Munich – Day 1

 July 11, Munich, Prague  No Responses »
Jul 112012
 

This seemed like a really short day. We spent a lot of it in transit, flying from Prague to Munich, getting settled into the hotel and taking a walk to get situated in a new city. Oh, and there was this beer garden…

Prague Airport

The flight from Prague to Munich is a little over an hour, but adding in transit time to and from the airport makes it take half a day.

While we were waiting at the gate in Prague the display over the gate changed to read “Go to Gate 12.” We were at Gate 12, so I was a bit confused. I asked the agent if we were in the right place and she said, “Ya. Go to here.” I felt much better.

After arriving in Munich we took a cab to the hotel and went for a walk to see some of the city before our rooms were ready. Our hotel is near the train station and Karlsplatz, which is the plaza at one end of a long shopping mall that ends at Marienplatz, the main city center. We elbowed our way through the throngs of tourists and, running out of energy, stopped for lunch at one of the outdoor cafes.

Marienplatz is one of the main market squares and packed with tourists.

We should know better than to eat in the middle of tourist madness like this.

Right now I’m thinking something like, “I’m pretty sure this was Jason’s idea.”

Jason hides in his beer.

After lunch we explored more of the city on foot and then convened back at the hotel to check in, unpack, and plan our next few days.

The first item of business was to visit an authentic biergarten, and the one with the highest recommendation from a friend was only a few blocks away. Augustiner-Keller Beirgarten lived up to our expectations. The outdoor tables can seat about 5,000 people, half in a full service area and half in self-service, all underneath a hundred chestnut trees.

Augustiner-Keller Biergarten seats 5,000, but was only about half full.

We opted for full service, ordered a mixed plate of wurst, a couple beers and a pretzel. Any one of those items was enough for a few people, but we carried on as if we knew what we were doing.

That’s really both of our beers. It just looks better this way.

This is really both of our second beers – I would never order two at once.

Jason: “Ocifer rolls off my tongue a lot easier than ocifer.” In his defense, he couldn’t say that right the next day either.

More pictures:

Munich – Day 2

 July 12, Munich  No Responses »
Jul 122012
 

Deutsches Museum.

Today was set aside exclusively for the Deutsches Museum – the largest science and technology museum in Europe. The museum has over 50 sections on eight floors, any one section could keep you occupied for hours. As an example, just in the Metals area they have lifesize dioramas of mines, scale models of ore refining plants, a waterwheel powered blacksmith shop, a teaching area with milling equipment, and a full scale display on casting aluminum block engines. Or how about examples of keys and locks from pre-1500’s to today? We expected the Power Machinery to be about electric drills (No! That’s in the machine tools exhibit!), but instead it was about animal and water powered early machines.

When the blacksmith needed more heat he yelled at his dog to run faster.

We probably spent most of our time in the Aeronautics and Astronautics sections. It was shocking to see a cross-section of a full A300 Airbus intermingled with the other aircraft, the wing stretched out over other displays. The slice included the fuselage, the wing, the engine and landing gear, all of which were also cut open to expose their inner workings.

Cutaway A300 Airbus – fuselage.

The Computers section included a Cray-1 (PDI’s nemesis machine from the mid-1980’s) and a Remington Rand UNIVAC which looked more like a trailer filled with vacuum tubes than a computer.

Early 1950’s UNIVAC computer – that’s the same Remington that made electric shavers.

Cray-1 Computer – the biggest threat to our business in 1984.

Looking at my Fitbit stats, and taking into account all other walking that day, I think we covered between 5 and 6 miles inside the museum.

We had dinner at the nearby Viktualienmarkt, a permanent outdoors farmer’s market where we wish we had eaten the first day.

DInner at Viktualienmarkt.

That evening I was inspired by the photography exhibit at the museum to create my own camera obscura in my hotel room to photograph my skyline view. At 7:30 pm the sun is still up, but low in the sky. I stripped the hotel room walls of hanging pictures, set up my camera on a tripod and closed the blackout curtains. I then held the curtains in a way to allow light through only about one square inch of window – my camera aperture. After a few tries I nailed the exposure (30 seconds, f4.0, ISO 100) and produced the picture below. The light from outside the room enters through the small gap and hits the opposite wall. Optics works in such a way that the image is inverted (Germany is in the northern hemisphere, so it isn’t upside down outside like New Zealand is). Pretty cool.

The view from my hotel room created as a camera obscura on the room walls.

Munich (and Innsbruck) – Day 3

 Innsbruck, July 13, Munich  No Responses »
Jul 132012
 

When we were planning this trip we had discussed the possibility of renting a car and driving up into the Alps for a day, but we never really committed to doing that until yesterday. We managed to find a rental car at the last minute – some sort of Opel car with suicide doors – and we were advised to avoid King Ludwig II’s two first castles as they would be insanely crowded this time of year. Instead we decided to go to Salzburg via Ludwig’s third castle on an island in Chiemsee.

The weather wasn’t fully cooperating, there was light rain along the way, but the Bavarian part of Germany and Austria is beautiful. We found the information center on Chiemsee and learned that the next ferry over to the island was only about 10 minutes later. We hadn’t done any real research about what we were doing, and after a 20 minute ride to the island learned that King Ludwig II’s final castle was a tribute to (really an exact copy of) the Palace of Versailles.

King Ludwig II’s Castle Herrenchiemsee – a clone of the Palace of Versailles.

We took the full tour of the castle, unfortunately no cameras were allowed. Ludwig ran out of (Bavaria’s) money and never finished it – the story goes that his crazy spending habits are what moved Bavaria from a monarchy to a democracy. The unfinished parts were just as interesting: seeing the bricks, mortar and beams that really hold the place together behind the marble was a unique experience. His dining room table was mounted on an elevator, so servants could set the table downstairs and crank it up into his dining room (a process that took half an hour). The entire castle had one bathroom, just for King Ludwig. It didn’t really matter, as he never invited guests over (and he only lived there for 10 days before he died).

We had lunch on the even smaller island of Fraueninsel before heading back to the car.

Waiting for our ride back to the mainland.

On the ferry back we could see A8 – the highway leading to Salzburg. It was absolutely stopped. We asked the person at the information desk and she told us that was traffic all the way into Salzburg and it would take hours to get there. Change in plans! Let’s go to Innsbruck!

Austrian and EU flags above Innsbruck.

Innsbruck hosted the Winter Olympics in 1964 and 1976; when we spotted the ski jump from the highway the car went into auto-pilot and took us straight there. It’s iconic. It’s the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. It’s also something we can go to the top of.

From atop the ski jump tower you can see all of Innsbruck and the ski runs on the Alps. At least that’s what I would have seen if I had turned around.

As we imagined how nuts you have to be to take a run down this thing, Jason noticed that from the skier’s view the first thing you see beyond the landing point is a cemetery.

Skier’s-eye view of the ski jump. Just beyond the landing area is a cemetery.

The ski jump from below, with photobomber.

From there we made our way into the old part of Innsbruck. We opted out of Tyrolian hats and “I ♥ Innsbruck” tee shirts but once again found a free outdoor concert, this time the local philharmonic rehearsing for a show that evening (complete with Bavarian horn).

Sitting in on rehearsal.

At dinner I ordered “Big Plate of grilled meat” which included an exploded sausage (see images below). I don’t want to dwell on that here, because dessert was more important. When I was in Italy with my family in 2007 we decided that coins in our pockets were “Gelato tokens,” a tradition that has stuck with me ever since.

Gelato tokens.

We stopped in the best looking gelato place in Innsbruck to redeem my tokens and the guy there was an artist. The cones he turned out were amazing works of frozen goodness. Go to Amorino’s. Ask for Steve. (Actually I don’t know his name.)

Gelato art.

After that we went home.

Full set of pictures (including menu and exploded sausage):

Munich – Day 4, part 1

 Dachau, July 14, Munich  No Responses »
Jul 142012
 

We visited Dachau. I really don’t want to write about this, so I will just include some pictures and the email I sent my family in the evening.

Jason and I visited Dachau today – the first concentration camp that set the model for all the concentration camps to follow. We were there for about four hours, and it was incredibly draining. I broke into full tears four different times, Jason many times too. I do not want to go there ever again but I am very thankful we went there today.

Terms like the “atrocities of war” are trivial. Dachau and the concentration camps that followed it were simply about hatred and prejudice, not about war. I still cannot comprehend how the human psyche allows this to happen, let alone how it recruits people to implement such horrors.

