Europe Trip Report – Day 5 – Around Munich

This morning, once again – I am giving the Hilton Munich City hotel serious accolades. Here’s why…….

Today is our last day in Munich before heading up to Berlin for a couple of days. We realized this morning, not really to our surprise that we had planned a rather aggressive schedule of travel the next few days and we were asking for some trouble. Tonight we planned on taking a night train (nacht zug) to Berlin to kill two birds with one stone – we will not have to spend 6 hours of daylight on a train and we can avoid having another hotel stay. Then we were planning on being in Berlin at the Hilton Berlin for one night before taking another night train to Heidelberg. The only problem was that we did not have a night train with sleeper and would be making changes at 3:30am and 5:20am in the morning. Finally reality hit us this morning. So, a quick change of plans meant that instead of taking a night train in a couple of days, we will take a late afternoon train to Frankfurt for the evening before continuing to Heidelberg in the morning. However, we did not have a reservation. This is where the staff at the Hilton Munich City really helped. They called the Frankfurt Hilton, made a rewards reservation and took care of the whole thing for us. Too easy, and great job!

We spent our last day in Munich seeing the sites that our previous walking tours had not taken us on. Our first stop was the Munich Olympic Park.

While we have not yet seen Oliver Stone’s new picture, Munich – about the events that took place back in 1972, we still wanted to visit and see the park. We took the friendly S-bahn out to the grounds and walked around. One of the first sites we saw entering the park was a street vendor selling white asparagus or spargel – a popular delicacy in Germany.

The park is expansive and covers quite a bit of space. As you approach it, the first thing you notice is the tower (spire) that sits in the middle of it. We immediately recognized it from a past Amazing Race season where the contestants took a bungee jump off the top of it. Beyond that you see the interesting architecture of the buildings that make up the park. Each building is covered what can be described as a glass drape that has been placed over the top of them. They appear fluid and are supported by a wire system that lifts and provides tension to hold them in place. Perhaps the thing I find most puzzling about the Park and main Olympic stadium is that there are no World Cup preparations taking place. To my eye, it appears that this Olympic stadium is every bit as capable of hosting several World Cup matches as the soccer stadium on the outskirts of town used by Bayern Munich. However, it will not be. We make our way across the rest of the park to a hill that overlooks the entire park and take a couple of pictures before leaving.

As we exit the park, we heading to the nearest tram stop to catch a line that is heading towards the Nymphenburg Palace, our next stop. The Nympenburg palace, while relatively young in age is impressive from the walk up and has a sprawling set of gardens. We explore the gardens a little before running out time before we need to head back to the Marienplatz by the way of Karlsplatz.

Marienplatz’s largest attraction and one that we were really looking forward to was the clock tower. We purposely planned a day where we could see the clock ‘perform’ specifically at noon, because it would naturally last longer than the ones at 10:00am or 3:00. Watching the clock tower realizing its age and how long it has been operating is quite amazing. It is well worth the wait and spending the time to see it.

Here are some pictures from the rest of the afternoon:

Isator gate.


2006 World Cup preparations.

As we searched for a place to eat dinner, we realized that we needed a little break from the typical heavy German food that one has while in Bavaria. So, we came across a very interesting Argentinean/Brazilian restaurant chain, the Maredo Steak. It is located just a couple blocks off of Marienplatz at Rindermarkt 5 – right next to the open air market. In summary, nothing to write home about or make sure you see when you are in Germany. However, it did have a non-smoking section which was a plus.

Now we are off to the Munich Hauptbahnhof to catch our night train (nacht zug) to Berlin. Perhaps the biggest oddity about the trip is that we will be going to Berlin via Stuttgart and Frankfurt, the longer way rather than going the more direct route.

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Europe Trip Report – Day 4 – Bavaria & Neuschwanstein Castle

Today’s excursion is one that Ashley has been looking to for quite awhile – her return to King Ludwig’s Neuschwanstein Castle in southern Bavaria. She visited King Ludwig’s fairy tale castle back in 1997, this same one that Snow White’s castle that Disneyland in Anaheim is modeled after – important Disney connection! It will be my first trip to southern Bavaria to see the popular castle.



In our original planning being Americans, we did not consider the May Day holiday. While we planned to make a few other stops along the Romantic Road, however the abbreviated bus and train schedules for May Day had us change our plans just to head down to the town of Fussen.

