Europe Trip Recap – Munich, Germany

It’s time to wrap up our Europe trip recaps. So far, I’ve covered our time in The Netherlands, Belgium, and The Rhine Valley in Germany. Last on our itenerary was a few nights in Munich. I have a good friend who travels internationally for work a LOT. Months ago when we started planning this trip, I asked her for recommendations on where we should go. She said that of all the places she had visited, Munich was the first place to come to mind for a recommendation for us. She was spot on with thinking that we’d love it there!

We started of by driving to the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site. When I was planning the trip, Hubby and I each made a list of three things we absolutely had to see on the trip. One of the things on Hubby’s list was a concentration camp. It wasn’t something I had even thought of until he brought it up.

Door prisoners had to walk through every day at Dachau. Loosely translates to “Work will set you free”

Inside one of the buildings at the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site

While it was a very somber activity, we’re both really glad that we experienced it. We did the tour at the site which was 3 Euros and the best deal of the trip. The tour was 3.5 hours of fascinating information. You could tell our tour guide was a history buff. He spent time answering everyone’s questions and was a wealth of information about the concentration camp.

Sculpture in memory of those who ran to the fence at  Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site

After leaving Dachau, we headed to the Munich airport to return our rental car. This is one of the things I wish I had arranged differently. We should have just returned the car in Munich to avoid the 30 minute train ride back in to Munich. Once we got settled into our hotel, we headed out for some dinner, beer, and just browsing the city.

Beer! At our first meal in Munich

The next day, we headed to the Marianplatz to do a 2.5 hour walking tour of the city. We were the only ones who showed up, so we had a private tour. Hubby loves history so he really enjoyed talking with our guide about the history of Munich and Germany. I enjoyed getting an intro to the sights of Munich. After the tour, we headed to the Viktualieanmarkt for lunch. The beer served there rotates their beer selection every couple of weeks. We got lucky because they were serving our favorite that day – Augustiner.

Theatine Church in Munich. In most churches, the ornate stucco would have been painted. Here it’s left white to highlight certain features of the church.

Theatine Church in Munich

After lunch we headed to the Munich Residenz and Treasury. The audio guide was extremely detailed. After a couple hours, we both started getting a little bored so we just walked through the rest of the rooms. I was amazed at the fact that 90% of the Residenz has been destroyed in the war, so most of what we were seeing had been rebuilt since then.

Royal Gardens

Perseus statue at the Munich Residenz – it was designed such that it can be viewed from any angle

To round out our super-touristy-day in Munich, we ended the night with a Beer and Brewery tour. This time, there were others on our tour, including a couple from Brazil and 5 Irish guys who were taking a road trip through Europe. We enjoyed quite a few beers, had a great time getting to know the other on our tour and ended the night at Hofbrauhaus.

Bavarian Beers!

We spent many a night at the HBH in Cincinnati when we lived there, and I’m happy to report that it was very similar to the one in Munich. I also have to brag for a second. At some point in the evening, one of the Irish guys and I started talking smack to each other. I’m not even sure how it happened, but someone challenged us to chug the rest of our beers. I’m proud to say that I finished mine solidly before he did! Later I asked if he’d like a Radler instead of a beer.

Viktualienmarkt

All dressed up for Corpus Cristi

On our last day of the trip, the weather was amazing. It also happened to be Corpus Cristi, so a lot of shops and stores were closed for the holiday. We walked to the English Garden to grab lunch in the Chinese Beer Garden. After spending a few hours in the park, we headed back to our hotel to pack our things up. We grabbed dinner outside along with a few beers that evening before the rain forced us inside.

Enjoying a beer at the Marianplatz

Chinese beer garden in the English Garden

We were seated at a table with a German couple who started talking with us. Just before they started chatting, we had agreed this would be our last beer so we could get some sleep before our flight home the next day. Once we started talking to the German couple, they proceeded to buy us 2 or 3 more rounds and we closed the bar with them. It was a lot of fun!

Flying home over the ocean

The next morning, we headed to the airport for our flights home. We had great flights and got home around 5pm on Friday. I was glad that I got our flight to get us home at that time because we had the whole weekend to unpack and get settled before heading back to work.

Hubby and I had a great time on this vacation and I can’t wait to get back to Europe!