I thought the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin was impactful, but I’ve been way over that line now. Standing in a museum or memorial dedicated to the memory of people murdered in the Holocaust is nothing compared to standing in a shower room where people were hanged, or where 20,000 bodies were kept before cremation, or walking through a gas chamber where “mass exterminations didn’t happen, but small groups of people were killed.” And yet I was able to walk through there as a free citizen, not as a prisoner. I cannot begin to fathom how people in these camps found the will to survive – I am not sure I would have been able to. I am crying now as I write this, ten hours later.

I encourage you to experience this sometime in your life. I do not ever want to do this again but I am very thankful that I did it today.

Please, continue to choose love and compassion in your life over hatred or intolerance. There is no justification for any other path.

Dad.

Munich – Day 4, part 2

 July 14, Munich  No Responses »
Jul 142012
 

After Dachau we were thrashed – it was an emotional ride you can’t prepare for. We headed back to the hotel and then regrouped around 5:30 for dinner. Munich’s biggest park, the English Garden, has a beer garden in the middle of it. It’s quite famous so we made the long walk over there.

Munich’s English Garden.

The walk through the English Garden was great. Seeing all the open green space and people having fun took the edge off the day. The biergarten, though, was a bit of a disappointment. We had been spoiled by Augustiner-Keller – this biergarten felt much more touristy and lacked a full serve option where we could just relax.

Beer garden in the English Garden. We longed for Augustiner-Keller.

We bit the bullet and headed across town to our favorite place instead. Even with the subway it took us about 30 minutes to make the commute, so you can imagine how hungry and thirsty we were when we arrived.

Back at Augustiner-Keller Biergarten.

Most of the tables in the biergarten are communal, and as we were looking for a place to sit a Swedish couple asked to join us. They had just finished a week long trek through the Italian Alps to celebrate Gustav finishing his PhD in Physics. We gave them a bunch of grief after our waitress showed up carrying three huge steins of beer and a tiny glass of white wine. I wish I took a picture of that.

Our Swedish friends. I thought it was just me who seemed fuzzy that night, but it was all of us.

Jason’s BFF, our waitress Angie.

As a final note, if you’re ever staying in the same hotel as Jason, make sure your floor is below the floor Jason is staying on.

I’m on the 7th floor, Jason’s on the 2nd. This is how he leaves the elevator.

Munich – Day 5

 July 15, Munich  1 Response »
Jul 152012
 

A Sunday drive through Munich seems like a great way to see the city, and we had booked exactly that with BMW City Tours. This three hour adventure is hosted by BMW and uses classic cars from their collection.

We began the morning with a quick taxi ride to BMW Welt – the company’s showcase building across from the factory and museum.

BMW Welt (World) as seen from the BMW Museum.

If you take delivery of your BMW in Munich direct from the factory you can sip champagne in an upstairs bar and watch your car come up a glass elevator to be parked on a turntable in the central display area. New owners have been known to cry when this happens. You will need to know this in another two or three paragraphs.

BMW Welt is part showroom part BMW themepark.

After visiting BMW Welt we crossed the street and checked in at the museum for our tour. Still a bit early, we took a quick lap through the museum – more about that in the other post page about the BMW museums. Our tour cars showed up outside to a gathering crowd. We met the other six guests and our three drivers, and they introduced us to the three cars: a 1952 502 with a V8, a 1937 335 “Model Autobahn” and a 1936 326, all convertibles.

Our tour cars outside the BMW Museum.

We’d get a chance to ride in all three but opted to begin in the 1952 502. The first leg was through BMW Welt. We drove across the street, entered through the delivery gate underneath, and drove over to the elevator.

Waiting our turn for the car elevator to the center of BMW Welt.

Then this happened:

We took a couple laps around inside and then headed down a ramp and out the front of BMW Welt. From there we drove through the factory – no pictures were allowed, but it was closed on Sunday so we only saw the outsides of buildings.

The next stop was at BMW’s private Classics Collection. I made a separate post for that stop with lots of pictures. We spent about an hour inside and were the only people there, so the tour was quite intimate and filled with wonderful stories about each car. There were a few empty spaces in the collection – when we asked where one of the cars was our guide responded, “That’s the car you rode over here in.” All the cars in the collection are not only fully operational, but they drive them all at tours and events.

Our cars ourside the BMW Classics Collection.

The next car we rode in was the 1937 335 “Model Autobahn.” It has a six cylinder 2L engine with about 75-80hp. The ride was silky smooth.

