May 11th, 2019
Today, we were on the schedule to take a tour of Munich, the capital city of Bavaria. Augsburg is great because of its history and relatively small size, but I was excited to see a much larger German city to get a feel for city life. Our train was not until 9:00, and I was actually able to get eight hours of sleep, which was nice.
We boarded the train to Munich shortly after leaving the hotel. The train ride was a whole new experience for me; I had never been on a train like this before. The ride was incredibly smooth, and at times I couldn’t even tell I was moving. We arrived in Munich about an hour later and made a beeline for the center of the city, the Marienplatz. Right away, I knew today would be incredible. The town hall and the Frauenkirche Cathedral towered above us as the bells rang to announce the hour.
We began our official city tour with a very knowledgeable tour guide. We started at the Marienplatz and made our way to many of the iconic spots in the city, including the Church of St. Peter, the market, the original Hofbräuhaus, National Theatre, Ludwigstraße, Frauenkirche, and many other sights. On the tour, we saw the car of the day, the Rolls-Royce Cullinan (an SUV that sells at over $450,000, but honorable mentions included a Rolls-Royce Dawn that retails for a similar price and a Lamborghini Urus SUV). The tour lasted for about two hours; after that, we were free to explore the city on our own until 5:30.
Our group went together to the original Hofbräuhaus, where we had lunch. The service was painfully slow, but we figured that no one goes to the Hofbräuhaus for a quick meal. Afterward, our groups split off. The group I was in had a large agenda for the afternoon. Our first stop for the afternoon was the tower at the Church of St. Peter. After climbing about 300 steps, we got to look out over the city of Munich. The view was amazing, especially the view of the Frauenkirche and the Town Hall.
After that, our group hurried down the obscenely narrow steps to go the marketplace, where I had some of the best strawberries I’ve ever had in my life, second only to my grandpap’s. We proceeded to navigate a complex route to the Eisbach river, where we watched people actually surfing, despite the cold temperature and the wind!
We then hurried back to the Ludwigstraße, where my friend Joe Wright and I split off to go check out the inside of the Frauenkirche and the Theatinerkirche. I am really enjoying exploring all of the old German churches; rarely do we see that level of grandeur and artwork in American churches. The Frauenkirche was simple compared to some others we had seen, but the church was built quickly so that was to be expected. I thought the Theatinerkirche was much more beautiful.
We rushed to the souvenir shops to get something to commemorate our visit before our 5:30 rendez-vous. After meeting the rest of our group in the middle of an anti-abortion protest in front of the town hall, we walked to tonight’s restaurant, a burger place called Hans Im Glück. To be honest, I thought the burger from Murdock’s was much better, but it was still not bad. We were all tired from our long day, and I passed out on the train on the way home. We arrived back in Augsburg at about 9:00. Today was a great day.
We are going to Dachau tomorrow. While I am definitely curious to see a place of such historical significance, I think that tomorrow will be a heavy day.