Germany 2009, Part 5

June 26, 2009
Munchen, Germany

Guten Tag!

With the exception of someone snoring loud in Koln, Scott and I have been fortunate with our hostel accommodations. We arrived in Munchen (Munich) last night and our luck seems to have run out. The A&O Hostel here isn’t as nice as the ones in Hamburg and Dresden. It is dirty, crowded with high school kids, and on a very noisy street. None of the other four staying in our eight-bed room is particularly friendly.

After checking out of Berlin’s CityStay Wednesday morning (June 24), Scott and I toured the ancient Roman art & artifacts at Berlin’s Altes Museum. We spent the rest of the morning touring Schloss Charlottenburg, a 17th century palatial summer home of King Friedrich I on the outskirts of Berlin. Walking back to the train station, we found a grocer selling fresh fruit – something we had not seen yet in Germany.

Schloss Charlottenburg

While waiting for the train back to the Berlin Hauptbahnhof on the local platform, we were approached a friendly German woman. When she learned we were from California, she told us about an American couple that stayed with her many years ago and regretted not sending them a thank-you note after receiving a basket of Californian fruit.

Scott and I got to Dresden by late afternoon and checked into the local A&O Hostel. Like the Hamburg A&O, the Dresden hostel was clean, bright, and run by a friendly staff. We were booked into a four-bed dorm with a toilet and shower, and ended up having the room to ourselves. We dinner at a pizza place across the street and played a few games of Ping-Pong in the hostel’s recreation room. The eighth floor day room had a wide view the first hills we had seen since arriving in Germany.

Neues Rathaus

Scott and I have just about reached our fill of some-teenth century neo-gothic-baroque-renaissance architecture and museums. We loosely followed a self-guided walking tour of Dresden Thursday (June 25), but skipped many of the landmarks. We did walk around the historic Altmarkt, a plaza market that was once the heart of Dresden. From the tower of Kreuzkirche, we had a nice balcony view of the city. I didn’t count the steps, nor did I bother to ask; Scott and I agreed we are done climbing towers.

We checked out the neo-something architecture of Neues Rathaus and wandered around the inside Frauenkirche with about 10,000 blue-haired American tourists. Most of the church was destroyed during WWII and the repaired portions have been left deliberately unadorned. The contrast between the original and the new is obvious. Scott and I strolled along the Bruhlsche Terrasse, “Europe’s Balcony” overlooking the Elbe River and passed by the Residenzschloss with its 102 meter long mural depicting a succession of princes.

Bruhlsche Terrasse

Although the train ride from Berlin to Dresden was just two hours, I paid the extra $10/each to reserve our seats. I also wanted to reserve seats for the trip from Dresden to Munchen, a six to seven hour journey, but the seats were not reservable. As it turned out, it would have been wasted money; the express was sitting at the platform 30 minutes before departure, so Scott and I had our pick of seats. After five hours through rolling hills we made our first train change in Nurenberg and reached Munchen by evening.

The S-Bahn (suburban trains) and U-Bahn (urban trains) in each city operate under the same system, but it seems many have their own bus and tram lines. Scott and I bought a three day/two person tram pass in Munchen and rode it to Marienplatz in the city center. We wandered around the square, famed for the Glockenspiel clock tower and ate some kind of wurst for dinner at one of the many sidewalk cafes. Today we’re going on a self-guided walking tour and plan to be in Marienplatz at 11:00 AM when the Glockenspiel comes to life.

Auf Wiedersehen!

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