My reflection in the 1937 335. The image was manipulated to bring out the reflection more, but this car was spotless.

The weather turned so we had to ride with the tops up for the rest of the tour. That was fine for us, but not a nice for our guides who had to push the 1936 326 a few times to bump start it. The car has an extra fan in the engine compartment to help cool it during stop and go city driving – that fan is also a big drain on the battery.

Giving the 1936 326 a bit of help.

Driving in the rain.

Our final stop before returning was at the BMW Showroom in Lenbachplatz. This showroom has their latest models, a few displays and a lounge area. Everything you’d expect except salesmen – you can’t actually buy a car there. I loved the “frozen bronze” matte paint job on a new 6 Series they had – really stunning.

640i with a matte bronze paintjob.

We rode back to the museum in the green 1936 326, and luckily didn’t have to get out and push.

I’d recommend this tour to any car lover. The chance to ride around in these classics, to see behind the scenes of BMW Welt, a private tour of their Classics Collection – it was all wonderful. As importantly, our guides were great, too. They all did this for fun – BMW hires only students and police officers for the job (we didn’t really understand the police officer connection there). One of our guides had worked for BMW for a number of years and had just completed his MBA – he was waiting to hear if he got the job there that he’s applied for.

From the museum we caught a taxi, raced back to the hotel to pick up our bags and went to the train station. We had an hour ride to Stuttgart for another great car day tomorrow, walked around the downtown area a bit to get oriented, had dinner at a steak place and called it a day.

Stuttgart train station. Another great car day tomorrow…

More pictures from the tour:

Munich – Day 5: BMW Museums

 July 15, Munich  1 Response »
Jul 152012
 

Prior to our BMW Classics City Tour we took a quick walk through the BMW Museum. There is a fascinating kinetic display in the museum made of metal orbs suspended on wires that rise and fall, telling the story of design development. Here is a short video I shot of a bit of it. Mesmerizing in person.

During the car tour we stopped at BMW’s private classics collection for about an hour. This is where they restore and keep cars that are not in the main museum, and they also restore and maintain classic BMWs for private collectors. I looked online at other people’s pictures of this collection and it looks like it changes often. There were only eight of us there with our guides, so it was a very personal tour. Each car had interesting stories behind it. Many pictures are included below, here are a few of my favorites…

Original owner BMW with over 300,000 miles.

This 1930s era BMW belonged to a German gentleman. When the Nazis were coming through his town confiscating anything of value he completely disassembled his car to make his garage appear to be a collection of spare parts. Years after the war he put it back together and traveled all over the world in it. He put on over 300,000 miles. When he died he gave it to the museum with the requirement that they never restore it.

1937 320 Cabriolet.

We asked about the empty slot in front of this 1937 320 and he told us that’s the space for one of the cars we were touring in. Sure enough, there were three empty slots with oil spots on the floor.

1937ish 328

How amazing would it be to cruise around in this Roadster? Evidently Elvis had one while he was stationed in Germany and all the girls would kiss it. He had it painted red so the lipstick wouldn’t show.

Isetta and Me.

I love Isettas, and I don’t know why. Don’t be too surprised if I pull up in one someday. The door opens from the front – it looks like a refrigerator door because it actually is one. This model is about the same age as me.

1949 HH49 Formula 2

Okay, I love this 1949 Formula 2 racer even more than the Isetta, but it isn’t quite as practical.

1950’s 502 Limo retrofitted with beer kegs and taps in the trunk.

On a more practical side, how about a 1950’s era 502 limo with beer kegs in the backseat and a trunk that opens for the taps. I missed the part when he explained why this car even exists.

Hood from 1999 LeMans entry.

BMW raced in LeMans for the first time in 1999. They won. After that they never entered again. (I checked online and couldn’t verify that.) Check out how much damage the front takes during just a portion of the 24 hour race.

Beautiful bike, don’t know model number.

BMW’s bike lines are well represented there, too, with probably a hundred motorcycles on display. I don’t know bike models at all, but this one caught my eye – I love the early simplicity of it.

If you want to look up BMW models from the beginning to today, they have a nice guide online at bmw-classic.com/produktkatalog/. That was part of my cheater’s guide for captions on the pictures.

As I mentioned in the post about the Classic City Tour, this is something any car fanatic must do in Munich.

More pictures: