Munich 2023

The final part of my trip was Munich, which I visited on my own. That makes it my first trip abroad without family (either accompanying me or that I was visiting) since before the pandemic. It was also my first time back in Germany since 2012, when I went to a conference for work, and my first time visiting Munich since early 2001, when I went with my friends during my year abroad in Göttingen.

In a lot of ways Munich was the perfect place to go after Rome. It was a little quieter and more orderly after the chaos of Central Rome, and apart from the Marienplatz on my last day it wasn't overrun with tourists. That said, I lucked out in my choice of hotel because it was very centrally located, with most attractions and the main train station easily accessible by U-bahn. Some sights were even reachable on foot, which I also appreciated.

Hohenschwangau, with its eponymously named castle in the background

My first day was taken up by a trip to "Mad" King Ludwig II's castles, just outside Füssen and two hours away from Munich by train. I hadn't gotten to see Neuschwanstein or Hohenschwangau on my previous trip, so I made my plans meticulously, even booking a tour of Hohenschwangau in advance. Neuschwanstein was already booked up, so all I saw of that were a few views from the village below or from the windows of Hohenschwangau castle.

This was also a good counterweight to Rome, since Füssen is pretty small and rural, and the village of Hohenschwangau even more so. It's also right at the foothills of the Alps, so it was inspiring to see the mountains right there, at the other end of the valley. As it turned out, they were actually in Austria, which somehow impressed me even more.

The castle was pretty nice: it's well-maintained since the Wittelsbach family's days in charge, and features frescoes of courtly romances painted on the walls of most of the rooms. You can see a few signs of Ludwig's obsession with the Wagner cycle, but mostly it seems clear that those surroundings are what drove him to that obsession. Overall it's a trip worth taking, but I think I didn't appreciate how much planning would be required for it, since the trains from Munich to there and back are only about one per hour (and the direct ones are every two hours); I ended up walking back down to Füssen from Hohenschwangau after the end of my tour, and catching a train that I needed to change halfway through, and even so I didn't get back to Munich until almost 7pm.

The second day's main attraction was Oktoberfest. I hadn't done it on purpose, but I managed to schedule myself in Munich right in the middle of the festival. I'd always been leery about it, because I'd assumed there'd be enormous crowds all over the city, but as it turned out I needn't have worried. I booked my hotel well in advance (I think even as early as July, soon after I'd bought my flights), and during the days I was there I saw a lot of people, locals and tourists, wearing the traditional lederhosen for men or dirndls for women, but they were mostly gathered at the Wies'n, as the festival is known.

It helped that I arrived in town on a Wednesday and went to Oktoberfest early on Friday afternoon - who knows what the crowds would have been like on Saturday? Entry is free but if you're carrying a large backpack, like mine, you have to pay 5 euros to check it. When I got in, I wandered around the funfair for a bit, but then made my way to the Paulaner tent. I found an empty table at the back and observed for a bit, while also figuring out how to order a beer (which came in a liter glass, of course) and some food. I went for some Weisswurst to start, and then a sort of roast pig with caramelized skin, which was pretty good. But a liter of beer is no joke, and to be honest, I was a bit ruined for the rest of the day, even though that's all I drank.

This is, I think, a good point to mention that drinking liters of beer in Munich is associated with one of my most disgraceful episodes in my year abroad. When my friends and I came over, we weren't around for Oktoberfest (it was January or February), but three of us did go visit the Hofbräuhaus, which is basically the same experience. I'd say one of my friends in particular came to grief, because that night none of us stopped at one liter, but I was just as hungover the next day, thanks to a night spent on the tiles figuratively (i.e. drinking) and literally (i.e. vomiting once we got back to our pension).

Luckily there was none of that this time, though the incident was very prominent in my thoughts when I was sitting on the bench and watching the Germans drink, eat and sing along to DJ Otzi's Hey Baby. I may or may not have sung along when the oompah band played the Wild Rover and John Denver's Take Me Home Country Roads, but there are no witnesses to confirm or deny.

The Residenz at night

My final day was spent visiting the Residenz, where the Wittelsbachs lived in Munich, and then walking back to my hotel via the Englischer Garten. For the former, I hadn't really planned on seeing it but then decided to visit it when I wandered to there from Marienplatz the night before. It's probably a little smaller than Versailles but the older part is easily as glamorous as any royal palace, sumptuously decorated and just crawling with paintings and art. 

A lot of the written descriptions and audio descriptions highlight how much of the palace was destroyed during Allied bombing raids in WWII, which just makes the state of it now more impressive: apart from some conspicuously blank spots where a painting should be, you'd never guess that it had been pounded to rubble nearly 80 years ago.

Apart from the sights, it was quite an experience being back in Germany after so long, and my mind kept going back to my year abroad. I was quite near the university, which helped, because it made parts of that neighborhood look and feel similar to Göttingen back in the day.

It was also interesting seeing the people dressed up for the Wies'n, because it brought home how I was in a different part of Germany than I'd lived in back in 2000-2001. It's possible that Bavarians make a little too much of their dialect and "peculiar" customs - after all, crossing from Niedersachsen, where Göttingen is, to Bavaria isn't like finding yourself in a different country, like when I travelled to Edinburgh from London in 2012. But it's interesting how every official is expected to dress in traditional clothes when Oktoberfest is on, sort of like how American politicians have to wear the US flag lapel pin.

Those three days also brought home how much I love Germany, and continue to do so after that year I spent living there. I don't know that I'd want to live there now (although there are worse places), but it's true that Germany has a special place in my heart, so it was nice to get in touch with that again. In fact, I liked it so much that I'm sort of wondering how I can tack on more visits when I go back to Europe in coming years. After all, I feel like I need to properly see Berlin, and I've never been to Hamburg or Cologne.

Marienplatz from above

Which, of course, is the effect I was hoping for when I booked these days in Munich. After the pandemic and the shelter-in-place orders I needed a spur to get out into the world for some exploring again, and this trip, both the days in Rome and those in Munich have reawakened that in me. And while I'm looking at visiting or revisiting other spots for next year, I'd be happy to go back to both, since both cities feel so big that there were plenty of other sights I could have visited.