We grabbed at quick bite to eat at executive floor at our Hilton Munich City hotel and hopped the quick S-Bahn down to main train station, the Hauptbahnhof. This experience was less stressful than our way in from the airport, as we picked up a German Rail Twin Pass for our planned train trips. We wrote in the date on the pass and headed down to the train station to have it activated. Once activated by the Deutsche Bahn attendant, we headed to our train platform.

The minutes before the train left provided a little bit of comedy for us. For our trip, since we knew we would be taking a night train (nacht zug) we went ahead and picked up the first class German Rail twin passes rather than the second class ones. For a five day pass, the price difference was less than $100, however there are a lot more non-smoking, no cell-phone, and spacious compartments.

As we attempted to get on our board, a German lady pleaded with us not to get on in the first class car. We motioned to her that it was ok, but she insistently pointed towards the second class car. We went ahead and boarded the train in the first class compartment as we realized that she was trying to keep us from making a common and costly mistake. Fines are steep for passengers sitting in the first class compartment that should not be, even if they are ignorant Americans.

Our train trip to the town of Fussen was quick and peaceful. During our quick train switch, several other multi-nationals (Americans and Japanese) decided to follow us. It made us feel good to know we were getting the hang of it again. The rest of the way provided breath-taking views of the German countryside as we saw the snow-capped Bavarian Alps grow bigger and bigger until we reached to the town of Fussen.

After getting off the train, we went to jump in line for the bus, when we again realized that we did not know when the bus would be coming or even if it would be. So rather than wait in line for an indeterminate amount of time, we hopped into a taxi and took it to the base of the “Royal Castles” in about 10 minutes for about 10 euros.

The Taxi dropped us off at the Ticket Center, where we waited in line to get tickets for our tour. Fortunately, the lines were not as long as some of the horror stories you hear. Our tour time was only about 60 minutes from when we got our tickets. Since it was a beautiful day, we decided to take the half mile walk up the steep winding slope. While walking up the mountain, we had some great views of the neo-Gothic Hohenschwangau Castle, where King Luwig II spent some 17 years there. The castle was undergoing restoration, so a large portion of the castle was hidden from view.


The way up to the castle provides some picturesque views of the valley around Fussen and of the Neuschwanstein castle itself. Once arriving at the top, I was surprised at the vast diversity of tours and languages. I had mainly expected Americans and Japanese tourists, but the tours were offered in several other languages including Italian.

The Neuschwanstein castle undoubtedly is a very beautiful from the outside. However, I never realized how unfinished the castle was. The two most impressive rooms are the throne room with Christ looking down on the twelve apostles and the six canonized kings of Europe. The Singer’s Hall on the 4th floor is equally impressive – although since it was not September we did not hear the Wagnerian concert.



The most impressive view from the castle is off the balcony of the king’s bedroom. From the window you can see the amazing 150 foot waterfall in the Pollar Gorge. Breathtaking.

Upon finishing our tour, we grabbed a quick bite at restaurant just at the bottom of the Schloss Neuschwanstein, with traditional German fare include apple streusel. After having the heavy meal, we decided to hoof it back to town to catch our train back to Munich. The walk turned out to be a little longer than we remembered – about 3 miles.

However, we did have the chance to walk through the down of Fussen and take in the principal shopping area in town, the Reichenstrasse. We arrived back at the train station with 15 minute to spare.

Once back in Munich, we headed down to our favorite area – Marienplatz. In the square, there was a concert and peaceful protest for the May Day celebration. A bunch of people in white lab coats and orange hats. We did not quite get it, but it was amusing.



For the evening and dinner we headed to the world famous Haufbrauhaus beer garden. The Haufbrauhaus is perhaps the most popular and widely known beer house (Biergarten) in the world. On this particular night it was packed with patrons and tourists alike, attracted to the beer, the camaraderie, and entertainment with lederhosen clad Germans dancing and singing German folk music. One very interesting fact about the restaurant is that many of the repeat visitors store their beer steins there in the lockup.



As we walked through the hall, we passed the pretzel station and Ashley’s eyes immediately lit up. I knew that very shortly we would be back to pick a couple of these huge wonders of bread up. The night itself was pretty calm as the Haufbrauhaus goes, on my previous trip to Munich a few years back – great beer and food.

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Europe Trip Report – Day 3 – Historical Munich

Back when Ashley and I toured Europe in college, we often only spent 24 hours in a city – running from place to place, seeing as many of the sites as we could. We are pretty excited about spending some time in Munich, getting to know it better.

