Day 31 - Friday, August 30th München

Up around 8:30 and outside by 9:45 on my way to the Deutsches Museum. It is about a ten minute walk from the closest U Bahn station to the museum. Another fantastic day in Munich. Beautiful blue sky and bright sun. The museum is more than a hundred years and located on an island in the middle of the Isar River. It is the world's largest museum of science and technology with 28,000 exhibited objects from 50 fields of science and technology! It was very impressive. A ticket is only 8.50 Euro so very good value. A couple of downsides is there are no audio guides in the museum and any organized tours are in German only. Oh well. They do have an english pamphlet/map that is helpful to navigate this huge physical space. It has six official floors of exhibits and many sub-floors, but great signage. For some reason there are not a lot of people where I seem to be.

Thanks Wikipedia!

I start at the third floor for Astronomy and slowly make my way up to the smaller fourth, fifth and sixth floors for more astronomy. They cover the history of each and every subject. It really is an outstanding collection and appeals to anyone interested in science and/or technology subjects. 50,000 square metres and they have three additional branch museums located in other parts of Munich. I spent a lot of time in the Astronomy section, but no pictures given it was pretty dark for good reasons. 

 Satellite

Glass beer stein from 1600s

After about 90 minutes, I broke away for lunch in the Museum cafeteria. The schnitzel and fries were excellent. I ate outside on their second floor veranda soaking in the warm sun sitting under another blue sky. You need to take a break otherwise you get overstimulated in this type of museum. In astronomy, almost everything has an english translation. Even their movies have a choice of German or English. Much appreciated. This doesn't happen though on most of the other floors or exhibits as they focus on German. I can't blame them as the vast majority of their visitors are Germans. I got to go into the fuselage and get very close to the cockpit of a Boeing 707. By 2:45 I am getting too much information so decide time to head out. 

My next destination is to Englischer Garten where I was yesterday except this time I will start at the north end of the park and work my way south. I get off at the U6 Munchner Freiheit station. It is a five minute walk east along Feilitzschstrasse and then into this massive park. I come into the Kleinhesseloher See (Lake) area and it is pretty beautiful. Lots of boats on this small lake that can be rented at the one end. They have a Seehaus where you can eat and drink beer in the sun beside the lake. Check out the photo.

One thing that was similar to Canada or at least the lower mainland of Vancouver is the geese. In Vancouver we have a problem with the Canada Geese. Here they have the same challenge with their geese that are as aggressive, noisy and busy on the grass pooping like our Canada Geese infestation.

Don't get too close to these geese as it is attack mode. Poop all over the grass.

My next destination is the famous Chinesischer Turm (Chinese replica pagoda 1600s). It is a Friday afternoon around 4 pm when I arrive hearing the sounds of Bavarian music. The musicians are on the second floor of the pagoda entertaining the beer garden below. Tons of people sitting at the green tables mostly drinking one litre beer steins and eating huge bretzel (pretzel in english). Again, the weather is perfect. Hot, sunny and blue sky. When I sit down I wasn't sure the protocol with the beer and food, but figure out you go and get the food and beer at a restaurant just on the perimeter. 

OK, this is the life! I didn't go for the one litre but got a 1/2 litre mug and ate the whole pretzel. It was delicious as it is crispy/salty on the outside and so soft and tasty on the inside. Very casual vibe at the tables. One thing I haven't avoided here is the wasps. Yup, put my travel diary on top of my beer stein so the wasps don't climb in. At first, they are over your food and trying to climb up your stein and then into your beer. Flick and scatter them away and they go looking for other suckers. I know that beer is not good for my system, but this is a perfect setting. If I was with Lana or friends, for certain I am getting the one litre beer stein. I had their "summer beer" although they had other flavours like 'white' beer and 'radler' (shandy style) beer. Shade starts to cover much of the beer garden so sometime after 5 pm I need to get going. You get a blue token with your beer order. Return the empty stein with the blue token and you get your 1 Euro deposit back.

Walk back to the subway station and that is at least a fifteen minute walk through the shaded paths in the park. Find the subway station and navigate to Odeonsplatz. My friend Ernst had recommended spending some time there. I do find the Hofgarten and spend some time enjoying the scenery. Check out the flowers:

Inside the pavilion are a couple of guys playing a violin and guitar to classical music stylings. There were very good and I gave them some change. It was enjoyable just relaxing and listening to the music. I felt proud of myself later as a couple of American girls were unsure of the sign near this 'water fountain.' It said Kein so I knew that meant DON'T drink the water (wasser). 

Well, given the fact I had a huge bretzel and some beer, I wasn't going to head out for dinner tonight. Lucked into reaching Renée/Georgia for FaceTime and then Lana. Church bells on the hour heard in the neighbourhood. Another interesting and enjoyable day in München.