Three tours you should take in Munich

Munich is a beautiful and welcoming city. If you're only in Munich for a couple of days, there are still great ways to see the city. Here are three walks you should take to appreciate the city, its history and of course — the beer!

1. Sandemans "Free" walking tour

For a complete overview of Munich's history, and a walking tour of the city center, Sandemans is the way to go. While it is technically free, the tour guides will ask for tips at the end. It's pay-what-you-can, so if you are a poor college student this is a budget way to learn about Munich. What I enjoy about Sandemans tours is each guide puts his or her personality into a tour, so it's a little different every time. And, it starts in Marienplatz just in time for you to hear the famous, poorly tuned glockenspiel. Something you really only need to hear once in your life.

2. Any tour of Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site

While it's a heavy subject, I think it is hugely important for anyone to tour Dachau. The immensity of World War II sets in when you can see first-hand what conditions were like during the Holocaust. We once again went with Sandemans (tour supply was short over Christmas), but there are several highly-recommended guides on Trip Advisor who lead smaller groups. I do recommend you go with a guide instead of walking the grounds and reading the placards. My husband has done both and felt he had a much more meaningful experience with an expert than he did on his own. Good guides also have answers to your obscure questions.

3. Build-your-own Beer Tour

Ok, this is cheating a little bit :) But it's so easy to find beer in Munich! Start at the iconic Hofbraeuhaus (the atmosphere is electric!), but then make it your mission to never drink there again. Try the Jodlerwirt, Augustiner, anything on this map, or turn to Yelp if you're really stuck. And if tours are just how you like to travel, the Internet has you covered there, too. Check out these bar crawls (but don't blame me if you're "bro"ed out by the end of the night).

Prost!

Munich Day 4: In Photos

I got up and went to Aroma Kaffeebar to drink a latte and eat müseli:

We visited BMW Welk (BMW World) and peeked in at the museum:

We wandered around Olympiapark, built on hills made of WWII rubble, and where the 1972 Olympics were held:

Aquatic center still in use!

SUNNNNNnnnnnn

The construction is for a RedBull downhill skating race in January. 

Sunnnn!

YARN BOMB'D

Munich / München from the top

Then Britton and I found more beers. We'd hoped to revisit the Jodlerwirt, but today it was closed. Sad face. We wandered around a bit, and decided to cut our losses and head to the Hofbrauhaus for one last gigantic beer each. I always love the energy and atmosphere of that place! Plus we got to hear some live oompa-loompa music and see dancers perform some traditional steps.

The end!

Munich Day 3 (Part 2): "I want to try" not "eins zwei drei"

Dachau was pretty heavy stuff, so we found lighter activities for the afternoon.

First stop, a quick look at the Victory Gate (Siegestor). This arch sits in the middle of a rather busy street, crowned with a statue of Bavaria and four lions. The arch was heavily damaged during World War II, and was never fully restored, in order to serve as a reminder of the war. In the second photo below, the columns should be supporting a ledge, like you can see in the first photo.

Second stop, watching the surfers at the Eisbach River. (Yep, surfing in water with the name "ice brook".) I can't believe these guys were still out there when it's nearly January! Today was mild, but it sounds like this is a year-round activity even when the weather isn't abnormally warm. It was really fun to watch. I'd be here weekly if I lived in Munich. You could tell some of these guys were very new at this, and for such a strenuous sport I can imagine the learning curve is pretty steep. 

We walked back through the Englischer Garten, aka Munich's "Green Lung" — a huge park near the east side of central Munich. It was very popular on a Saturday evening, with musicians, picnickers, and lots of doggies. And of course a biergarten!

We finished up the day at Augustiner Keller, a beer hall near-ish to where we're staying. I only ordered potato dumplings, and the waiter only rolled his eyes a little bit. It was a win-win.

Today's title came from yesterday. We were attempting to order pretzels with a waiter who was really energetic but not so great with English. We wanted one order to try, but "I want to try" sounds just like "eins zwei drei", drei being the German word for three! We almost ordered three baskets of bread (not pretzels; the pretzels never materialized) for four people before we realized why he kept holding up three fingers. Language!

Munich: Dachau Concentration Camp Tour

There's no easy way to write about visiting a Concentration Camp. But I think it's important that you visit, if you have an opportunity. I'm not going to write much about it because it seems like everyone will have a similar-but-different, powerful experience. I certainly did.

It's horrifying and astounding to realize the scale of Dachau, and how it compares to other camps and other atrocities during the war: the 41,000+ who were murdered at Dachau are a fraction of the millions at other camps.

It's redeeming to realize that Germany today has a very deep respect, reverence, or even shame, for what happened. You don't make jokes about the Holocaust here. A Nazi salute — even in jest — is punishable with jail time.

And there's hope in realizing that we can say "Never Again" and mean it.

What's this?

I went to Dachau with a tour, which I would highly recommend. Our trip today was actually the second time my husband toured Dachau; he was here in 2007 on his own and did the self-guided, read-the-placards method. He mentioned a couple times that he preferred the guided since our guide provided a lot of context for what the signs within the memorial and museum describe. Guides also have answers to your random questions. A four-hour tour only covered the very basics of Dachau; with a guide you can ask more in-depth questions between group stops. We used Sandemans New Munich Tours, but there are plenty of tour groups to choose from.

Travel pro-tip: we bought sandwiches at the train station before heading out. Our tour started at 9:30 and finished at Dachau around 2:30/3:00, so I was quite thankful that the family had the forethought to grab some sandwiches to eat on the S-bahn home. (No food allowed within the memorial.)

