Munich: A Brief Tale

The site of an exciting sight...Munich's Neue Rathaus (New City Hall)

June 26 (evening): Having dropped our luggage at the Kings Hotel Superior, Cindy and I set out for the center of Munich, which is the historic town. Here are a few random sights/sites along the way:

A day without a visit to some cathedral or church is not complete, so we stopped in at the Frauenkirche (Cathedral of Our Lady, above), where we saw the Wittelsbach Monument, one of the most impressive crypts of our entire trip. Important personages lie beneath this edifice:

Cindy wanted to make certain that we would be at Marienplatz, where the Neue Rathaus is, by 5:00 so that we could see the famous Marienplatz Glockenspiel play out its daily pageant.

There is also an impressive central monument, the Mariensäule, which is dedicated to St. Mary as "Patron of Bavaria".

We arrived in plenty of time, found a prime seat at a cafe where the server was bringing huge steins of beer, six at a time (at least), from a distant bar. I marveled at her strength and steady arms. Wow; I was a darned good bar server in my day, but I would have wilted under that kind of pressure. I should've taken a photo.

We were there, along with hundreds more people, to see the Glockenspiel, which presents three performances a day in the summertime. I imagine many of you have already experienced this, but here it is:

It's long...about 5 1/2 minutes...but it is magical. Love the crowd's reactions. Here's a good explanation of this, which has been performing for over 100 years: https://www.munich.travel/en/topics/urban-districts/glockenspiel-new-city-hall

Once we had experienced this historic performance, we could have called the evening complete. But no, Cindy had one more historic experience to share that evening--the Hofbräuhaus, of course, where the art of brewing (and carrying and drinking the product) has been perfected since 1607.

These steins hold a full liter of beer...one was more than enough! Dinner was traditional Bavarian cuisine, served with alacrity and not much fussiness (the place is huge, and the table company is always changing, as folks sit down at a table with strangers who are no longer strangers within five minutes). We sat with a couple that left shortly after we arrived, and not too long after that a family of three (a couple with the woman's mother, making a pilgrimage to the mother's parents' homeland) joined us. A good time was had by all amidst the frescoes dating from some restoration or another.

And of course there was music:

After dinner, we walked through the Viktualienmarkt, a historic market just steps away from the Marienplatz, where one can find just about anything. Near there we encountered one of the most amusing buskers ever:

Just a snippet of his performance.

As we walked back to our hotel, in addition to many interesting buildings, we came across this art piece: