Tuesday 2nd August
OK, time to head on out of Prague and on to Germany and what I consider to be the third and final leg of my inter-rail trip. Like, first leg was to Rome, second leg was to Prague and final leg to Paris (spoilers). Three sides of a (very approximate) square. I wasn’t planning on spending too much time in Germany in all honesty. I had my birthday in two weeks. Whilst I had a fancy of celebrating it by myself in somewhere like Paris, gorging myself on food and treating myself to a show or something, I knew that I actually quite enjoyed celebrating with my family so I had made the decision to be home in time for then.
I packed as quietly as possible in the morning since my new roommate was still fast asleep, before checking out of the hostel in Prague and heading out to the buffet breakfast. I proceeded to stuff myself full of food – gotta take the opportunity when it presents itself to you! And then I headed to the Hlavní nádraží (main station) for my train to Germany.
Now, get ready for the most disrupted journey that I had on this inter-railing trip. I hope you’re ready for twists and turns. I got to the station with a happy fifteen minutes spare before I found out that my train was delayed by another fifteen minutes. No problem, I now had half an hour so I headed to a nearby wholefood shop where I bought my mother some Linden Flower tea on the recommendation of my good friend Miška. When I returned, my train was delayed again, so I went and had a look at the old station. That was cool. There was a large dome and backpackers were all slumped on the floor around the circular room, sleeping or resting.
Not wishing to join them, I went and stood in front of the information boards, anxiously watching my train, hoping it wasn’t cancelled. Speaking to people I had met so far, they all said the same thing, German trains were surprisingly unreliable. In the end, it was only delayed by 45 minutes, not too bad in the end. But this was just the beginning of the disruption.
I got on board and found an empty compartment. It was another Harry Potter style of train! I was sharing the compartment with only one other, a bald-headed guy who was dressed up very smartly, Agent 47 style. Turned out, he was doing economics and business at university and was off to Munich for language classes. That’s so respectable and cool! The train headed through the Czech countryside again, the same sights that I had seen heading into Prague. Namely, golden fields and villages with red roofs and church steeples. The sky was once again a deep summer blue.
We passed through Pilsen in Czechia, before crossing the border at a place called Furth im Wald. The train stopped here, pulled aside at a layover thing, and the police came aboard (masks were hurriedly put on again). That was actually quite an interesting experience. Intimidating maybe. They were all geared up in vests, big rifles, chunky boots and all. There were a tonne of sniffer dogs outside too around the train. The police came along, compartment by compartment, accompanying a guy wearing latex gloves and a handheld passport checker. It was really quite thorough. They spoke rapid German at me before I blinked at them in ignorance before replying “Ich spreche kein Deutsch” – I was thankful that my GCSE German gave me this at least. Honestly, this is the first thing I learn and memorise in any language. The police repeated themselves (in English this time) with a chuckle, basically saying that they may search my bag, but they didn’t look bothered and moved on once my passport check was returned.
Eventually, police check done, the train jerked to a start again and we moved on. However, I think us leaving late had put some spanners in the works since an announcement came over the PA system, telling us all that we would have to get off at Schwandorf where another train would pick us up to continue on to Munich. The bald-headed guy relayed that to me haha, the German was too fast for me. Apparently the Bavarian accent is also really hard to understand…
I jumped off at the appointed stop along with the rest of train, and found myself with a 45 minute wait once more. It was well past lunchtime now, so I went and found a snack in the station whilst I waited. I actually think a whole bunch of people piled onto the next train which came along which was the wrong one, it was stopping short of Munich at Regensburg. Whoops. They’d get a connecting train to Munich from there though so no real worry.
The train finally arrived. I had been standing on the platform for a while, in some shade, sheltering from the hot sun, waiting and eating. I hadn’t put any sunscreen on! I found myself sitting beside a guy who was working on his laptop. Naturally, my eyes drifted over and to my shock, I realised he was reading about Physics which I knew about! Like, I understood all the equations! Or at least, where they came from. I chatted with him and it turns out he had completed his PhD in Germany and was now working for a start up company, making LEDs for some special medical applications. A lot of semiconductor physics really. He advised me to do a PhD in Germany, he had loved it himself. The opportunities are plentiful here allegedly! He himself had done his undergrad in Italy, his masters in France and his PhD in Germany. What an education!
We finally arrived in Munich. It was getting quite late in the day at this point and there was not much opportunity to explore the city in the fading light. On my walk to the hostel, all I saw were conservative buildings everywhere and nothing too fancy – my hostel was a little bit out of the centre of town. I was staying in another ao hostel. You know, the RyanAir of hostels. It was not quite like the one in Venice, much more shabby, in an older building. There were a tonne of motorcyclists, ripping it up and down on the main road, their loud engines noisy. I even saw three young guys my age dressed in dungarees, riding on a ye olde tractor, two of them sitting on the mud guards over the back wheels by the driver’s shoulders.
I got myself some dinner at an Asian Fusion place which was a lot more expensive than I would have liked it to be. The service charge is one of those sneaky add-ons… But also, I have benefited from a service charge when I worked at the Grazing… So I don’t really have a foot to stand on. I was done for today though. I know, I am sorry, not particularly exciting day. Just a slow and delayed train ride all day really. I think I got into Munich like three or four hours after I was meant to. Something ridiculous like that. No idea where I lost the rest of the time, the trains must have been going slower than they were meant to.
Wednesday 3rd August
But today was gonna be better! A full day of exploring Munich to get as much out of it as possible. Therefore, I caught the tram into the city centre as soon as I was up really, jumping off at Karlstor, a massive, grand, medieval city gate. The day was bright and not a cloud in sight. Sweltering. The heat wave had followed me around Europe it seems, it was easily over 30 degrees, if not closer to 40. I was having to squint up at the Karlstor. I mean… I could have just walked around to the other side, now that I think about it. Hindsight is a beautiful thing.
I walked through the gates and then set off on a small tour I devised myself. I headed to Asamkirche first. This was a church that was built by two brothers. It was just amazing inside. Ever surface seemed to have been decorated and made as fancy as possible, letting these brother artists just go all out on it when they built it. Additionally, it wasn’t by itself like most churches were but it was, in effect, a tenement church, squished in on both sides by the Asamhause and other buildings. I think it was actually a private chapel the brothers built for themselves.
I then found some more breakfast food, eating another European breakfast (croissants, orange juice and coffee, if you haven’t realised by now). The guy who served me obviously picked up on my foreign accent when ordering in German and spoke back to me in English, asking where I was from. When I replied “Scotland” then all he did was grin and shout “Freedom!” at me as if this is the only thing Scotland is known for! Like, I haven’t mentioned it before, but this was what most people seemed to quote at me when I revealed I was from Scotland. Everyone seems to have seen Braveheart! I ate my breakfast, sheltering under a green umbrella whilst a tonne of wasps circled my table.
I then walked on to Marienplatz, the central city square. It had the Neues Rathaus (New Town hall) on one side and was bordered by beautiful buildings on the other three sides. In the shade of the Neues Rathaus, there was a band playing and I sat and listened to them for a while. You must know that I am a sucker for live music by now. They were playing anything it seemed, from the Game of Thrones theme tune, to some Queen. Except, whenever there were lyrics, it was replaced by the flute. Marienplatz was just a wonderful square though. It was bustling and busy, locals and tourists mixing equally. There were a tonne of free walking tours, but I didn’t want another three hour tour like I had with Mike.
I headed to Peterskirche next, which seemed incredibly ‘clean’ and stark. Like, very modern. In contrast, when I got to Frauenkirche, it was just a lot more interesting. Older, more stately, seemed to fit in with the rest of the town. There was also a big bronze model outside of Frauenkirche which showed a wonderful map of Munich town centre.
I headed north next to one of the biggest attractions in Munich, the Munich Residenz. This was a large royal palace complex of the Bavarian monarchy from the past. You could either buy a cheap ticket if you were a member of the EU (which I am not, sadly), or an expensive ticket if you were from anywhere else. There were free sections to it though so I had a look around those areas. Everyone seemed to be eating pretzels by the way. Whether they were walking around with a tour group, teenagers hanging out with friends, on an open top tour bus or emerging from a shop. Just everyone seemed to have a pretzel in hand! It might have been the time of day, but I found it kinda funny!
