Do you think that I would get laughed at if I went up to a bar at home and ordered a shandy?? That's what I have taken a liken to in Munich, where they are called Radlers and they come on tap and in bottles. The thought of lemonade mixed with beer never really appealed to me until now...
We arrived in Munich on Thursday afternoon and although it was still pretty hot, there was some relief compared to the temperatures that we had seen in Vienna. We spent the afternoon wandering around central Munich and checking out the sights. We noticed immediately that everyone and everything is really laid back here. Thursday night we headed to one of the massive beer halls called Hofbrauhaus. The place is absolutely enormous and with people chanting and a brass band playing, also very loud. I could not believe just how heavy those steins are! I had trouble lifting it to drink at the beginning. I am proud to say that I got through the whole thing, bar a couple of mouthfuls that Turls helped me with at the end. I was fascinated with how the women serving beer can carry four full steins in each hand. Their hands and arms must be so strong. I tried to snap a photo but it is a bit blurry.
Yesterday we headed to Duchau, which was a concentration camp just outside of central Munich. It was very eerie and confronting, but at the same time very informative and interesting. It was certainly well worth the visit. For lunch we went to a market in the city, that mainly sells fresh produce. There were so many different sorts of sausages, hams and smallgoods it was amazing. For lunch I had weisswurst (white sausage) and Turls had a roast pork roll and they were both very good.
We spent the afternoon wandering around the Englischter Garden, which is a park in the middle of town bigger than central park in New York. It was very beautiful, with lots of channels running through it. The water is a weird green colour, however is crystal clear. There were so many nude people wandering around and sunbaking it was kind of disturbing. I had spoken to Rach only minutes before we spotted the first nudie, and she was disappointed when I said that we hadn't seen any nudies yet. You were right Rach, they were everywhere along the channel, yuck! It would be okay if they were young, good looking and muscly, but again, like Berlin, they were mainly old fat guys!
There is a couple of beer gardens in the park, with the biggest and most popular being the Chinesischer Turm. It was great to sit back in the beautiful park, having a few quiet ones and relaxing.
As we were leaving the park, there were a heap of people surfing on the channel; I suppose you have to surf somewhere if there is no beach nearby! Some of them were really good and others, well, I can't surf so I can't comment.
At 7am this morning we left Munich and it was cold and raining, so a good day to be spent on the train. We are now heading to Lauterbrunnen in Switzerland for three nights and are really looking forward to that.
Until next time,
Ange & Turls xxx
