Amazing trip to München - Day 3

This was my third day in Munich, and my train was leaving at 13:16.

After checking out my room at 10am I had a few hours of free time. I didn't plan for anything and I didn't want any transportation. So I just chilled in the hostel lobby for a while and took a walk around the neighborhood.

When I was checking out I met two groups of girls, both from Hong Kong. It seemed that they didn't know each other but were all going to Berlin as their next stop. It's funny to meet so many HK people, and they were all groups of girls. I think they were a bit intimidated when a guy suddenly approached and spoke their own language.

At around 11am I walked to a church nearby and the service was about to begin. I didn't go in as I didn't know when it would end, plus I won't be understanding anything anyway.

It was the St. Paul's Church and it was quite a magnificent building. It didn't have the fancy ceiling as the St. Peter's Church I went on the previous day, but the entrance was still nice. The interior was very simple: some benches, a platform, and some color glasses. Though with the bells as the only sound around, it was quiet serene.

Just next to the church there was an interesting infrastructure, which turned out to be an elevator to the U-Bahn. Guess it's made for the convenience of the church goers.

Elevator to the U-Bahn. An unassuming infrastructure on a plain ground.

My overall impression on Munich is it is a structured city with close but clear cut of activities. In the centre part it is very busy with lot of shops and restaurants. But once you are away from that area by just 10 minutes of walk, everything suddenly becomes quiet. The streets are very long and very structured.

Very long street with buildings old and new.

Also, the price for everything is higher than other parts of Germany. There aren't much things that make Munich stand out from other frequently visited cities. But as a glimpse at a modern busy German city at the South it's worth a stop. An interesting place to stay, but you'll probably only need 2-3 days to see the most of it.

Amazing trip to München - Day 2

This was the only day that I had my entire day in Munich. Most people would do a day trip to the famous "Neuschwanstein Castle", but I didn't want to spend too much time on transportation (takes a 2hour train ride and some walking). So instead I stayed in the city and visited the museums around.

Turned out there was a "museum island" with 3 museums: Pinakothek der Moderne (Modern Art Museum), Alte Pinakothek (Old Art Museum) and Neue Pinakothek (New Art Museum).

Tip: Go to the Pinakothek der Moderne first to get a Combo ticket for 12Euro. With that you can go to the other 2 for free.

Trick: Bags larger than an A4 paper are not allowed in Pinakothek der Moderne, and you'll be asked to store it in the locker room for a small price. Use that at your advantage. Just take out your wallet, camera and a bottle of water (if you have one), and leave the rest there when you go to the other two museums. And remember to go back and claim your belongings before it closes ;)

Pinakothek der Moderne: showcasing designs of vehicles, furniture, and some installations.

My first stop was the Pinakothek der Moderne. I was having high hopes in this one as I wanted to see some architectural and industrial/product designs. However, there were only a few items for display, and the architecture section was closed for maintenance. I was quite disappointed with the exhibitions there.

There was a restriction that one could not bring in bags bigger than an A4 sheet of paper, which had to be stored in the storage for 0.7Euro. Not a big deal, and I treated it as a storage throughout the entire first half of the day =D.

Next I went to the Alte Pinakothek. This was my first time actually getting into an art museum with so many paintings. I was really impressed by the sheer size and amount of the paintings.

Before I left, I stopped by a cafe called Cafe Klenze at the ground floor of the museum for a quick lunch. The meal was just a sandwich and a coffee but was relatively expensive (~8Euro). Though the place was very nice. Since it's inside the museum building, which was itself in Victorian style, the cafe had that classic Victoria vibe all over.

Left 3: Alte Pinakothek, Right 3: Neue Pinakothek

The Neue Pinakothek, on the other hand, had a combination of paintings and sculptures. I was really fascinated by the form and details of the marble sculptures. The soft reflection of the marbles created a nice tone for the skin, and I was amazed by their creators' ability to recreate fabrics. Another interesting thing was there were 3 paintings by Van Gogh. One of which was the famous Sunflowers. I'd seen it so many times in TV or books, only till now I was really inches away from the real deal. Turned out there were a number of Sunflowers paintings and this was one of them (F.456).

I finished visiting all the museums at about 3:30pm. With no further plans, I walked towards the centre of the city: Marienplatz. It was very crowded and lively.

