Why did we go to Munich for New Years? Partially because we could, but also because Lilian had a friend from back in the US who was there with his family. She’s made some really lovely friends here in Lyon, but she was also really excited to to see one of her buddies.
As you can see, her buddy was pretty excited to see her too.
Sightseeing with another family can be a mixed bag, but luckily for all of us, our vacation styles meshed well. Generally speaking, we like to have a little bit of a plan with time for unstructured exploration. You can’t just wander around blindly, but you have to be open to those serendipitous little discoveries that make travel extra special.
Our friends took the train from Austria that morning, so we had a bit of a late start. We all grabbed coffee together at this hipster coffee shop/surf shop. Why does Munich need a surf shop when it’s 500km from the nearest ocean? I’ll tell you more in my Day 3 post.
We wandered around Marienplatz (the city center’s primary square and a major tourist destination) for a bit. Munich was bombed heavily during WWII and about 90% of the old city took on serious damage. Marienplatz is one of the cooler places to wander around, because a lot of the old buildings are still standing. One of our friends is a mechanical engineer, so we did a side quest to marvel at the Frauenkirche. We tried to get the kids to see how cool it was to have built towers like that in the 1400s, but teenagers are contractually obligated to roll their eyes at us when we say things like “and they didn’t have power tools!”
We planned to have lunch at the famous Hofbräuhaus am Platzl (look, tourists gonna tourist), but it was even more crowded than we expected. So, we wandered down the road and got a table at the Augustiner am Platzl. They serve traditional Bavarian food, in a warm and cozy atmosphere. Everyone tried something a little different (I’m still salivating over the curry sausages) and much merry was made over the fact that our friends shared a traditional Bavarian “salad.”
Wurstsalat: for when you want to say you ordered a salad, but what you really wanted was a pile of sliced meat.
We spent the afternoon at the BMW Museum. Or, as our friends called it, “The No Touch Museum.” It features some real marvels of engineering…… and exactly one hands-on exhibit. It also featured one very stressed out looking security guard who kept reiterating “please don’t touch! please don’t touch! please don’t touch!” We did enjoy seeing a bunch of beautiful old cars, even if it did feel a bit like walking around in a commercial.
The BMW Museum: for when you want to go to a museum, but you only want to read labels that were written by a marketing department.
One of the things that our tour guide at Dachau talked about was that there was a sub-camp in Munich where they kept prisoners who were forced to work for BMW. We were all curious as to how the museum would handle this. Would they leave out a few years (like in this Family Guy clip)? Would they gloss over the wartime years?
Surprisingly enough, they dedicated an entire room to BMW’s war crimes. One of the teens dubbed it “The Apology Room.” As in “we’re very sorry about all of those war crimes.” Was it a decent apology? Well, they did a good job of putting a human face to their slave labor. And they actually did say things along the lines of “these were war crimes and it was wrong.” But, well, the entire museum has clearly gone through a PR department. There were also quite a few lines about how basically all of German industry was forced into it.
BMW, if all of your friends committed war crimes, would that make it ok? I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed.
(Also, yeah, I am mad).
It was a fun afternoon to hang out with friends and goggle at cars, but if I’m in Munich again, I’ll probably go to an art museum. I still won’t be able to touch anything, but it won’t be so noisy or overstimulating.
We had dinner at a burger chain that was surprisingly delightful. It was decorated with birch tree trunks and string lights, so it felt a bit like eating in a fairy tale. I tried hot lillet: no notes. The kids continued to hang out with each other while all on their phones. After a long afternoon of not touching cars, it was great to unwind somewhere cozy and quiet.
