Munich, A Platz in the Sun

Day 1 – Denmark to Munich

We arrived in Munich a day later than expected after an impromptu night in Denmark… Checked into the Hotel Rilano, a nice place walking distance from our Munich office where we stole a power nap. We had lunch at the buffet downstairs with some of the local team, then headed to work. Dinner back at the hotel was nice, and with the World Cup starting, the buzz of futbol fever was starting. I enjoyed a beer in bed to cap off the night watching the Brazil opener while Jen worked on some blog project about travel and cheese and stuff. Sounds cool.

Day 2 – Top Down

After more work the next day with the local team we picked up a rental Z4 BMW convertible that would be a fun change of transportation for the next few days. Knowing we had a weekend in Munich and more work to do there Monday and Tuesday, we didn’t plan anything too busy. The car made it easy and fun to get around, and allowed us to even hit the Autobahn for a trip to Salzburg on Sunday.

Friday night in Munich, we were in the mood for Italian. Not only did it just sound good, and we heard Munich actually does great Italian, but we also wanted to have something in our memory for Italy to compete with.

We found a little place online called Golden Twenties (read more), in an artsy area of Munich called Schwabing. We also enjoyed our first parking experience in Munich. Here’s how parking in Munich works. If there’s a spot open, you probably can’t park there. There are a million signs and things to decipher but Jen busted out her phone and helped us find a spot that we felt somewhat confident about.

The dinner was great, and Golden Twenties would be a great spot for anybody looking for some traditional Italian in Munich.

Walking back to the car we saw a great little Rosenthal Teacup place, but they’re basically only open 45 minutes a week. On Saturday, the next day, they were only to be open from 11am – 1pm. This actually helped motivate us to wake up and get out the next day, so I can’t complain.

Day 3- Big Beers

We had originally thought of going to Salzburg on this Saturday, saving Munich for Sunday, but between the teacup store and a general need to slow down a little, we made a wise decision to flip those plans. Again, the freedom of a rental car vs. train tickets was great here.

We headed down to the store and Jen found 2 awesome teacups, buying one, and regretting nt buying the other one forever.

We then drove towards the one big yellow building we saw the night before, parked, and figured we would roam around for a while before going to lunch. This was one of those lazy exploring days that made the trip so much fun. We found an awesome little street fair and farmers market happening in Marienplatz, and I tried my first Flammkuchen.

Flammkuchen is kinda like a pizza or flatbread traditionally topped with cheese, bacon and chives. They were making it fresh from some oven that looked like it had been serving those things up in Marienplatz for years, and if I weren’t worried about spoiling my lunch I could have had 3 of them no problem.

We found a great little chocolate and sweets place called Eilles Kaffee, where we stocked up on way too many bags of candy. The wafers and giant gummi bears were awesome, as were the chocolate espresso beans, since our coffee addiction was just starting to take over our lives.

There were a lot of awesome things throughout the squares, but somehow we missed the most coolest named thing ever – The Glockenschpiel. Luckily we found that with some friends Monday night between the Germany and USA games. We did, however, find a couple of traditional bands playing the kind of music you would expect in a German town square.

We continued on that Saturday for a lunch at The Original Hofbräu Haus (read more). We had a good time there, and I would say it was about what I expected. Cool to see and great beer, ok food, and a souvenir shop that preys on beer-happy customers.

What’s more fun than enjoying beer in Munich? Doing laundry! This necessary evil of our month abroad was made quite enjoyable by a quaint spot called Wash and Coffee. Here you can wash your clothes and get Coffee. And we did.

While the clothes were in, we ran down to a store called Tengelmann to get some picnic supplies for Sunday in Salzburg. We did some folding just before the 8pm buzzer at Wash & Coffee, shared a small dinner back at the hotel and watched Sex & the City 1 and 2 in German. It still holds up.

Day 4- Salzburg

Most people have heard of the 1965 musical film The Sound of Music – but not everyone gets to visit the stomping grounds of the real (and theatrical) Von Trapp children and their governess turned step mother, Maria… We did 🙂 Read more here…

Day 5 – USA! USA!

We spent our Monday back at the office, not making it out early enough to catch the Germany game anywhere. I felt worse for the locals but there was a lot to do. We made it to the Marriott to meets co-workers who were starting to arrive, got some giant beers and dinner at Augustiner Keller, where I tried my first pork knuckle. It was pretty good, if you can get past the name. Kind of the same way you need to mentally get past names like beef tongue, chicken oysters, or Chalupas.

We found a bar for the USA game that started at midnight locally, and I wasn’t even paying attention yet when they scored their first goal 30 seconds in. The next 90 minutes were agonizing but when they came away with the win, we were those annoying people blowing the horn in the bar and chanting USA USA USA! Proud moment.

Day 5 – Goodbye, Munich

We did our last day in the Munich office on this Tuesday, grabbed some random takeout lunch, and headed for the train. We had reserved tickets through RailEurope, but for the life of us we couldn’t find a way to print them at the station. There was an accident that made our taxi to the station run late, and we had about 5 minutes until the train was leaving and 6 of us without tickets in hand (some didn’t even have reservations period).

That’s when I said my now famous line, “Just get on the train. What are they gonna do?” And it worked!

We said goodbye to Munich having enjoyed our time there, hoping Frankfurt would have a few fun moments to offer. Despite being the epicenter of our workload for the month, we still found some great places to try and fun things to do in the banking town of Frankfurt.