Bavaria

I stayed in Munich only briefly, bundled up against the surprisingly cold weather and more inclined to relax than to rush about the city from sight to sight. For the first time on this trip, I stayed at a “party hostel”, sharing a dorm with four college boys who, although very friendly, were also intent on drinking heavily and loudly all night, making it difficult to get a good night’s sleep. Oh well. I recovered by spending many hours lounging and dozing on hammocks and beanbags in an enclosed courtyard inside the hostel, a welcome respite from the bitterly cold streets.

Despite this sloth-like laziness, I did venture out several times to see what Munich had to offer. Munich is the capital Bavaria, a south-eastern state of Germany that is home to lederhosen, yodelling, beer halls and the infamous Oktoberfest. Accordingly, one of my first stops was Hofbräuhaus, one of the oldest and most famous beer halls in Munich. Having been heavily bombed by the Allies in World War II, Munich was completely rebuilt, faithfully adhering to the prewar streets and the original architectural styles. The Hofbräuhaus building is a testament to this desire to retain the original city’s character, taking more than a decade to be restored. Interestingly, it was also the venue where, on the 24th of February 1920, Adolf Hitler presented a programme of ideas that would become the basis of the Nazi Party.

Inside the grand hall, a Bavarian band in lederhosen kept the atmosphere lively, struggling to be heard over the crowded tables, and the ability of the Bavarian waitresses to carry a ridiculous number of steins was incredible. True to form the food was excellent and surprisingly cheap, large servings of roast pork being the mainstay of the menu; the beers were also extremely good and quite dangerous, coming as they did in one litre steins. After a beer or two, my German improved to the point where I was able to order food and drinks without resorting to English, an achievement that surprised both me and the waitress who had been witness to my earlier, sober efforts at the language. Spending an evening at any one of the numerous beer houses was a very pleasurable experience, sharing tables with strangers and revelling in the friendly, social atmosphere.

Munich Trivia: there is no Australian embassy in Munich, only one in Berlin. But Australia is the only country in the world that erects a temporary embassy in Munich during Oktoberfest, apparently because a large number of Australians imbibe too much beer and lose their passports. I leave it to you to decide if this should be a matter of national shame or national pride (or even both).

For the tourist stern enough to face the cold and determined enough to escape the call of the beer halls, there is plenty else to see in Munich. There are grand old buildings of various vintages, several large parks (that were disappointingly barren in the middle of winter), numerous market stalls selling all manner of traditional foodstuffs and crafts. Even in the poor weather the streets were crowded and the city really felt alive, nowhere more so than the main squares. The lengthy Marienplatz is bordered on two sides by the old and new Town Halls, the Rathaus-Glockenspiel (a large mechanical clock) on the spire of the new hall being a significant tourist attraction that reenacts two local stories from the 16th century.

A short walk from here, Karlsplatz is reached by passing through the Karlstor, which represents the entrance to the historic city centre (back towards the Marienplatz) and was once the western gate of the medieval fortifications built under King Ludwig. From what I saw, Karlsplatz is one of the main places for people to gather, either to eat at any of the small street-side stalls or to skate on the small outdoor rink that occupied most of the central space. True to form, I laced up my skates and hit the ice, weaving through the crowds of small children and skating hard in a vain effort to warm up.

I warmed up more successfully at the vast German Technological Museum, which houses exhibitions covering a staggering array of technologies from aeronautics and space travel to textiles and printing to cameras and clocks. I spent an entire afternoon wandering from exhibit to exhibit, participating in a number of interactive demonstrations and admiring just how much effort had obviously gone into making each room an interesting experience. Despite having seen only a minor fraction of the works on offer, closing time approached and I was returned to the streets again, in the pitch black of night.

Not yet cold enough to contemplate a direct route back to the hostel, I wandered along the river and strolled past large, elegant buildings and brightly lit statues. Coming to the English Gardens, I was witness to an act of amazing determination, as two surfers in regulation wetsuits took to the icy waters of a fast-flowing canal, eager to ride the standing wave that holds such an attraction for surfers that there are many ineffectual “No Surfing” signs posted along the pathways. Well before the cold took its toll on the surfers, it had done so on me and I left them behind, now eager to find refuge in the warmth of the hostel.

The next day I set off on a day trip to Füssen, a small town south-west of Munich that is nestled in the foothills of a mountain range, only five kilometres from the Austrian border and well known for being home to two fantastic castles. Hohenschwangau Castle (Castle of the High Swan County) was the childhood residence of King Ludwig II and was built by his father in the 19th century, being completed in 1837, while the nearby Neuschwanstein Castle (New Swan Stone Palace) is the most photographed building in Germany.

The two hour train ride from Munich is significantly cheaper when travelling in a group, and so I boarded the train with fellow Australians Paran, Michael and Jonathan, whom I had met the previous night. Sleeping on and off during the ride, but successfully negotiating the change of trains, we arrived in town and piled onto a bus that took us to the foot of the mountain. The bright yellow Hohenschwangau to our eyes looked more like a grand mansion than a castle, and we so decided to head directly up the mountain road to Neuschwanstein, based on glimpses through the forest that (rightly) suggested it would be the more spectacular of the two.

Füssen Trivia: Neuschwanstein was built by Kind Ludwig II as an homage to Richard Wagner. Now one of Germany’s most popular tourist destinations, it can be seen in the following movies: The Great Escape, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Space Balls, and The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm.

The road was covered in a brown slush, a suspicious mixture of snow, dirt and horse dung — the road being serviced by a number of horse-drawn carts for those tourists too lazy to hike up on foot — and slowly the castle emerged above the forest, amazingly pretty and shining spectacularly in the bright sunlight. We entered the main courtyard, from where there were beautiful view of the mountainside and across a chasm to a narrow bridge spanning a deep crevasse. We chose not to fork out a large sum for a tour of the interior and headed back down the mountain, stopping to buy some deliciously hot quarkbollen (fried balls of dough with a hint of red wine) to keep us warm as we detoured from the main path to reach Mariesbrucke, the bridge spanning the crevasse. Ignoring a large danger sign and jumping a barrier, we made our way to the bridge where my fear of heights kicked in and prevented me from edging out very far onto the bridge, but even so the view of the castle was simply amazing.

We returned to town to find that we had missed the bus back to the train station — we had forgotten to look at the Sunday timetable — and we waited for the next bus at a nearby restaurant, armed with a good local dark beer. When we returned to the bus stop we ran into Natalie, whom I had met previously in Stockholm several months ago. To drive home just how small this world is, it transpired that Natalia had attended the same high school as Paran, Michael and Jonathan, an amazing triangle of chance encounters. These are the small miracles that occur with such incredible frequency when travelling.

Having enjoyed my time in Bavaria, my next stop was to be Prague. There was a small hitch in this plan when I arrived at the Munich train station to purchase a ticket, because the lady behind the counter did not speak a single word of English. Sober as I was, my previous alcohol-assisted efforts to speak German must have had some lasting effect, since I was able to convey my destination, the time and date of my train, and the cost of the ticket. I am certain my German was in no way grammatically correct, but the lady was nonetheless impressed with my efforts. I got a huge kick out of this success and I boarded my train to Prague on a high, looking forward to finding out what the Czech Republic had to offer.