München travelogue

We’ve been in München almost two weeks now, and the region has offered some exceptional experiences, and also some lowdowns. Weather has been the culprit for the most of the lows, as it has been horrendous — raining several days on a row, almost constantly. This combined with surprisingly low temperature has made any longer trips outside the apartment a bit too taxing. I was expecting a better weather than in Finland, and fearing for constant sunshine and temperatures over 40C. The first week was good, but the second just horrible.

But let’s move to the positive experiences. The city is pretty compact, and surprisingly easy to navigate for a medieval town. There have been a plethora of shopping possibilities, and we have put our credit cards into use. It is not that much cheaper compared to Finland, but the selection is so much wider. For example, I’ve found a few multistory stores that sell only male clothing. I’ve never seen such male shopping palaces in any city that I’ve visited so far. I’ve added several critical pieces, including shoes, ties, and shirts, to my clothing portfolio.

We’ve only visited one museum in München, as we’ve spent weekends outside the city. Deutches Museum was an extremely large technology museum whose collections are in par with Museum of Science in Boston. The tour around the museum was both educational and fun, and the boys liked the whole place very much. We had to drag them out with promises of buying something from the museum store… These promises were found false later, as the shop didn’t sell anything worth buying for two small boys.

This week, we’ll pay a visit to BMW museum. Yes, there is one here. In fact, BMW is from the region and a big player locally. Almost half of the cars on the streets are BMWs, the rest are Audis, Mercedeses, and Volkswagens. Some Peugeots, Fiats and Volvos can be spotted, too. But not many Japanese.

We rented a car — got a 740D BMW that was luxurious to drive — and visited Neuschwanstein fairytale castle in southern Bavaria. The castle was built, and never finished, by Ludwig II — the king of Bavaria — at the end of 19th century. The castle in Disneyworld has drawn a lot of inspiration from this place.

If you visit the region and have a day off, go to see the castle. It is located on a peaceful and very beautiful countryside next to the mountains, and offers breathtaking views and very nicely done interiors. After walking through the castle — that was inspired by the operas of Richard Wagner — and thinking of the money spent there, it is no wonder that Ludwig II was declared not capable of ruling his country.

The castle is not finished, as work stopped pretty much immediately after Ludwig’s death. Still, the finished parts of the castle are something unique and well worth the trouble of getting there.

Another dream-like destination nearby is Salzburg. The old town is extremely pretty, and easily accessible with foot. The city has the biggest fortification in Europe on a nearby mountain that literally rises from the walls of the town. The ticket to the castle includes a return trip on a funiculaire car — another option is to walk about 30 minutes to the summit. The castle is huge and offers great views over the city and the neighbouring countryside.

We visited Salzburg with train; the trip took around 90 minutes and costed like 100€ for two adults and two children. The train station is not in within the old town, so you have either to walk for 15-20 minutes, take a taxi, or a local bus (2 €).

Third good destination, especially for families with children, is Legoland in Günzburg, about 100 kilometers west from München. The easiest way to get there is by car, speeding on the German highways that do not have any speed limitations — I was driving 170 kilometers per hour and cars were zipping past me all the time. Unfortunately, Germans seems to be really eager to build their highways, as there was a number of roadworks. Speeding like 80 km/h was not the experience of German highways I was looking for…

Anyhow, Legoland is a good place to spend a day with kids less than 12 years of age. We happened to be there on a rainy day, so there were practically no queues at all. The park didn’t show its best due to weather, but we purchased Legoland rain ponchos and were able to enjoy the day despite the elements.

If you a Lego freak or a parent of one, prepare to shell out money in several places. We bought a number of Lego boxes and also two different sets of individually picked bricks.

Compared to other Lego parks I’ve visited (London and Carlsbad in California), German version had the best restaurants. Portions were huge and tasty. Not anything like the crap we ate in the UK. The rides themselves are pretty much the same in all parks with some variations, and the miniland has somewhat different theme — so once you’ve seen one park, you have seen them all. But kids just love them.