Tuesday, 19th August – Salzburg to Munich

After a great day in Salzburg we left Austria and headed back into Germany to Munich. It was a short trip in comparison to most days only an hour and a half, so after getting to the hotel early we quickly worked out our itinerary. The German underground Metro is so awesome and by now we felt really comfortable using it to get to a number of destinations to see the most we could in one day.

First stop was the Bavaria Statue, a 19th century female statue, a massive structure 8.52 metres high weighing about 88 tons, it rests on a stone base which is 8.92 metres high. On the way we saw a couple of really cool things, a massive snail and the construction of the Octoberfest site for Munich.

We got back on the Underground and headed to our next stop, the Angel of Peace statue which is very similar to the Victory Statue in Berlin. We had to walk through a very pretty park that was more like a forest to get there, then headed off to the Old Town.

One of the first buildings we saw was the National Theatre or Opera House. It was pretty spectacular and a little out of place as it is now nestled in Munich’s version of ‘Rodeo Drive’.

There are two town halls in Munich, the old (the white building), and the new, built in 1908. The New Town Hall has a very cool Glockenspiel which has 43 bells and 32 life-sized figures and every day it re-enacts two stories from the 16th century.

In the same platz (or square) there is a statue called ‘Mary’s Column’. It was erected in 1638 to celebrate the end of Swedish occupation – Keith was mostly interested in the four cherubs that were posed overcoming mythological beasts such as a dragon!

St Peters Church in Munich, whilst not as impressive as some of the other churches we have seen, has a very interesting history. It has foundations that can be traced back as far as 1158 before the formation of Munich as a city.

Whilst heading to the old town gates, we stumbled across what has to be the weirdest Church either of us has even seen, the Asam Church. The architecture and statues were very very odd.

We visited the historical town Gates, Karlstor and Sendlinger Tor. It’s always pretty special to see the town gates preserved and imagine that this was how visitors entered the city.

As with all of the European cities we have visited so far, we always see the most amazing buildings and statues that we couldn’t have planned. Often we come away feeling a bit ignorant of what we’ve seen and hope to one day do some research to understand more about them.

After another big day we headed back to the hotel for a cold beer and some sleep .