Three Days in Munich

The view over Munich's Marienplatz from Peterskirche tower.  The twin towers of the Frauenkirche can be seen on the left and the Neues Rathaus is on the right-hand side of the photo.

My latest weekend trip took me to Munich, Germany (München).  München, which is located in one of the southern states of Germany known as Bavaria, is a little further from Groningen than my other recent weekend trips.  It takes about 8.5 to 9 hours to get there by train, but the scenery on the way, which alternates between farmland, rolling hills, and woodlands, is absolutely lovely.

I spent most of Friday and Tuesday traveling to and from München, with 3 full days in between to explore the city with my husband, my sister, and my sister's boyfriend.  Three days was enough for just a brief overview of what München has to offer, and I plan to return to see some of the places that I was unable to explore on my first visit.

My little group started our first day in München with a self-guided walking tour of the main sights within the Altstadt area. We started out at the Marienplatz, exploring the main square surrounded by many of München's most famous sights.  In front of the Neues Rathaus (City Hall), we were able to enjoy a performance of the city hall's glockenspiel, which appears to depict a festival and the triumph of a Bavarian knight over an enemy.  Here's a short video that I took during the glockenspiel performance (pardon the shakiness and blurring - this is what happens when I attempt to record video with a low resolution camera):

After taking in the glockenspiel performance, we visited the Frauenkirche, Peterskirche, and Heiliggeist Kirche. We climbed the tower of the Peterskirche for a spectacular aerial view of München. It was a crowded climb up the narrow steps to the top of the tower, but it was worth it.

Frauenkirche and its twin towers,
one of which was covered for renovation.

Interior of Frauenkirche.

After lunch, we took a break at the Hofbräuhaus, where we found Polka music, locals dressed in traditional Bavarian clothing, and giant 1 Liter mugs of beer. We also strolled around the Viktualienmarkt - an open air market and a great place to pick up food for a picnic lunch.

The dining hall upstairs at the Hofbräuhaus has displays about the history of this famous beer hall.

Starkbier (strong beer) from the Hofbräuhaus.  Our visit to München conincided with the annual starkbier festival, so we sampled some of the strong beers from the various beer halls and biergartens.

Later, we had an excellent vegan dinner at Max Pett, which is an all-vegetarian restaurant located within walking distance from the Marienplatz. My husband and I actually ate dinner at Max Pett on 3 of our evenings in München because the food was so good, and my sister and her boyfriend joined us on our 3rd visit after hearing about how impressed we were with the restaurant. Dinners at Max Pett included vegetarian versions of Bavarian schnitzel and kaiserschmarrn, as well as gulasch and chocolate mousse. Speaking of food, I also found excellent vegan lunch options at Royal Kebabhaus (vegan döner), Tushita Teehaus (vegan savory and sweet pastries), and Café Ignaz (buffet with vegan selections and several vegan pies).

Photos of Max Pett's yummy gulasch, chocolate mousse, and kaiserschmarrn:

We concluded our first day in München with a trip to the Augustiner-Keller biergarten, located northwest of the main train station.  It was a bit of a hike on foot, and I'd probably take one of München's numerous trams if I were to do it over.  Augustiner Keller was huge, crowded, and a little bit rowdier than the other places we visited in München during our trip, but it was a lot of fun.  There was a live band playing in the back of the beer hall, but we opted to sit out front and enjoy a slightly more peaceful scene with Augustiner's strong beer known as "Maximator."

Augustiner-Keller biergarten at night.

We spent our second day in München visiting the Alte Pinakothek and the Neue Pinakothek in the morning, and the Englischer garden and its biergartens in the afternoon. 

The Alte Pinakothek is an art museum housing a collection of European paintings dating from the 14th to 18th centuries, while the Neue Pinakothek houses paintings and a few sculptures from the 19th century.

Alte Pinakothek

We visited the art museums on a Sunday, when both of the museums offer discounted admission, so we were able to view their impressive collections for only a few euros!

Neue Pinakothek

After getting our fill of art history, we headed to the Englischer Garten, a massive city park that is home to 4 biergartens and lots of open spaces, trees, and sunbathing people.

The Englischer Garten

Monopteros at the Englischer Garten

Chinesischer Turm biergarten in the Englischer Garten

The view from the Seehaus biergarten in the Englischer Garten, and a glass of radler (a refreshing mixture of beer and lemonade).

 Osterwaldgarten (above) and Spaten Bräu's strong beer, known as "Optimator" (below).

On our third day in München, we visited more of the beautiful churches and other sights around the Altstadt, and then spent the remainder of the day at Schloss Nymphenburg (Nymphenburg Palace and grounds).

