiet end to a lovely day.
Jen and Dave: Adventuring 