Yet another story about finding a cheap flight that we just couldn’t pass up. This was our best deal yet — the newsletter came into my inbox and I just knew immediately we had to make it work. The flight was $1 plus $286 in taxes. I have no idea why airlines do this, my guess is that they have to keep planes somewhat full in order to maintain specific flight routes. They certainly didn’t make any up-sell money off of us, and even with the deal, the plane was half empty from Charlotte to Munich.
It was an overnight flight with an early morning arrival in Munich. After an expensive taxi ride to our hotel, we were able to check in early to drop off our luggage and start seeing the city. Our first stop was the famous original Hofbräuhaus beer hall and restaurant. After a large beer and German lunch, we began our usual wandering around the Old Town. We first passed through an old gate called Alter Hof on our way to the amazing Marienplatz. It’s a large old plaza surrounded by great gothic architecture. The most famous buildings are the Old Town Hall and the New Town Hall (which looks older than the Old Town Hall). There’s a cool fountain with fish statues in between the two called Fischbrunnen. After a quick photo op, we took the elevator up the New Town Hall tower for great views of the plaza and a nearby gothic church called Frauenkirche and then briefly walked around inside the hall’s grounds. Next, just outside Marienplatz, we went to St. Peter’s Church which has a more popular tower, but it’s roughly 14 flights of stairs so not everyone made the climb. The main difference is that you get incredible views of the entire New Town Hall, which is hard to fully capture from the plaza itself.
Next, we walked across town to the Orlando di Lasso Statue. I have no idea who that is, but it made the to-do list as it has turned into a quirky Michael Jackson memorial. No one is quite sure why, but the best guess is that MJ used to frequent a nearby hotel. We then strolled north about 15 minutes to Deserter’s Alley (aka Drückebergergasse) behind the Feldherrnhalle monument. This alley became famous as a shortcut to avoid walking past a Nazi statue that required all passersby to salute it. It is marked by meandering golden bricks that you can follow. Walking back to our hotel, we spent some time browsing the surrounding stalls at the large Victuals Market and buying lots of delicious dried fruit. After a pit stop at the hotel, we walked to La Pizza for dinner before taking in the city views again at night where everything is lit up. We started back at Marienplatz and then wandered west to the outer ring of Old Town at Karlsplatz. We stopped for another large beer stein at a great beer hall named Hackerhaus before retiring for the night.
Since we saw nearly all of the sights we planned to visit the first full day, we decided to research other parts of the city to have a more “local” experience. We landed on the hip / up-and-coming Glockenbach neighborhood about a 15-minute walk southwest of Old Town. We attempted to start the day with breakfast at Hungriges Herz but even though they had just opened, the place was completely booked with reservations (tip: that seems to be a thing in Munich). We back-tracked a bit to a restaurant named Cotidiano in Gärtnerplatz. We had an amazing tower of food meant for sharing. Unfortunately, jet lag kicked in for Edie and she got sick and lethargic. We finished up quickly and took her back to the hotel to sleep. While she was napping, we took turns visiting Marienplatz and watching the two afternoon performances of Rathaus-Glockenspiel’s mechanical life-sized figures acting out historical scenes. Edie was still sleeping hard, so Jaime and her sister went back to Glockenbach while I stayed in the hotel room. They stopped at the well-rated Man Versus Machine Coffee Roasters, bought some fancy German chocolates, and drank some beer (of course). Upon return, we all took a family nap until dinner time. Edie got up on her own and said she was feeling well enough to eat, so we let her pick the restaurant. She selected Thai Thanh Nhà n as both girls love Thai sticky rice. After a tasty dinner, we wandered the last section of the main boulevard through Old Town that we hadn’t explored before. We stumbled into a really cool pop-up art gallery where we browsed for a while and then ended the evening drinking more beer at a restaurant named Beim Sedlmayr.
Our last full day in Munich was Edie’s 5th birthday! She’s a bit spoiled because for her last birthday we were also coincidentally overseas in Prague. I hope she doesn’t think she gets a birthday trip every year! We were looking for day trips from Munich during our planning and originally wanted to go to Liechtenstein with a castle stop on the way back. We ultimately decided three hours in a car each way with no bathroom wasn’t a great idea, so we’ll save Liechtenstein for another trip. There are lots of day trip tours to the famous Neuschwanstein Castle, but we opted to do it ourselves. We took the train to Füssen, Germany, then a bus to the town near the castle. From there you can either walk casually uphill for 30-40 minutes, or take a horse-drawn carriage ride most of the way (which we did for roughly $7 per person). Ludwig II commissioned the castle in honor of the famous composer Wagner, but he passed away before it was completed, so it was never occupied. The castle and surrounding area is beautiful and picturesque — it’s often said to be the inspiration for the Disney castles. There’s a great overlook to take a photo op from the corner of the castle, which was all we really had as the more famous bridge with a better view was closed for maintenance and you can’t take pictures inside. We had preordered our tickets for a specific time so we waited just inside the main gate until our turn. The interior of the castle has many elaborate rooms, all with different themes from Wagner’s music. The tour went by quickly and soon enough we were back outside enjoying the fresh snowfall for a bit before beginning the long downhill trek back to the returning bus and train. Back in Munich, we let Edie pick her birthday dinner and she selected an Italian restaurant named Berni’s Nudelbrett. It was a nice and relaxing way to end the night and the trip.
The next morning we had to leave around 6am for the airport. Now knowing how close the metro is to our hotel, we opted for a significantly cheaper subway ride to the airport for our uneventful flights home.
Since that trip, we had an adults-only weekend in NYC for Valentine’s Day, but I don’t think that will earn it’s own blog post. I do want to take the time to highly recommend that people see Sleep No More though if you’re ever in town. Up next will be Qatar and Greece in April!