Day 12 - Munich

Dec 25th - Merry Christmas! This definitely is a different kind of Christmas for us...none of our usual Christmas traditions for today. But we did start out with our first Skype check-in for the day before breakfast with Rob's Mum, brother, sister-in-law, and nephews in Australia.

After breakfast, we were off to explore sights that did not require being open to see :) We realized that one more day in Munich might have been a good idea to get in some of the places we won't be able to see since they are closed...we will have to cover Neuschwanstein Castle and Dachau on another trip.

My next car :)

First stop for the day was north of the city towards Olympiapark, where the 1972 Summer Olympics were held. The BMW museum & BMW Welt (BMW World) are out here as well - not open today, but we could peek inside & oogle a couple of cars that were on display outside...I think I found my next car :) The Olympia Park complex is fairly big (about 1 square mile), and was a good sunny day (though a little chilly) for walking around. So we covered the grounds in a couple of hours - popped into the swimming pool area (we should have brought our Speedos), and hiked up to the top of the big hill there for some good views of the park and city of Munich.

  

Olympiapark with the Olympiaturm tower 



View from top of the hill


After we felt like Olympians, we trekked it back into the city to walk around the Residenz Palace , former home to many Bavarian rulers - a huge building to walk around, and also found Theatine Church around the corner from the Residenz, which is beautiful Baroque style church and very different in style than any other's we've seen on the trip.


Theatine Church



We had a quick, late lunch at Lowenbrau before heading back to the hotel to take a load off for a while, and stumbled upon Scheider Weisse - so stopped in for a taste before heading back. The menu here looked pretty good, so we thought we'd return a little later to have a late Christmas dinner.

Getting back to the hotel gave us some time to do a little research for the upcoming leg of the trip & also time to check in with Rob's brother in Ottawa. I also found Tammy hanging out on Skype, so was happy to have a quick chat with her, Gavin, and Regan in jolly 'ol England :) Ah, technology is great!

Last stop for our time in Munich - we did go back to Schneider Weisse for dinner - nothing to write home about - it was decent, but the atmosphere, the service, and the beers were all fantastic! The Aventinus Weizen Eisbock was delightful, mmm :) We followed dinner by another walk around Marienplatz before calling it a night.



Marienplatz at night

Beers for the day: Lowenbrau Original, Lowenbrau Dunkel, Schneider Weisse Meine Hopfenweisse (menu described as Hoppy fireworks, more like Honey fireworks), Schneider Weisse Aventinus, Schneider Weisse Aventinus Weizen Eisbock, Schneider Weisse Mein Grunes, Schneider Weisse Unser Original