Tuesday after the long weekend we got up early walked to the Bonn station and caught an 8:15 ICE train to Munich. After 6 hrs of beautiful scenery along the Rhein and along what is referred to as the romantic road we arrived back in Munich our starting point.
This time rather than stay in the southern end of town we were staying in a 4 star Marriott more centrally located near the English Garden. The English garden is a large urban park, 7 1/2 times larger than Central Park and actually modelled after Central Park. We checked in and realized if we hurried we could make it down to the Hofbrauhaus and join a Mike's Bike's Tour of the city.
We hopped on the U-Bahn and made our way back down to Marienplatz. Mike's Bike's run half and full day tours of Munich as well as Neuschwanstein Castle, a 2 hr drive South West of Munich. Our tour guides appeared to be all American College students or party animal types and our tour group consisted of mostly Americans, but also a few Brits, Kiwis and Canadians. We were given 3 speed cruiser bikes each with unique names. It'd been a while since I'd been on a bike, these bikes were pretty easy to ride, but I didn't really feel comfortable sitting down, the seat felt way too far back. Still much quicker than walking. Also on our tour was a Fromer's guy or at least that's where he said he was from. Mike's Bikes tours are apparently the number 1 tour operator in Munich and when you think that for approximately 20 Euros a person you get a 4 hr bike tour of the friendliest bike city in Europe including a 1 hr stop at the Beer Garden in the English Garden, you can see the appeal.
My favourite part of the trip was definitely the English Garden. We rode through the Nudist meadow, fortunately we did not see the man they call Tripod who makes a habit of chasing down cyclists. After a stop in the Beer Garden for a litre stein of beer and more currywurst we made our way to the edge of the park to see the surfers. Yes, surfers. There is a pretty strong current that flows under a bridge, years ago an American came up with the idea of putting a block of wood to split the current in two thus creating a wave people could surf on. It was subsequently replaced with a wave shaped concrete block along the river bed. It is really bizarre to see in the middle of the city a group of wetsuit clad individuals lining up to catch a wave.
The sun started to hang low around 7:30 PM and cast a beautiful golden light on the many churches and statues around Munich. Our tour finished up around 8 PM and since we were around the corner we decided to try hitting the Hofbrauhaus one more time.
We sat down at a table shared with a young Newlywed American couple. He was an American Military man stationed on a base at Nuremburg which is just an hour North of Munich and she was over from the States to visit. For a 2nd time I was asked if I was from California this time because of my Raiders cap. We drank and listened to the world renowned Oompapa band. 2 hrs and 5 litre steins combined between us and we were feeling pretty tipsy. We wandered to the U-Bahn and made our way back to the Marriott.
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