Theatinerkirche (above) and interior (below)

Asam Kirche (above) and interior (below)

Cafe Luitpold

Sendlinger Tor

Vegan Döner at Royal Kebabhaus. The vegan döner is absolutely amazing,
and this restaurant is definitely worth a visit for lunch. 
It's just outside of the Hauptbahnhof (train station).

Nymphenburg Palace and grounds:

Above: the resident swans with Nymphenburg Palace in the background.

 Below: the great hall at Nymphenburg Palace and a painting on the hall ceiling.

 Below: more photos from our stroll around the Nymphenburg Palace grounds.

As you can see, the Nymphenburg Palace is stunning, and we could have spent all day wandering the expansive grounds.  With our tight schedule, we spent about 3 hours there, which was enough to cover the interior of the main palace building and about one quarter of the palace grounds.  It was a very relaxing way to end our trip to München.

A Weekend Trip to Brussels

My first journey outside of the Netherlands since my arrival in Groningen was a weekend trip with my husband to Brussels, Belgium.  Just a 5-hour train ride from Groningen, it was very easy to set up our trip so that we would arrive on Friday night and return to Groningen on Sunday evening, while still getting to see and do a lot in Brussels.

On Saturday morning, we were up bright and early so that we would arrive at the Cantillon Brewery when it opened at 10:00 AM. We'd heard that this is the place to learn about the lambic, geuze, and kriek beer-making processes, and we were not disappointed. We learned that lambic beer is unique because yeasts are not added during the brewing process; rather, the beer is exposed to the yeasts that are naturally-occurring in the air overnight before being stored in barrels. This is known as "spontaneous fermentation." The result is some very sour and very tasty beer! Here are a few photos we snapped during the tour:

The hop boiler

Organic cereals

The big, flat copper vat in which the wort is exposed to the natural yeasts at the brewery

Framboise, Lambic Grand Cru, and Kriek

Something that became clear to us during our tour of Cantillon Brewery, is that they are very dedicated to producing their beer in a responsible manner.  They use organically grown cereals and they control insects that are attracted to the fermenting beer by respecting the spiders living in the brewery - allowing the arachnids to do the pest-control duties naturally. 

After our brewery tour, we headed over to Den Teepot, which is a vegetarian (almost entirely vegan) restaurant west of the Grand Place. My husband and I are both vegetarians (I'm vegan), so we were very excited to find out about Den Teepot. The restaurant is above a health food store, so it was a little bit difficult to find, but the search was worth it.  We both had heaping plates of vegan deliciousness that would prepare us for a long day of wandering Brussels, sampling chocolates, and drinking great beer.

Vegan lunch at Den Teepot - delicious!

After lunch, we took a long meandering walk around Brussels, and then went sight-seeing on the Grand Place and window-shopping at the various fine chocolate shops.  We also paid a visit to the famous peeing-boy statue, known as Manneken Pis.  Here are some favorite photos:

The Grand Place

Window-shopping at the chocolate shops on and around the Grand Place

Manneken Pis, dressed up in honor of the Belgian Paralympics Committee

For dinner, we met up with a dear friend who was in town after a conference. This meal was at another vegetarian restaurant, known as Slurps, in the Ixelles neighborhood.  Slurps serves dishes representing cuisines from all over the world, beautifully presented and very tasty. It was a little off the tourist track, but definitely worth the journey.

After dinner, we decided to increase our knowledge of Belgian brews at Moeder Lambic, a hip bar that had a large range of brews from hoppy to malty, and light to strong.

On Sunday, we had brunch at Le Pain Quotidien, where the chocolate spreads are plentiful and the vegan dishes are all helpfully marked on the menu (which is available in French, English, and Flemish).  It is a very affordable place because one can order small dishes a la carte.  The rest of Sunday was spent wandering Brussels and taking in its many parks and cityscapes, before heading home to Groningen.  Some more photos:

Many of the buildings in Brussels are adorned with scenes from beloved comic strips. It was a lot of fun spotting them on our walks around the city.

Here are some cost-saving tips that we learned along the way: To keep costs down, we booked a "weekend return" deal through the NS Hispeed web site and found a good hotel deal at the Sofitel Le Louise on Booking.com. We found that Brussels is actually a pretty affordable place to visit as there is a lot of free or low-cost stuff to do there. Our brewery tour cost only 6 euros each, which included a couple of glasses of beer at the end of the tour.  A walk on the Grand Place is free, and window shopping for Belgian chocolates is also free - if you can resist the urge to buy them.  As you can see from our photos, Brussels also has quaint parks, great views, and public art that can all be accessed free of charge.  Food was the major expense, but we found the prices to be quite reasonable given the generous portions.

Cheers!