Today, we decided to see the historical Munich. Mainly, the historical events in Munich leading up to establishment of Hilter’s regime and the atrocities of World War II. In the morning, we met at underneath the main entrance of the New Gothic Rathaus in the Marienplatz to join the “Hitler’s Munich - Third Reich Tour” walking tour in the Altstadt area. The tour runs 10 euros ($14 US) and if you take the afternoon tour to Dachau it is discounted 2 euros and includes transportation.

The tour is quite an educational walk down memory lane and the events that led up to Hitler’s rise to power, and eventually World War II. Some of the sites include:

The famous Hofbrauhaus, where more than it’s famous Beer Garden includes the site where Hitler made several speeches.

The Platz der Opfer des Nationalsozialismus, this is basically a place to reflect on the victims from the Third Reich movement. However, there are no benches – and the flame that burns is often hidden by tree. Both of these items seem to conflict with it being a place of reflection.

The Nazi Party Headquarters.

The headquarters of the SS (Schutzstaffel) which now are used by the University although you can see where the Nazi flags flew and the Eagles were mounted on the building.

In all, we walked a few miles and the English walking tour was absolutely excellent. Our guide was an American, who has livend in Munich (Munchen) for the last 20 years.

What became apparent very quickly, and as we had learned in our stay in Heidelberg 10 years earlier – that the German people still struggle with their history. While in many cases, the people living in Germany today had nothing to with World War II or the Holocaust. However, they still are not comfortable in dealing with the historical nature of the events. This is especially apparent in the Platz mentioned above. Although it is supposed to be a place of reflection, the environment is not setup to be. This is pretty consistent in the culture.

After our tour ended, we grabbed a couple of sandwiches and a couple of great German beers before heading to the Dachau Concentration camp.

Visiting the Dachau Concentration Camp is a hallowing experience. Neither Ashley nor I had the opportunity to visit while we were students and it was something we were really looking forward to. The experience was even more than we expected.

This day we visited happened to be the day after the 61st anniversary of liberation of the camp by the United States Army. Heads of state from over 100 nations sent flowers and wreathes to commemorate the occasion. In some senses, we were relieved that we were one day behind as we were not sure exactly how we might react as several survivors of the camp may very well have been there.

Words cannot describe the feelings of fear and sadness you have as you tour the camp. As you walk to the front of the camp where the trains dropped off the encamped you enter through the gates the represented the lie “arbeit macht frei” or “work shall set you free” it becomes very surreal. Even as you tour the camp to see where people were brought in, stripped of everything they owned and often beaten – you do not fully understand what happened in this place.

Dachau has a special place in German history, being the first work camp that was setup in Germany and specifically Bavaria. Although it was a “work camp” rather than a “death camp” like Auschwitz – many, many people died there. Even though the gas chambers were never used or tested at Dachau, it was a difficult experience walking through them knowing what happened in other similar camps.

After experiencing the history of Munich, we picked the perfect way to wind down the day. We went over to the World Famous Augistiner Grossgaststatten (Restaurant) in Marienplatz and enjoyed a couple of Hefeweizen Brau’s and some traditional German sausages and potatoes!

Guard Towers

The concrete outlines of the barracks.

Memorial of the electric fence, flowers for the anniversary.

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Europe Trip Report – Day 2 – Made it to Munich!

We had some funny experiences today. How quickly we forget the things we have done in the past. I will get to that a little later.

The flight to Heathrow was uneventful on United Airlines. We dozed off pretty quickly and the next thing we knew we were landing in the airport. The layover for the flight to Munich, Germany was around 3 hours, putting us into Germany around 6:00pm. I still do not get the Brits in the United Kingdom. While the majority of the European Union (EU) is now on the Euro, the British still insist on using the wacky pound system. That renders the Euros we brought with us useless here unless we want to exchange. At least we could use credit cards to grab a bite to eat and some bottled water.

Another oddity about the section of Heathrow we were in is that the gate areas are extremely claustrophobic. You walk through narrow walkways and enter into waiting areas that make you feel like you are in the “underground”.

When we finally get to Munich via our short hop on Lufthansa, it is quickly approaching evening time. Our goal is to make it to our hotel, the Munich City Hilton before dark. With that in mind, we hustle through passport control without issue and make our way towards baggage claim. Fortunately, everything goes smoothly and we exit the airport and head to the S-Bahn.

