December trip to Germany & Austria: Munich

For the first week in December, Brian had a whole week off due to holidays for the Constitution & for the Immaculate conception (I love Spanish holidays?), so we decided to head to Germany, Bavaria & Austria for the week.  We have loved Germany each time we've visited, and this trip didn't disappoint!  In the tradition of the last series of posts, I'll break it down and publish a new post every couple days.

First: Munich

Germany has Christmas Markets hosted in many towns' main square, and the one in Munich was pretty great!  There's lots of knick-knack type items, but you can find some cool things.  We mostly found food and drink, surprise, surprise.

{Munich Christmasmarket}

You can also find hot mulled wine everywhere, which is delicious.  They serve it in these coffee cups your grandparents would have had in their cupboard, and you pay a $2 deposit for them when you order the wine - so if you want to keep the cups, it's a cheap souvenir!  We found a couple of these boot cups and took them home with us.

The Haufbrau Haus is something of an institution in Munich - traditional Bavarian Beer Hall with food and drink, a live brass band playing, and lots of singing and shouting all day and night long.  We had such a wonderful time there, getting into the spirit of the Bavarians!

 A Liter of beer!

Pork Knuckle with Saurkraut and spicy mustard.

Can you tell Brian is in heaven after eating that? The glazed over eyes is not just because the picture is blurry...

Munich also is home to BMW Headquarters, so we thought we should check it out on our second day in town.

They have an architecturally important and very cool exhibition hall that was built just a few years ago - I remember reading about it in one of my architecture magazines and really wanting to see it.  I'm amazed that I've actually gotten the chance now!  While we were there, a group of Chinese tourists had arranged to have a guy on a dirt bike ride around the Welt - up and down stairs and around the whole inside of the building.  Kind of weird.

When we arrived at the BMW campus, they were just about to start a plant tour - so we got to do one of the COOLEST things I've ever done - we spent 2 hours walking through the plant, watching the cars start from sheets of metal, formed into panels, painted, components made, and assembled.  It was fascinating.  We weren't allowed to take photos - but you wouldn't believe how clean, organized, silent, and beautiful it was in there. 

We also went and spent a day at the Deutsches Museum - which is the technology museum of Munich. - AMAZING.  Exhibits on planes, electricity, boats, mining, communications... it's impossible to see everything in this museum, but I'd have to say it is the single coolest museum I've ever been to.  After seeing dozens of art museums (which are nice, but get boring after a while), it was really fascinating to get to see technology and understand so many different kinds of it up close.  I loved it!  (But you wouldn't be surprised how many women were wandering around bored, waiting for their husbands...)

The olympic stadium from 1972.

I loved the HaufBrau Haus so much that we went back a second time before we left Munich for Garmish-Partenkirchen.  It was great, again.

I realize I probably say this too much about too many cities, but I really liked Munich.  I didn't really expect to like it that much, to be honest, but with the Christmas Market, BMW plant, and the Deutsches Museum, we got to do things that we've never done before, and the city didn't feel overwhelmed with tourists (like some of the other cities we visited on this trip).  We took a more laid-back approach to tourism as well, as we were burned out on touristy stuff, and we had a whole week of sightseeing ahead of us.  It helped keep us in good spirits for the rest of the trip.