"München Mag Dich" & We Love Munich!

Munich's city motto is "München Mag Dich" or "Munich Likes You" and I have to say that we LOVED Munich. We spent a long Hungarian holiday in Bratislava, Slovakia and Munich, Germany from October 23-26th.

We started the trip on Thursday morning by packing up the car and heading to Bratislava for the day. Bratislava is the capital and largest city in Slovakia and is about 100 miles from Budapest. It also shares the banks of the Danube and seemed like just a smaller version of Budapest to me. In fact, Bratislava was the capital of the Kingdom of Hungary from 1536-1783, so I guess that is why there appear to be so many similarities. Slovakia (previously part of Czechoslovakia) was also under communist rule until 1989 and part of the country's historical landscape was ruined by grandiose buildings, bridges and highways. However, the Old Town center with its historical Michael's Gate, the only preserved one of 4 original gates fortifying the city, captures the city's historical significance. The fortification in front of this gate was closed off by a drawbridge over a moat and then later by stone. Directly beneath the gate is this cool compass that gives the distance and direction to various locations from Bratislava. It is interesting to note that we are closer to the North Pole than we are to New York.

We were led on a fantastic tour of the city by our new friend Jen & her daughter Chloe. Jen and her husband John (who also works for PwC) are from Austin and relocated to Bratislava in August. Kyle and John had met a few months ago at a training and Jen and I had become email/Skype buddies. When we decided to take a trip towards Germany for the weekend John & Jen were eager to come along. Chloe is just 1 month younger than Reese, so our situations could not be more in sync. Oh, forgot to say that John & Jen both graduated from UT. Aside from them convincing Caden that his favorite color was orange, no rivalries were stoked.

After touring most of Old Town, we met up with John and enjoyed some Slovak food (OK, I had pizza, but the menu was entirely in Slovakian). We then re-loaded the car and headed to Munich. We started our drive around 7:30pm and arrived in Munich at 12:30am - not too bad. As we drove at night, it was nice to have the kids asleep, but sad to miss the beautiful views of the countryside. They were breathtaking on the return trip home.

We enjoyed two full days in Munich taking our time exploring the city as much as possible. We stayed in an apartment in the area called Laim, which easily connects to the city via the tram & underground system. Staying in the apartment was fantastic as we could put the kids to bed and remain up together, plus it was WAY cheaper than the expensive city hotels.

On Friday, we visited the Deutsches Museum, one of the oldest and largest science museums in the world. Caden really enjoyed seeing the airplanes and boats and the adults did too. They also had a fun kid's area with a fire truck, huge guitar and lots of cool gadgets. Prior to arriving at the museum, we enjoyed a great lunch at a small cafe. It was the best hamburger I've had since we moved and our waiter served us our first German beer (and told a pretty funny joke about American beer - but it is definitely not PG).

After the museum we went for a scenic walk through the city to the English Garden, one of the world's largest urban public parks (larger than New York's Central Park). We strolled through the park and visited a playground for Caden and the Biergarten ("Beer Garden") at the Chinese Pagoda for the adults.

We ended the wonderful day doing what any fine Texans would do, eating Mexican food! We stumbled upon a Mexican food restaurant on our way to the apartment and all enjoyed the welcome respite from meat & potatoes. John and Jen had not had any Mexican food since arriving in Bratislava, so they were very excited. The food was OK, I guess even good for Mexican food in Germany.

Saturday delivered another sunny & crisp day and we headed to Olympiapark, the master-planned sports and recreation area built to host the 1972 Olympic Games. The park continues to serve as a venue for cultural, social and religious events. We went into the Olympic Swim Hall, where US swimmer Mark Spitz won 7 Gold Metals in 1972. For a mere 4 euro, the public can swim there. Alas, I did not bring my bathing suit...

Nearby the park is BMW World, an exhibition facility of the BMW group. The BMW Headquarters is also nearby. We saw lots of neat (and very expensive) cars. Kyle has never been much of a car-lover (the Malibu has served him just fine), but he can now see himself in a nice beemer some day :)

Caden with the Resident Evil motocycle

We rounded out the day with a walk through the very crowded center of the city, Marienplatz. The center is home to the New City Hall and the surrounding streets are filled with shops and restaurants. We purchased our second beer stein marking our trip to Munich. We are now on our way to a collection!

Our visit to Munich could not have been complete without a visit to the Hofbräuhaus, the most famous beer hall worldwide. The building was originally built in 1607, opened to the public in 1828 and then fully renovated in 1897. The menu features traditional Bavarian dishes including sausages and pork knuckle which we tasted both of. Of course, they also serve vast amounts of the state-owned beer. We were treated to traditional Bavarian music while we dined as well as fellow revelers singing the Hofbräuhaus song, "In München steht ein Hofbräuhaus, eins, zwei, g'suffa!" ("There's a Hofbräuhaus in Munich—one, two, drink!").

(I think the cold glass feels good on her gums!)

We really enjoyed our visit to Munich. It still amazes us that these locations are within driving distance from our current home. We also especially enjoyed sharing the experience with new friends and look forward to hosting John & Jen in Budapest soon. See our albums and videos for more pictures and videos from the trip.