Marienplatz, centre of Munich.

There are a couple of things worth seeing at the Marienplatz:

The Rathaus-Glockenspiel, which is a building with a clock tower. At 11am (also 12pm and 5pm in the summer), it plays some music and has some animations with the figures in the tower for about 10 minutes. While you are waiting for those times, you can walk around the building with lots of shops.

St. Peter's Church, which is a church with a very nice looking ceiling. Not all churches in Munich have this type of paintings on the ceiling, and it's worth a look.

The market, which is just next to St. Peter's Church. There you can find fresh food and dine.

All in all, the whole Marienplatz is a tourist attraction with lots of shops (even an Apple Store) and food.

This concludes my second day in Munich. Did a lot of walking (roughly 7 hours), but it was nice.

Amazing trip to München - Day 1

Many of my friends asked if I would travel around during my Germany stay. Well, I'd certainly try but I have the constraint of time and most importantly, money. But then I'm fond of Germany and if there is an opportunity I would mostly take it.

My friend/colleague, Betty, was having another Europe tour and was going to stop by Munich (München in German). It was a great opportunity as it's going to be a long weekend and we haven't seen each other since last Dec. So I decided to go.

It has been a while since I have to plan for my transportation, accommodation and activities, and my very first time to take a long train ride (and I found out some tips, which will be in a separate blog entry). Luckily my brother had just been there a month ago and he gave me some good advice.

Top 5: A 6hour ride from Magdeburg to Munich, 1 stop at Leipzig.
Bottom 4: Munich city, Dinner with Betty, Hans and Pablo.

We booked a suite at Meininger Hostel, which was about 18min of walk from the main station. The hostel was nice and quite clean. The reception area was dim and rudimentary, but the rooms were pretty good. It costed about 22euro per night, which was acceptable, though could be cheaper as the breakfast and in-the-room wifi were not included. Plus it's relatively far from the main station, when compared to hostels that were just 3min of walking distance.

On my way to the hostel I met a group of 4 girls from France, they had names that were hard to remember except the blond called Olivia. I also met a fellow dude, Tom, from HKUST, as he was wearing a t-shirt bearing it's name. He was also on exchange in Germany and was visiting Munich just like me.

We asked the reception for recommendation for dinner and he told us about a Bavarian restaurant just across the street. It was a nice restaurant with a cozy dining room on the left and a beer hall on the right. We ordered a typical dinner with a main dish and a beer. I told Betty to try out the famous Bavarian Schweinshaxe, which was essentially a pig shoulder. I was amazed she single handedly finished the entire dish. Way to go!

Nice afternoon along Elbe River

17 May was a holiday in Germany.

It was very nice of Jens to take me on a nice bike tour around Magdeburg. Along the way he told me about the history of Magdeburg and where some of the buildings came from. One particular interesting story he told me was a "rock-bed" in the Elbe River: 

A huge cathedral called "Dom" was built about 200m away from the Elbe River >800 years ago, and sometime later the locals wanted to make the river deeper so bigger and more ships could sail through. But when they tried to dig into the "rock-bed", they found out the entire cathedral was shaking! Turns out that the cathedral was built on a huge and stable rock which extended all the way to the river. So only half of the river could be deepened. What a story!

Later we stopped at a nice cafe with a great view of the river and an old bridge.

Nice coffee spot (the cake tasted like ice cream!)

Afterwards we biked to the island and saw a lot of youngsters and police. There seemed to have a concert happening but we didn't see any stage or band... perhaps we were too early. Later we went to a restaurant and I finally got a chance to try out a Bavarian dinner:

Small Schweinshaxe, and a brown beer.

We had a nice talk about our experiences in other countries and thoughts about technology. I was happy that we shared common views on a lot of things.

Really appreciate the tour and the dinner! Thanks man!

Es ist Kaffee Zeit!

I've been to a number of places for coffee. And exploring coffee places around my neighborhood has been one of my pastimes. So it would be a great idea for me to keep track of where I went. Only recently I realized Google Maps has this functionality of dropping user-defined pins. So here you are:

View The Great Coffee Adventure of Victor in a larger map

This is going to be filled with more and more spots for sure. You are welcome to join me.