Day 41

Last full day!!! And I'm exhausted. We started the morning off with some nice warm showers and then blog and picture time on our computers. After assessing the weather, we braved the outside and stopped for a nice egg and bacon mcmuffin. We took them to go and headed over to Marienplatz. Our first stop was some souvenir shops. Adam desperately wanted a coo coo clock so we needed to find one that looked good, but was also in his budget. After searching for a while, we decided to come back later in the day to make the purchase. Our next stop was St. Peter's church. The inside was small, but it was the tower we were looking for. We climbed the 305 steps to the top and got an incredible view of Munich. The town hall was below us, and even though it was cloudy outside, it was still really nice. We spent some time at the top before finally making the climb back down to the bottom. We left St. Peter’s Church and made our way over to St. Michael’s Church. It was really nice inside and was filled with artwork and stained glass windows. The interesting thing about this church is that it is the final resting place of King Ludwig II. We’re actually going to his birth place tomorrow, so I feel like I know the guy pretty well. We left St. Michael’s and stopped by the souvenir shops again, just to check some things. The people there must have thought we were a bit odd for coming back a second time. It was nearly time for our Third Reich tour, so we headed over to the train station, stopping for a quick lunch along the way. I managed to get a nice salad before our tour left. The Third Reich tour would take us all around Munich and show us places that were important to Hitler and the rise of the Nazi Party. Our first stop was the Hofbrauhaus. This was where Hitler held his first Nazi Rally, and where he came back every year to celebrate and remember the party. After taking some pictures and getting a look at the hall where he gave so many speeches, we left the Hofbrauhaus and traveled to several war memorials. These memorials were built after the first world war, destroyed during the second, and then rebuilt after the second and dedicated to victims of both wars. We learned a lot about Hitler and his rise to power, as well as his desires for art and order. This tour was meant to complement the Dachau tour, and it did so nicely. We left the war memorials and stopped by another memorial. This one was for the White Rose group. It was a student run group who was openly going against the Nazi party by printing pamphlet and distributing them throughout Munich and other large cities. They were eventually caught, put on “trial” and then executed. Their goal was to let the world know that not everyone in Germany was following Hitler, but that there was still active resistance against him. We continued walking until we came to the Field Marshall’s Building. We were here the other day, but now we knew some of the importance behind this building. It was used for many speeches by Hitler. It also is the place of a very famous photo of Hitler standing in a crowd. Just google Hitler and Odeonplatz and you should recognize it. During one of Hitler’s failed attempts to gain control of Germany, he lost 13 of his men. The Field Marshall’s Building was the place of their memorial, which has since been removed. It was guarded 24 hours and if anyone passed it, they had to do the Nazi salute or risk being arrested. We left Odeonplatz and headed over to Konigsplatz. Once we were there we were able to see Hitler’s office building and the balcony that he would come out on to oversee the people below. You could even see the shape of an eagle on the wall where an eagle statue once hung with a wreath and the Nazi symbol in its mouth. Even though Konigsplatz was built during the time of King Ludwig I, Hitler completely redesigned it to fit his ideals. It has been put back to it’s original state, but we were able to see pictures of what it looked like. We also saw the foundations of memorials that Hitler had put up for his fallen men. They were bombed during the war. Our tour concluded here, but we still had a lot to do. We hopped on the S-bahn and headed to the south part of town. We were near the Isar River. We started walking along the river and came to St. Lukas Church which was really nice on the outside, and similar to other churches on the inside. We left the church and crossed a bridge over the river and came to the Maxamllion Building. I don’t know the importance of it, but it was pretty nice. We continued walking along the river and decided that our destination was too far. We walked back to our stop and went into the center of the city. It was souvenir time. We each got a bunch of things and filled our backpacks up. After our walk through the city center, we hopped on another subway to go to the English Gardens. English Gardens are unique because they are filled with a bunch of different trees and plants with no order to them. It had many open spaces, a river running through the middle of it, and was nicely manicured. The park was really nice, and a lot different from Wheatfield. It is also the largest park in Munich. We left the park almost finished with our day. It was 5 pm, which meant dinner time. But because it was our last night, we decided to go all out. And what would be a good place in Munich? Why, the most famous beer hall in the world. Hofbrauhaus!! We went inside and found an empty table and tried to decipher the menu. It was completely in German and I could read about 1 word in each dish. So instead of being risky, I played it safe and got a huge salad with giant grilled turkey breasts. It was really good. It wasn’t until after we ordered that we found the English menus. But after reading it, I think I would have still chosen the salad. Adam ordered what he though was meatloaf. But what turned out to be Leberkase, which means Liver Cheese. Thankfully it didn’t include either of those ingredients. Instead it was like a giant hot dog. It was actually pretty good. I ended the meal with apple struedel which was covered in sugar, warm vanilla pudding, and whipped cream. It was amazing. I am definitely making something like that when I get back. After we chowed down it was time to go back. We stopped at the store to pick up snacks for the plane ride and then walked back to our hostel where we finished up blogs and pictures, and then called it a night. I’m coming home tomorrow!!!