Couple of Guys with a Map: Munich: Day 2

I know some of you out there were concerned about me heading abroad. There’s a lot of responsibility involved in travel. I just want to take a second to reassure you and your greatest fears that everything is ok: I have, indeed, managed to maintain a consumption rate of 3.5 Bavarian sausage on average per day. You can sleep easy tonight.

We started day 2 back at our favorite Munich coffee shop/only one we have tried in Viktualenmarkt, the Kafferosteria. Billy, Becca and I made our way out to Nymphenburg Palace on the outskirts of town. This was a former residence of Munich royalty, mainly the Wittelsbach family, one of the longest standing monarchies in European history. The Wittelsbachs had so much money they ran out of ideas. They fenced off miles of land in the middle of Munich solely for their family to hunt on. It was modeled after English parks, and became known as the English Gardens: the largest park on the continent, 1/3^rd larger than Central Park. They resided in the Munich Residence in the middle of the city, Nyphenburg Palace on the outskirts, and Hohenschwangau, a castle in the alps, and more. Three more castles were built purposelessly by Ludwig II, who was possibly the least rational ruler of all time…unless Donald Trump gets elected. More on those in the Neuschwanstein Castle post.

So the Wittlesbach family’s biggest issue upon awaking each morning was which castle or palace they were going to stay in and rule from that day. Our biggest problem of the day was that Becca had to pee every five minutes. Additionally, Munich’s train system is so efficient and high tech that their TRAM’s are nearly silent. They are like Prius TRAMs. I was about to cross the street when Becca grabbed my shirt to stop me, as a Prius TRAM was sitting like a foot behind me and I was completely oblivious. Other than those though, a pretty clean start.

We walked the grounds of Nyphenburg and I hit my 10,000 FitBit step goal around 11 a.m., which obviously just meant I’d be doubling my wurstl intake for the day. Words cannot describe the scenery and tranquility of this “summer home” featuring four lakes, a constructed river, fountains on fountains, and statues of people/gods we couldn’t determine without phone service, so here’s a brief photo tour instead:

The front lake, just for scenery

Nice little 'guest house' in the background

Awwww. I know.

Some Swanson family relatives

Lake #3 on the property

Their unnecessarily long river

And a very necessary fountain/pool

Mother Goose

We returned to the heart of the city to a café on top of Karl Valentin museum. Karl Valentin was a famous comedian, actor, and performer, and the museum featured many of his props. I’m not sure if 1930s German humor is lost on us, or if the German people are just outright demented, but the place was full of wax heads split in half, knives coming out of figurines legs, and puppets that looked like they were from the set of the Saw movies. It didn’t help that the German language has an exclamation point after every other sentence so I thought I was being yelled at when trying to translate these mysterious montages. We ate traditional Bavarian lunch (Weiswurstl and…that’s it. Just sausage.) in the weirdest café of all time, ran home and cried for a bit, and toured some remaining spots on our list.

The least weird things in the museum

Enjoy your pot of plain boiling sausage!

We entered four Cathedrals to thank God for things like schnitzl and dunkel and I said an extra prayer for Tommy Armstrong’s senior season. All these were built within a few blocks of each other, because why not? We climbed 296 steps to the top of Peterskirche (literally: St. Peter’s Church), illegally laid down in Hofgarten, got kicked off the manicured lawn of Hofgarten, stumbled through our 22,000-24,000^th steps to the English Gardens, laid down some more, polished a salad with pulled pork (didn’t know that was a thing) at a cafe, and ended the evening at Haufbraukeller, a Bavarian beer hall. Here, we talked with a Delta pilot at our community table about everything from travel, to why the three of us went into medicine, to how many “hot chicks used to love him” because he was a former Air Force pilot. The last topic was brought up probably three more times. That was entertaining. But he did buy our beers – so I’ll be flying Delta more often.