Munich Gardens and Museums

20 June - Day 96 BMW Munich

We took the U Bahn down to Olympic park where the BMW world and museum are housed, and of course the Olympic stadiums too.

First stop BMW. BMW is has two exhibitions here. On the U bahn station side is BMW Welt (world), this is a working showroom where all the current models are displayed for test driving and sales. There is a section for new car pickups, and a number of cafes and resturants within the building.

They cater for curious visitors, displaying their latest cars and motorbikes.

They even have a dirt bike section for bikes made by a vacuum cleaner company Hasquarva.

The building looks very space-age.

We decided not to visit the museum because Marcus has been, and I was not that interested.

After this we took a walk to the Olympic stadium which features a lot of tent like structures, large and small stadiums and swimming pools.

Naturally for Munich in every open and people friendly space, you will find a bier garten. We stopped here for a quick beer before taking the U bahn back into the city.

Next stop was the worlds largest technology and science museum the Deutsches Museum on the Isar river.

This museum has all science and technical exhibits from shipping to robotics.

Materials technology to real scienctists working on DNA sequencing (in that pod behind Marcus).

Flight and aeronautics too, with some cool WW2 planes and rockets thrown in. It would take days to explore if we looked at every exhibit, so we could not do justice to this place in the 2 hours we spent there.

After a late lunch, the weather turned and we went home just in time. It was thundering and raining but despite all that racket we heard a lot of yelling from the street below. So we opened the window for a look.

There was a guy running down our street yelling loudly (perhaps he thinks he was singing - but to us he was yelling) in the rain and stopping every 50m or so for a few push-ups before carrying on. He was of course cheered loudly by on-lookers including ourselves. He soon disappeared around the corner.

Munich streets have lanes for three kinds of traffic. People, cars and bikes. Bikes have priority and the law on their side. We have so often seen cyclists exerting this right over pedestrians with loud bell ringing and cutting people off if you encroach their lane or right of way. Drivers have been at the receiving end of lectures as well. For all the safety practises here, helmets don't seem to be compulsory and only small chilldren wear them. Marcin our guide from yesterday said that if you get hit by a bike, you will be asked for your insurance details so that they can put in a claim against you.

 

21 June- Day 97 Still in Munich

The very large Deutsches museum has two annexes elsewhere in Munich, one is the transportation and the other flight. Today we visited the transportation one in the Bavarian Garden.

The theme is land transportation. So we have history and development of bikes, cars, trucks and trains.

There are some cool exhibits here including this pink caddilac that features in many rock and roll songs.

There is a Mercedes powered by hydrogen fuel cell technology. Some classic and iconic sports cars including this Alfa and BMW are here.

One whole building was dedicated to trains, with working models to show how the engines and brakes work. This again took 2 hours and we did no justice to it.

Being in the Bavarian garden, we were greeted by a bier garten upon exiting the museum, so quick beer stop. The beer gardens here work in two ways, with service or self service. If you want service, then sit at the table clothed tables. Otherwise sit anywhere else. They have a seperate dispensing area for self service and you return you glass and plate at a collection point. All beer gardens serve one brand of beer only (but various types). So you choose your brand by choosing the particular beer garden.

I wanted to have lunch at the Augustina beer garden, after this one but after walking around for 20 mins, we gave up and stopped at a cafe.

 

22 June - Day 98 Englische Garden Munich

We started the morning walking towards the English gardens northeast of the city.

On the way we walked past Konig Platz. This was the headquarters of the National Socialist party (NAZI), Munich was where Hitler started this party.

Of course during the war it was heavily targetted by allied bombers. Even post war there were debates about rebuilding in case it became a shrine for neo nazis. It looks like they have partially rebuilt some of it.

This plaza was the scene of the Nazis book burning night depicted in Indiana Jones Last Crusade. The Nazis have kept meticulous records of the city so that there is no issue with replicating the destroyed city. The extent of the destruction circa 95% means recontruction continues till today, the Konig Platz being one example. Today the buildings house a theatre and a museum.

The English garden along-side Munich university is huge. It has streams running through, plenty of grassland, a lake and a Chinese theme garden within.

Without saying it has a bier garten too, with seating for 3,000 people.

It took us more than an hour to walk through it and along the Isar river back to the city. The walk along the river was interesting too. They have dams and locks, creating water falls.

This loop took us back into the city past the famous Hofbrauhaus. So a beer stop for Hofbrau, for me, and apfelshaft, for Marcus. The beer comes in two size 0.5l or 1l (also called mass - short for massive I guess).

On the way to lunch we walk past the hotel where Michael Jackson held out his son from his balcony. There is a shrine underneath a statue for him

I find German meals too filling, so we went for some Chinese noodle soup where we got to practice our Mandarin with the waitress.