DIY Travel: Getting to and from Dachau would be very easy. Take the S2 S-bahn toward Petershausen; get off at Dachau Bahnhof. Exit the station and walk to the bus stop, which is right outside. Then, take bus 726 to Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site. If you have a metro pass for the entire network, your travel costs are already covered. The bus waited for a long time at either terminus, so it's very easy to navigate. (Most tours include travel costs in the price if you don't have a travel pass.)

Munich Day 2: Walking Tour on Christmas

Merry Christmas! Wishing you good cheer and happiness on what is hopefully a lazy day with your favorite people. Have you signed up for a postcard yet? 

Today was a beautiful, clear Christmas day in Munich! Coming in to this trip I was a bit anxious about traveling over Christmas, but was relieved to wake up and find the cafe across the street open (and serving tasty sandwiches), plus plenty of other sight-seers and pedestrians walking out enjoying the unseasonably warm holiday.

Today we started with a walking tour of the city center. Britton and I have had great success in many cities around Europe using Sandemans New Europe Tours, and they operated their daily "free" tour today, just like any other day. And it was popular — nearly 100 people showed up! (They split the group: one-third were Spanish-speakers and they set off with a native hispanohablante, and the rest of us divided between two guides, so our final group was large but not unruly.) You can see us on their Facebook Page. Every tour is different so how about some photos instead of words?

SO MUCH BEER. They can't *not* talk about beer. It's too connected with Munich and Bavarian history!

Dodger's Alley Memorial. Look it up. Here's a brief but beautiful post from Clare over at Need Another Holiday. It's one of the best memorials that I've come across anywhere in my travels.

After the tour, we sucked it up and paid a bit more than we would have liked at a German-food restaurant. My food was delicious, so I'm dubbing the price tag a "Christmas Surcharge". I ate potato dumplings, which I LOVE. (And I don't like potatoes, so this is saying something, people.) They're gummy-steamed-squishy goodness topped with gravy. DELISH.

To round out a beautiful Christmas day, we made the quick trek out to the grounds of Nymphenburg Palace (my brain immediately associated it with a nympho, so that's been a Freudian slip waiting to happen all day...). It's about 30 minutes outside the city center via public transit. It is a huge (HUGE), wandering palace, originally used as the summer home for the Bavarian royal family. Tough life. But it's really beautiful and the grounds are open year-round, even if the palace itself isn't.

Would you get a look at these tourists? Gosh. So cliché!

Britton: "Why did we stop?"

Me: "You're going to stick your arm out and take a pic of us smashing our faces together in front of this palace!"

And we found a bakery that is strategically positioned between the palace (which is a big tourist attraction) and the tram stop to get back to town. I ate a croissant stuffed with apricot filling and dusted with powdered sugar. I will never meet its equal.

Also a beautiful sunset to end the day. OMG THE SUN WAS OUT ALL DAY. The WHOLE day. All of it. Sunny sunny sunshine. Merry Christmas to me!

Munich Day 1: Yay, Bier!

Munich was one of Britton’s and my favorite stops on our honeymoon in 2012, so we were excited for the opportunity to share it with his parents while they're visiting.

We are traveling during Christmas so I was looking forward to catching the tail end of Germany's famous Christmas markets. I got a glimpse of these in Oslo, and London has several, but Germany is where it's at! (The origin of seemingly all things Christmas.)

We landed around six, checked in with our Airbnb and grabbed some food at the Iraqi restaurant downstairs. (sehr gut!) It was one of only a handful of restaurants we saw still open as we walked from the Hautbanhopf to our lodging. (As we left I distinctly made note of a bakery within the train station still selling sandwiches, in case we needed to go back for food.) Also, I think we're staying in the red light district? Several topless posters as we walked along.

Anywho, the internet implied that most of the Christmas markets would already be closed by the time we landed, but I wanted to at least try to see one. So my husband, father-in-law and I headed out for a bit of exploring. We're staying just a ten-, maaaaaaaaybe fifteen minute walk from Marienplatz, so we headed thataway.

And the streets were So. Empty.

Granted, the last time I was here it was the height of tourist season so my base level is quite skewed. But between the Christmas Eve  holiday and being out of tourist season, I could practically dance in the streets.

On arriving at Marienplatz we found that the internet was indeed correct: the Christmas markets had closed up shop. But the plaza was still really beautiful, with lights and a huge tree outside the glockenspiel.

But not ready to turn in just yet, we dragged my FIL to the iconic Hofbrauhaus. The place was still packed at 9.30 Xmas Eve, full of drunk tourists and Germans alike. (At one point I sneezed and our tablemate, who hadn't previously acknowledged us said, in broken English, “bless you and Merry Christmas!” To which i replied, “what?” because it was really loud in there. She repeated “Merry Christmas”, and then giggled uncontrollably, which I think is how I would react if I'd just had an opportunity to practice Swahili… if Swahili were taught to every eighth grader in Missouri.)

But the Hofbrauhaus doesn't disappoint. It was rowdy and raucous and full of energy and biers. And also an ancient woman pushing what we think was a portable, wind up organ up and down the center aisle on a cart, with a Christmas tree sticking out the front at a 45 degree angle, wearing something that Britton dubbed a mix between Mrs Claus and Professor Umbridge. Mixed with the table banging, the glass smashing, and the occasional room-wide cheer, I wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

Merry Christmas, Munich. This is gonna be great.