OK, composer time now. I had looked it up and found out that there was a statue of Chopin here in one of the Munich Residenz gardens which was free to get to. Therefore, I first started by wandering through the big, beautiful and symmetric Hofgarten where I found no evidence of the statue. I actually had to go to a small garden just beside the Hofgarten, the Dichtergarten. This was actually more like a park than a garden. It was shady and overgrown and wasn’t carefully curated unlike the other stately gardens around. Bundled away in a corner, I found the statue of Chopin. Winning. He had lived here for a small while, but I never found out exactly where. He also toured here too. I was happy. There were a bunch of other statues in this Dichtergarten too.
With a spring in my step, my obscure mission accomplished for the time being, I headed a little further north to the Englischer Garten, a vast grassy public park. The sun was still shining and the heat was only rising in the day, my shirt kinda soaking in sweat. Gross, I know. Sorry. As I was walking to the gardens, I saw a tonne of people cycling with surfboards. They either had those add-on, sticky-out bars to allow the surfboard to sit beside them as they cycled by, or they had it tucked under one arm, steering nervously with the other hand, going slowly. I was so confused though. Last time I checked, Munich was literally as far from the sea as you could get in central Europe. How were they managing to go surfing?
Well, it turns out, they had channelled the Eisbach (a river) so that when it passed under a bridge, it came out in a torrent on the other side, almost like a set of rapids. On both sides of the Eisbach, people were taking alternate turns to jump out into this torrent on a surfboard, surfing on the white rushing river from side to side. I think I saw someone stay upright for maybe ten seconds at most. Most people fell off almost immediately. This was clearly the surfing destination that everyone had been coming and going from. There was probably a clear fifty people waiting in line, ankle deep in the river. Spectators watched from downstream (like me) or on the bridge above them (unlike me). It was very cool and looked like fun, even though I don’t like water or swimming. Those people who got wiped out got swept downstream, past me, by a good hundred meters or so as they swam for the riverbank. Yeah, the river was absolutely rapid.
I walked further into the English Gardens. Since there were people surfing, it wasn’t that far of a leap to imagine other beach activities in this public park. And indeed, there were people playing volleyball, sunbathing, having barbecues and just a wonderful time on this vast expanse of grass. I guess this was as good as the beach, just without the sea or the seagulls. There was a small grassy knoll, a monopteros (that’s a new word that I only had just discovered) built on top to allow you to have a look over the entire park and so I headed there. It was nice, sitting in the shade of the monopteros, looking over this replacement beach, enjoying the midday heat.
Before long though my stomach was grumbling, so I headed on out to grab some food. I came across a cheap pizza place and happily had a conversation with the guys there in German. Flexing. Why was my German working now, and not when the police were around on the train the day before?? The next stop for the day was Schloss Nymphenburg, the other big attraction in Munich. I headed out past a large statue of a running man, and caught the metro, and then the tram all the way out to the Schloss/palace.
The palace was so impressive. They actually held the equestrian events here at the 1972 Olympics. Before my time. But yeah, there was a large canal, arrow straight, leading towards the palace. The wings of the palace stretched out beyond camera shot and encircled you as you approached. Beautiful water features were out in front and it was just a stunning place. Almost, if not more, beautiful than Schloss Schönnbrunn in Vienna. Yeah, I said that. I actually got myself some tickets to look around the place this time since a) I didn’t need to pre-book them days in advance and b) they were really quite cheap.
I had such a good afternoon, pretending I was cultured. I started out looking around the palace main building itself. The main room in the middle of the palace had huge walls of windows on the front and back, letting the light stream in. Delicate and subtle decorations made the place better and the wood panelled walls were covered in art. The floors were squeaky as a bucket of mice, but that’s OK. The rooms were stunning too. Yeah, fully recommend going to Schloss Nymphenburg if you ever get the opportunity, I loved it.
On my ticket, it also included access to some of the pavilions which had been built out in the massive gardens at the back. Like, spoilers, these ‘pavilions’ were as big as some big fancy country houses. The back gardens had lavender everywhere. The only thing spoiling the image were a bunch of molehills in the middle of the grass. I guess even the wealthy aren’t completely immune to nature. It kind of added to the image though, instead of taking away from it. I dunno, imperfections are perfect in their own way.
