München (Munich)

Today we slept in, well the rest of the group might of slept in I woke up with the 6:00 AM church bells.  We had a late breakfast which included a sweet waffle but with the sour berry compote worked just fine. Afterwards we took the hour drive via the autobahn to Munich.

View from the New Town Hall

Munich was completely destroyed during WWII, however they chose to rebuild using the historic architecture, which is why the still have an old looking town center. We walked around St. Mary’s square and went up the new town hall tower (which looks older than the actual old town hall) and got nice views of the city. Mind you it was still cloudy and drizzling off and on.  Then went to the Viktualienmarkt (Victuals Market) and had sausage and beer in a traditional beer garden.  We then met our guide who gave us a walking tour of the city. We toured the Residenz (Royal Palace) which is now a museum.  The Residenz was mostly destroyed during WWII however they had pictures of what it looked like inside, so were able to restore it to look like the original.  It is a very large palace with several tiny, in my opinion, rooms. From there we went back to St. Mary’s square to watch the glockenspiel clock tower figures move. The glockenspiel performs at 11:00 AM, Noon and 5:00 PM.  From there we had dinner then headed back to the hotel.  Tomorrow we get up early for the highlight of the trip, a private tour of Neuschwanstein Castle. I’m hoping the weather will be nice.

You can see pictures from Munich here.