Today we spent our day in the state of Bavaria’s capital city: Munich!
I found Munich a very interesting city. One thing that immediately stood out to me was its walkability: where it is usually necessary to use a car to explore a whole city in the United States, Munich’s infrastructure was very clearly oriented more toward walking.
We conferred in front of Munich’s famous “Glockenspiel” before setting off on a tour of the city. On this tour, we got to see many famous buildings from multiple periods in Munich’s history, and we gained a deeper understanding of their importance in those time periods. At noon, we got to see the Glockenspiel in action. After many minutes of bells ringing to announce the hour change, a song played while the large cuckoo-clock-esque mechanism turned. The show lasted around ten minutes, and it was very interesting to think about all of the maintenance that must be done on the mechanism to ensure that it continues to work.
Something that was surprising to me was that many of the buildings constructed by the Nazi party for use within their regime still stood today (despite much of the city falling in ruin as a result of the war), and many are in use today. For example, one building we passed was built as an art museum by the Nazis to display only art and propaganda that they found suitable for the masses and felt aligned with their views. It is still an art museum today, but a point has been made to display art that the Nazis likely would have objected to.
Yet another interesting and unexpected thing we saw was that surfing is possible (and somewhat popular) in Munich! A small canal in the city was built in a way that artificially creates a continuous wave perfect for surfing, so we saw many people taking turns riding the wave.
We then enjoyed some free time in the city, so a small group of us went to eat Thai food and explore the city. I made a stop at the Hard Rock Cafe (a tradition of mine when I visit a new city) and we also visited the original Hofbräuhaus. Once our free time came to an end, we ate at a burger chain named “Hans im Glück.” Although it tasted pretty different from a traditional American burger, it was very good! Although we only narrowly made the train from Munich back to Augsburg, the rest of the night was very relaxing and fun!
Thanks again for following along, and I hope you read the last few blogs of my time in Germany!
– Juliana Alvelo-Davies