Munich on New Year's Day

Our New Year kicked off with a trip to Munich. Technically, we had been to Munich before, but as participants and eager observers of Oktoberfest. I expected this visit might have a bit more culture. We stayed at the Hotel Cristal, awesome because of it's central location, not awesome due to the amount of wandering we had to do in order to access and escape the parking garage. 

We began exploring the city after we arrived midday. There weren't snow or rainstorms following us throughout the day, for once, but the sidewalks were deathly slippery and lead to me slowing everyone down with my unsure shuffle.

There were remnants of the local Christmas market just outside of Marienplatz. We saw one very unfortunate fellow drop a fresh order of fries, I wanted to cry for his loss but the local pigeons were able to indulge in a serious feast. Going off of a recommendation, we went to Augustiner, a very famous beer hall, for lunch. It is the second largest beer hall in Munich and their beer recipe goes all the way back to the 1300's when the Augustinian monks began crafting it in their monastery.

Baskets of pretzels welcomed us to the table. They were decent, though slightly stale and not free! I ordered a venison goulash and only made it half way through. I forgot how heavy carbs, beer, and meat can be.

After lunch we walked just across the way to St. Michael's church. The inside was beautiful and the sunlight shone through in a magnificent way. From there we walked by the Neues Rathaus. Rathaus means government building, our Rathaus in Stuttgart is nothing special and the ones in Munich, the old and the new, put ours to shame.

Neues Rathaus

Altes Rathaus

Given that is was New Year's Day, museums and other points of interest were closed. Luckily, we were able to take in all of the major sites of the city without having to set foot inside a building. For dinner we ate at a small German style restaurant where I balanced out my lunch with a salad and ice cream. I figured I would need to keep my strength up for the treacherous walk back to the hotel along a large sheet of ice.

I loved the accessibility of Munich. To have all the must sees all in one place with a never ending selection of great food and beer was ideal.