After a perfect time in Cologne, we hopped on a train to Munich. It was about a 4 hour trip – which might sound long, but really isn’t too bad. Unlike an airport, to ride a train, you show up and get on board. No need to arrive hours beforehand – so the total trip time is roughly equivalent to a 2-2.5 hour flight. Plus, trains have ample legroom, fast wifi, and outlets at every seat.
Arriving in Munich, we knew we needed to take the subway across town to our hotel. While 100% of the subway signs were in German, all 6 routes cross the main area of town from the train station to just past our hotel – so the biggest challenge was figuring out which direction was east and which was west. We managed to guess correctly. After an uneventful check-in, we took a walk to the main square – Marienplatz.
We had scheduled a beer tour to kick off our time after the amazing start the beer tour in Cologne gave us. Our tour group had a dude from St. Louis who was there for a heavy metal concert and a student from Atlanta who was studying in France but liked to spend his weekends in Germany. Plus a bunch of Italians who were there for a soccer game. The tour started with a subway ride to a small, local pub that served a kind of beer called “kellerbier” or “cellar beer”. It is a light, refreshing beer served in a stoneware vessel. We then went to a small brewery run by a mega brewer, Paulaner, to see the steps to making beer. While there, we sampled their dunkelweiss (dark wheat beer) and had a snack. The tour ended with our guide finding us a table at the famous Hofbrauhaus where we had another bier and ate a full meal. It was a perfect night to get us up to speed on how to navigate the brewhouses of Munich and know what to order, from a beer standpoint.
We started the next day with a pastry (apfelschnecke) before a walking tour of Munich. We learned how most of the buildings (90%) got destroyed during WWII and were rebuilt with cheap cement. The “bricks” and details on most buildings was painted on to distract you. Some of the work was clearly fake – but some was pretty well done. Knowing this humbling history of the city made it a bit less magical, though the random squares, alleys, and small roads were totally old-school European.
We had lunch at a place famous for their lager stored in a wooden barrel. It was a wonderfully interesting bier and the food was excellent! We toured the royal residence that afternoon, wandered through the park where crazy Germans were surfing on the river in the freezing cold, and finished our day with another meal at the Hofbrauhuas. We shared a table with two German guys but found the common language of “Prost!” when our biers were delivered.
Our final day in Munich lead us to again get pastries (apfelschnecke again) and visit Nymphenberg Palace – the summer residence of the Bavarian Royal Family. It was a sprawling estate with mini palaces around the perimeter. The grounds are now a public park with tons of trees and trails. It was an interesting place, but we were a bit burned out with history by then. We had lunch at a brewhaus that seemingly only serves lunch – and had an amazing weissbier they produced. It was a special, lucky stop! We grabbed some bretze (pretzels) and coffee while strolling through the Viktualienmarkt (Victuals Market, Food Market). Underwhelmed a bit, we took a break from the cold in our hotel for a bit. The best way to wrap up our time in Munich was obviously to visit the Hofbrauhaus once more. We had some big biers and more of their amazing food.
Germany was an amazing place to visit. The quality of the beer an food was unparalleled. The prices are super reasonable, almost shockingly low. We had first class meals for the same price as going to Applebee’s!
Munich, specifically, has a rich history. It’s a melting pot of people and growing extremely quickly. But it remains quintessentially Bavarian. I can’t recommend visiting highly enough!