I sat on a bench a little whilst I drank some water, having a small break whilst I watched some ducks waddle from one pond to another. There was a person on the opposite end of the bench, and we started chatting. I never caught her name, but I think it was something along the lines or Marian. I’m gonna call her French Girl since I’m not sure. She was from Nancy but was studying in Paris (economics and politics), and was also inter-railing solo for a couple weeks. We actually ended up wandering around the gardens together. She hadn’t realised that there were a handful of these ‘pavilions’ out in the gardens.
We walked through a small wood on the left of the estate gardens and made our way to each of the pavilions, chatting along the way. Her birthday was actually in a couple days as well, but unlike me, she wasn’t particularly keen on sharing the day with her family, which was a shame in my opinion. We saw the Amalienburg (a hunting lodge mansion), the Badenburg (private bath house mansion) and the Pagodenburg (a tea house. But it was actually house sized this time so I’ll allow it). We also came across another monopteros which stuck out into the lake (oh yeah, there was a lake) and in the afternoon sun, it looked like something from the Pride and Prejudice film, the 2005 one. Also, you know when you learn a new word which you had never heard of in your life, but then you hear it like six or seven times all of a sudden? Yeah, well that was me and the word “monopteros” whilst I was in Munich.
At the Pagodenburg, we sat for a while whilst French Girl gave me the lowdown on Paris and what to do whilst I was there. She wrote me down an entire itinerary for a self-guided tour to hit all the hot spots in the city. Spoilers, my friend Ishbel would later give me an identical itinerary, no kidding.
I said goodbye to French Girl here, and made my way out of the gardens by a back gate, hopping on a tram which would pass right by my hostel. My phone was on 1% battery and had been for a little while, but I wasn’t that fussed, I didn’t actually really need it. I would recognise my hostel when I passed it, right? Famous last words. I overshot by a couple of stops and had to turn and walk back, whoops. I got to the hostel, and charged my phone a little before heading out to find food.
I had looked up a veggie restaurant/bar (Bodhi) which was meant to be quite cheap and looked delicious. I made my way south, crossing the trainlines. The sun was setting and I sent some videos of the trains to my nephew, from the bridge, as they chugged away underneath me. I also passed a bunch of flats which must have been cheap studio apartments or something since they seemed to only have one bedroom which opened directly onto the street. There was a guy sitting on his futon bed in front of his door, his feet in the street, smoking in the sunset.
Once more, I managed to order and have a conversation in German. Maybe I should just move here. The restaurant/bar was understaffed even though the place looked like it was full of customers. All the serving people just looked a little stressed. I knew the feeling, having worked in a restaurant myself. My food arrived. I clearly hadn’t learnt from Prague since I had ordered a burger and it once again went everywhere whilst I ate it. Embarrassing. Whoops. Ah well. I headed back and went to sleep, ready to move on to Cologne, the next destination. I think I could have happily stayed in Munich for a while, it was an incredibly pleasant day.
Impression
I really, really liked Munich. The old town centre was wonderful, full of Bavarian architecture and it had a lively dynamic going for it., whilst there was also the relaxed feel of a beach town. It’s proximity to the Bavarian Alps is also a bonus.
Random bunch of facts and stats
- Days spent: 2
- Bakeries or cafes visited: 1
- Jazz clubs: 0
- Number of things that went wrong: the train ride to Munich really. But that didn’t go wrong, just ultimately gave me less time than I wished for in Munich
- Memorable Moment: Schloss Nymphenburg. Specifically walking up the drive, beside the canal, towards the front of it
- Music suggestion based off of city: Still Young, Cat Empire
- Postcards sent: 0
- I saw 3/5 of the pavilions at Schloss Nymphenburg. Entered 2/5 of them.
- New word of the day: monopteros
- Composers seen: Chopin, the love of my (musical) life
- Burnt-o-meter: 4/10. Maybe I’ll start tanning hmmmm
- Hostel rating: 6/10. Shabby is the correct word for it. Plus it was a little out of town.