It might sound strange but our next few days were going to take us out of Austria, into Germany, out of Germany and back into Austria and then eventually back to Germany again. Due to the shape of Austria and Germany, along with the various cities we wanted to see, this actually made sense!
So, a short train hop and we were in Munich........ home to Beer Halls, Lederhosen, Oompah bands, attempted governmental coups (see Hitler and the Nazis) but best of all ........... very large steins of great beer!! It wasn't quite Oktoberfest when we were there but we were really impressed and our first decision was to extend our stay to two nights rather than the one night we had planned to stay.
After booking and locating our hostel (which turned out to be fairly dingy) in the rain (those storms from Italy were back)we struck out on some tourist style activity. One of our first stops was the Englischer Garten, a very large public space located not far north of the city centre. Renowned (or notorious) for its nude sunbathing, the rainfall and slightly lower than average temperature meant that the place was slightly less "interesting" than normal. Nevertheless the garden itself is quite magnificent and contains a couple of lakes and rivers and, naturally, a beer hall or two. The most interesting site to behold that day though was the surfers! Yes the surfers!! Turns out that Munich is the capital of the world's non beach surfing scene and it all takes place inside the gardens. Right next to a major road there is the beginning of a waterway which flows through the garden with the source of the water being pipework which runs under the road. However, the water that comes through this pipework is pumped out at extremely high pressure onto a fairly shallow surface, sort of like a sandbar. The effect of all of this is the creation of a staionary wave. In spite of the sign which strictly prohibits surfing, the wave was crowded with keen boardriders of varying abilities. Eli and I remember seeing people doing this on Getaway a couple of years ago and we were both mesmerised for an hour or so watching people "carve up" the stationary wave!
Later that day and into the evening we spent time exploring the actual city centre. The area is reasonably pretty with a fair amount of green space, which made it stand out from many of the other "concrete jungle" cities of Europe. Naturally there were many impressive old buildings to behold including a palace or two, museums and galleries, as well as the ornate city hall and accompanying town clock. Best of all though were the many beer halls and naturally our chosen destination was the most famous of them all (as far as we were able to tell anyway) the Hoffbrauhaus. This was a very large (and very noisy and popular) affair where you were greeted by the traditional (stereotypical) beer maidens in costume carrying pints by the armful. In true Bavarian style we enjoyed our five types of wurst and sauerkraut while being seranaded by a lederhosen wearing oompah band! While very "tourist tacky" you certainly couldn't beat the atmosphere of the place and the beer definitely lived up to its reputation!
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