Thursday, June 17 - Cold and Rainy

Thursday started a lot like Wednesday – a tease of sunshine in the morning before giving way to thick clouds with on and off light rain.  The rain has not been hard, but it has been persistent, which is worse.  Unfortunately, a quick look at the forecast does not offer much improvement for the last few days of our trip.  We are trying (and succeeding, I think) to make the best of it.  I just hope it lets up enough so that they will open some of the big biergartens.

Anyway, Susan and I decided to have another happy wanderer day.  On the way out, we noticed the display case near the main entrance.

 That’s a display for the other pension in the building, indicating how they have performed renovations.  The display is set up with Playmobil, which are basically German legos.  Playmobil isn’t so much about interlocking multicolored blocks, but you still assemble buildings, cars, boats, etc from a big box full of plastic parts.  Playmobil was one of my loves when I was younger.  I created many displays very much like this, as the city and road construction lines of Playmobil were my favorite.  I remember building my creation similar to this one, taking pictures of it, and sending them off to the USA Playmobil office, and they sent me some keychains in return!

First we stopped at Alte Peter again, but the tower was closed again!  At that point we opted for the Rathaus tower, which is about the same height.

Looking almost straight down at Marienplatz

It sure is grey and messy, which seriously limited the view, but that’s okay.

The gold colored church is the Roman Catholic Theatine Church, St. Cajetean.  We visited it later on our walk.  It is as ornate as some of the other churches, however the inside is completely white.

The Frauenkirche

After descending the tower, we made our way toward the Theatine Church.

Across from it is the Feldherrnhalle, a monumental loggia built at the behest of King Ludwig I in 1841 to honor the Bavarian Army.

For now, the rain was holding off, so we decided to walk through the Engilsher Garten.  Last year, we walked through what we thought was a large portion of it, but turned out only to be a small sliver.  This year, we managed to cover the whole southern half.

The garden was filled with a wide array of waterfowl

We then walked over to the Eisbach (a man-made creek), where, yes, it is possible to surf in Munich.  All this is made possible by a man-made wave.

Here’s how the wave works (and how it can kill you) for all you engineer-types reading this.

Normally, this time of year, this part of the park would be COVERED with sunbathers

Normally, this biergarten, the Chiniesicher Turm, which has 6000 or so seats, would be full.  Today it is closed.

However, we did come across this red squirrel, who seemed not to mind the weather.  We don’t have these in Atlanta.  The flash on my camera makes him look a little demonic.

As the rain began to pick up again, we decided to leave the garden, and find a place to eat that was reasonable, and open!  The Osterwaldgarten promptly appeared around the corner.  While their outdoor seating was not on offer, they had plenty of seats inside.  And they also had a mittagsmenu (mid-day cheap menu) with two options, one carnivorous (fried pork cutlet – Munich equivalent of a Wienerschnitzel) and the other vegetarian (some sort of omelet-type thing with potatoes, veggies, and of course cheese).  Osterwald was also the first time we experienced one of my favorite German biers – Spaten Munchen. 

After lunch, our walk took us back south, in the direction of the center of town (Marienplatz).  We came upon oasis #1

That’s right, Das Residenz-Sommerfest.  Think sub-mini Oktoberfest.  Beer tents, junk food, souvenirs.  But a slim crowd, unfortunately.

That just means more beer, pretzels, and sausage for us!  On the way out, we saw something we never thought we would see.  look near the bottom of the back window of the car...

That's right, a faded Braves hat!  Whodathunkit?!  The ATL in the MUC!  We decided to return to the room for a nap before heading to our dinner destination, Wirsthaus in der Au.

This is a restaurant located on the same island in the Isar River on which the Deutschesmuseum is located.  It’s also near several of the major American hotel chains, so it is a very popular spot for business travelers.  In traditional Bavarian fasion, we were seated wherever there was open space.  This time that happened to be at a table with 3 United Airlines pilots and a flight attendant.  They were nice enough, and good for conversation, but I was a little disappointed in them that they didn’t attempt to order their food and drink in German. 

Anyway, the food was absolutely delicious.  Susan had a Knoedl mix plate – one each of spinach and cheese, beets, and "regular" (cheese and breading).

And I had the sausage mix plate

The potato salad was absolutely delicious.  I love German-style potato salad.  I can’t say the same for American potato salad.

After dinner, we ended up coming back to the room to pick the location of our nightcap, but we ended up falling asleep and just decided to pack it in for the night.