It has been quite awhile since we have taken public transportation. The reality is that we live in the Los Angeles area, where there is no effective public transportation. So, to say the least we are a little confused while also trying to recall some of the German we learned so long ago. People are coming in and dropping euros into the ticket machine for the S-Bahn. Our problem is that we are not sure which ticket we need, so we consult our friendly Frommer’s Germany guide to figure it out. We do not have the “Munich Welcome Card”, which is great because it does include free transportation to the city and we finally figure out that we need the Single-Tageskarte Gesamtnetz ticket for 9 euros from the Fahrkarten machine just before the train arrives.

We purchase two of these (later finding out we could have bought the double-rider ones for 16 euros), however this is where we really become forgetful. Rather than validating the ticket before boarding, we assumed there was a validation machine that put the time stamp on your ticket on the train. This was partially because we were rushed to get on the train in time, and partially because we completely forgot. So, within a minute or two we quickly realized that we were riding the train illegally without a validated ticket. While I was tempted to jump out at one of the stops to activate the ticket, I was more afraid to leave Ashley on the train with the luggage. Luckily, we made it to the Isator stop where our hotel was without incident and headed up to the street.

When you are not used to coming out of an underground or subway, you become disoriented. Luckily when we came up a nice German gentleman noticed we are fresh tourists and asked what we were looking for. When we mentioned the Hilton Munich City he pointed us right down the street – that made it easy!

On my previous trip to Munich, I stayed at the Hilton Munich Park hotel. It was a nice place, but a little farther from the Marienplatz area. So, for this trip I choose the Hilton Munich City and I was glad that I did. After our first few minutes in the hotel, I realized our stay was going to be highway robbery.

When we first booked our stay with Hilton HHonors points, this hotel was only rated a category 3 hotel by Hilton. That meant that each night was only going to cost 25,000 HHonors points. For those that have the Hilton HHonors Gold VIP status, you know what a treat that is. This was even more unique in the fact that Hilton was changing the status on this particular property to a category 5 (35,000 points per night) in just a couple of months.

Upon arriving, the hotel manager directed us up to the Executive Floor to check in rather than waiting in the main lobby line. The staff on the executive floor was extremely helpful and got us situated immediately. In addition, the executive floor at this hotel is far superior to most of what we have here in the United States. Full morning breakfast, afternoon snacks, all day drinks, and an open bar with a view out towards the city made for a great atmosphere.

After cleaning up, we headed down the lounge to relax for a little while before heading out. Having been trapped inside planes and trains for the past 24 hours, we decided to walk down through the Isator Gate to Marienplatz to enjoy a little bit of Munich before catching some sleep.

Then the most surprising moment of the evening came. I obtained a couple of sets of tickets to the Lakers playoff games. With the trip, I had to give them away to family members – of which I was somewhat disappointed. However, at about 3:00am my Blackberry 8700 (setup for international access) abruptly rang. In somewhat of a sleep induced coma I answered it with a “hello?” The voice on the other side yelled “you missed the BEST GAME EVER.” Hmm, just what I wanted to wake up to, although I did appreciate my father-in-law’s excitement about the Lakers victory over the Phoenix Suns. He was right; I did miss one of the best games ever.

However, I am sure glad to be in Munich!

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Europe Trip Report – Day 1 – Fly to Munich via Heathrow

Ashley and I have been waiting for this day for quite some time. Shortly, we hop on a plane to return to Germany and specifically Heidelberg for the first time in 10 years (me, and 9 years for her). Heidelberg, Germany has a very special place in our hearts – we both studied there for a summer with Pepperdine University’s International Programs. In both of our cases, these were 16 weeks of experiences and fun that we will remember forever.

The reason for this trip is two fold. We have been considering returning to Europe for some time as a vacation. I was in Munich a few years back on business, but that is never the same. Also, this represents the 100-year anniversary of the house we stayed in while we were there – the Moore Haus – where Pepperdine is having a huge celebration. Everyone who stayed there at some time is invited back, in addition to the 10-year, 20-year, and 30-year reunions.

So, we leave tonight where we will start out in Munich (Munchen) for several days before heading up via night train (nacht zug) to Berlin, over to Heidelberg for five days, and finally going to New York City for six days on our way home. Very exciting, we are ready to go!

On an interesting note, we ran into couple we had not seen in a number of years, Matt & Nadine Semarau. Oddly enough, they are on the same flight as us that first takes us to Heathrow, on the other side of plane from us in the same section. They are going to London first, and then on a Mediterranean cruise – for a belated honeymoon. You never know who you will run into when you are at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX).

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