June 14, 2023 - Germany
Munich Town
We started our Germany sightseeing trip by flying through the night and landing in Munich.  We picked up our rental car, drove into town, parked our car at our hotel, and soon ...
   
... we were in the Marienplatz --Mary's Square; i.e., Munich town center!  I have been in Munich once before, back in 1983, courtesy of the U.S. Navy.  I was only there a day, if that.  This square and the Hofbrauhaus are the only things I remember.  I took few pictures in those days.  Lynnette was here only last year, on her German Passion Play/Israel trip.
   

Rick Steves says entering "into sunlit Marienplatz, "Mary's Square", gives you a fine first look at the glory of Munich:  great buildings, outdoor cafes, and people bustling and lingering like the birds and breeze with which they share this square."  That was exactly right.

"For a thousand year, the square has been the center of Munich.  It was the town's marketplace and public forum, standing at a crossroads along the Salt Road, which ran between Saltzburg and Augsburg."
   
The New Town Hall, 280-foot spire, and its famous glockenspiel.  "A carillon in the tower chimes a tune while colorful figurines come out on the balcony to spin and dance."  The building was built in the late 1800s.
   
"The golden statue at the top of the column in the center of Marienplatz honors the square's namesake, the Virgin Mary.  Sculpted in 1590, it was a rallying point in the religious wars of the Reformation.  Back then, Munich was a bastion of southern-German Catholicism against the heresies of Martin Luther to the north.  Bavaria is still Catholic country, and Protestants weren't allowed to worship openly here until about 1800.
   
The New Town Hall survived the World War II bombings.
   
Lynnette enjoying her first bratwurst of the trip!
   
In front of the Bratwurst stand.
   
Standing in front of the famous Hofbrauhaus.
   
Munich's largest tourist attraction after the Oktoberfest, the Hofbräuhaus am Platzl is also frequented by locals.  During regular hours traditional Bavarian music is played.
   
The ceiling features elaborate frescoes in the baroque style  Although I don't think it's changed much in the 40 years since I was here, it is nothing like what I remembered.  What I remember was more like a Quonset hut-like tent with long picnic tables and German girls carrying three big beer steins in each hand.  Maybe we went to the Hofbrauhaus tent set up for Octoberfest?  Also, I did drink a lot of beer that night.
   
This was our first day after an all night flight; both Lynnette and I needed a pick-me-up in the afternoon.  What better than some Haufbrauhaus beer?   I had the standard one liter.
 
Many locals keep their personal mugs ("Krüge") stored here.  Maybe those are some in the background.
   
Later, I had some hearty German food:  a Pork shank with potatoes, all smothered in gravy.  Excellent.
   

The Hofbrauhaus also includes an outdoor beer garden.

The Hofbrauhaus has had many famous, and in-famous patrons.  The famous side include Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Marcel Duchamp, Thomas Wolfe, Louis Armstrong, Mikhail Gorbachev, NASA astronauts, and past American Presidents John F. Kennedy and George H. W. Bush.

Infamous patrons include Vladimir Lenin who lived in Munich in the period before World War I and reportedly visited the Hofbräuhaus on a regular basis.  In 1919, the Munich Communist government set up headquarters in the beer hall.

In February 1920 Adolf Hitler and the National Socialists held their first meeting in the Festsaal, the Festival Room, on the third floor.  On 24th February 1920, Hitler presented the Nazi Party's Twenty Five Point Program in the Hofbräuhaus. On that day, the Nazi party held a large public meeting and whilst Hitler was speaking, the meeting erupted into a melee. There was a massive fight between the Social Democrat and Communist opponents of the Nazi party, whose thugs eventually won the melee. Hitler managed to finish his address, notwithstanding the chaos of smashed tables and chairs and hurled beer mugs all about him. On 4 November 1921 the Hofbräuhaus was also the birthplace of the later feared Nazi street fighting organization, the Sturmabteilungen, or SA.
   

We stayed for two nights at the Hotel Altmunchen, which was within walking distance of everything except for the Nymphenburg Palace.  The hotel had a very nice breakfast, and most important of all, a parking spot in its courtyard  for our rental car.

This picture must be our first day in Germany after flying all night.
   
Having a nice dinner just down the street from the hotel.
   
Lynnette splurges on some Creme B'rulet for desert.
   
Also near our hotel was the Sendlinger Tor, a 14th century red brick gate with two towers.
   
Entering the Viktualienmarkt, Munich's open-air market.
   
The Viktualienmarkt's beer garden is jumping on a beautiful summer day.
   
Get your fresh roasted coffee here!
   
Get your flowers here!
   
The tower of St. Peter's Church, rises above other Munich buildings.  It's the oldest church in town and stands on the hill where Munich's original monks probably settled, presumably the originating point for the whole city.  Construction for St. Peter's Church, which replaced the original monastery church, probably began around 1368.  The church received its 299-foot tall Renaissance steeple top spire in the early 17th century.  The church was heavily damaged in World War II during the Allied bombing of Munich.
   
The rear of St. Peter's Church.
   
The building at right center with the green spires is the Old Town Hall.  To its left is its Bell Tower which displays the city seal.   The Old Town Hall looks new, and it is new, because it was destroyed by bombing in World War II and had to be completely rebuilt.
 
"Munich was the birthplace of the Nazis.  It was in the Old Town Hall, on November 9, 1938, that Hitler called for Germans to rise up and ransack everything Jewish.  On what came to be called Kristallnacht, synagogues were burned and shops were trashed. " .. Rick Steves
   
Some interesting Munich apartments.
   
Walking down the Kaufingerstrasse:  car-free since the Munich Olympics in 1972.  "As far back as the 12th century, this was the town's main commercial street."
   
Passing the American Embassy on the Kaufingerstrasse.
   
Passing by St. Michael's Church on the Kaufingerstrasse.
 
St. Michael's Church in Munich is the largest Renaissance-style Christian church north of the Alps. "It was built in the late 1500s -- at the height of the Protestant Reformation  -- to serve as the northern outpost of the Jesuits.  Appropriately, the facade features a statue of Michael fighting a Protestant demon."  It has the second largest barrel vault in architecture in the world, only behind that of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican.  It's crypt contains the sarcophagi of numerous Bavarian princes and princesses, including that of King Ludwig II of Bavaria himself, the architect of the famous Neuschwanstein Castle, which we would soon visit.  That said, we did not visit the inside of St. Michaels.
   
We passed through the Karls-Tor -- Kor is German for Gate -- and Lynnette posed by the fountain in the Karlsplatz.   The Kaufingerstrasse begins at Marienplatz and ends at the Karlsplatz, pictured below.
   
Across the street from Karlsplatz is the big and impressive District Court building.
   

Walking to the Alte Pinakothek art museum and the Museum Quarter, we passed by this tall obelisk located in the middle of Karolinenplatz.  It was built by King Ludwig I in 1833, as a memorial for almost 30 thousand Bavarian soldiers who died in Napoleon's 1812 Russian campaign.

There's a lot to do in Munich.  We ended up doing a lot but there's a lot more we did not have time to do.  For some reason, probably because we were tired, we did not do the Rick Steves "City Walk" and therefore missed a lot.  If we ever come back, I'd like to go inside the New and Old Town Hall, St. Michael's Church, St. Peter's Church, the Frauenkirche, Dallmayr Delicatessen, walk down Maximilianstrasse, visit the English Garden,  the Transporation Museum, the Munich City Museum, the Egyptian Museum, the BMW-Welt Showroom and Museum, the Museum of Transportation.
   
 
   
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