Pot Luck

Thursday, 27 December 2007

For our only full day in Munich, we allowed for free will to reign over the proceedings. This was one of the few days during the entire trip where we really had nothing set in stone with regard to what we would do while visiting the capital of Bavaria. Will was interested in making his day out in Munich a very sporting one by visiting the Olympic Park and the Allianz Arena, home of Bundesliga giants - and world soccer giants in general - FC Bayern München, not to mention their city rivals, TSV 1860 München.

I myself had designs on visiting the inspiration for Walt Disney's Castle, Mad King Ludwig's Schloss Neuschwanstein, about an hour and a half south of Munich around the town of Füssen. I had a few willing participants before we flew over to Europe, but by the time we were actually in Munich, the formerly willing participants for the castle excursion were wanting a break from train rides and opted instead to explore Munich in further detail. That being the case, the entire party actually split into two groups for the day. Alex, Beth, Ryan, Susan, and I would accompany Will on his sporting tour of Munich while my parents, Ryan's parents, and Christine and Kevin would do their own thing, checking out some shops and touring one of the biergartens where they had an interesting time, but they you'll have to ask them about it sometime.

The morning began with a continental breakfast at the hotel and, before splitting up, we all went back to the Marienplatz together to witness the famous Glockenspiel performance at the New Town Hall in the center of the square. Similar to The Walk of the Apostles in Prague, it is not the most enchanting thing one will see in Bavaria by any means, but if you find yourself close to the Marienplatz around the time of one of its performances, you'll probably enjoy the quaint little experience.

Soon after, the group split up into its aforementioned separate parties, with me, Ryan, Will, Beth, and the Crabtree's grabbing the U-Bahn number 3 train towards the Olympic Park. Upon arrival, we exited the train and made the short walk towards the sprawling park. The weather today was gray, and while it was not bitterly cold, there was still a chill in the air. Foggy weather meant that we would not even bother with climbing the famous Olympic Tower for its 360 degree views of Munich and the Bavarian Alps in the distance because sights would be largely veiled behind the gray mist.

First we stopped off at the famous Olympic Swim Hall, most notable for being the location where Mark Spitz won his seven gold medals during the 1972 Munich Games, unmatched until Michael Phelps later did his thing at Beijing 2008. We were not blown away by this sight by any means except to note how large the pool is, but the enormous glass window on one side of the pool was certainly an interesting touch. Also noteworthy is the unique architecture that dots the landscape of the entire park. It is very distincitive as I suppose most Olympic Parks are and once you have walked the park, you will never mistake these structures for any other location than Munich. The most common architectural feature throughout the park were the curved roofs that marked every major facility, whether it be the Olympic Swim Hall or the Olympiastadion.

We did not spend much time in the Olympic Swim Hall, only taking a brief peak from just inside the entrance before heading back outside. Then we walked up and over a small hill, all the time casting glances at the looming Olympic Tower whose needle was hidden from us in the fog. On the other side of the hill the park opened up before us, with a large pond in the foreground already frozen over in these early days of Winter. Ryan and Will wasted little time in descending the the knoll for a closer inspection of the frozen surface and once we reached the bottom, Ryan proved determined not to let this opportunity for ice dancing pass him by. Words cannot describe the brilliance of his performance. So inspiring was it that all of us except for Susan soon found our way on to the ice to see what kind of effort we could muster, breaking out the robot and the moonwalk at various stages.

When this fun had ended, we all headed to the famous Olympiastadion and paid the modest entry fee to walk around it. Built for the Olympics, it is probably more noted for its contribution to some historic soccer matches, including the famous 1974 World Cup Final in which the Netherlands were upset by the West Germans, and also the Euro '88 Final in which the Dutch buried the demons of '74 by defeating the Soviets. It also hosted three European Club Cup Finals between 1979 and 1997. Besides these historic matches, it was the home stadium of the two previously mentioned soccer clubs of Munich, Bayern and 1860, until their recent relocation to the Allianz Arena in 2006.

Since the construction of the Allianz Arena, the Olympiastadion has not seen much use which is immediately evident once inside. Like everything else in the Olympic Park, it is marked with that distinctive look of a curved roof over the bleachers. The overall curved nature of the stadium makes it look as if it is a wheel spinning off of its axis, which is to say it is very unique. The rundown appearance of the stadium once inside, coupled with the bleak looking weather, gave off a sort of Cold War vibe, especially with the track surrounding the field, a common trait among many soccer stadiums across the former Eastern bloc nations of Europe. It was quite surreal, actually, to think that this was the sight of some of the most notable sporting events of the past 45 years. But like the cookie cutter baseball stadiums in America, the Olympiastadion has past its expiration date.

After a walk around the stadium, we went back towards the train station to catch the S-Bahn to the Allianz Arena, which is located north of the city centre of Munich. On the walk back, however, we were perhaps presented with a view of one final famous landmark of the 1972 Munich Games: the sight of the Munich Massacre. I say perhaps because I have never really confirmed it, though Will is sure of it. We definitely saw apartments in the Olympic Village that resembled the ones seen in the iconic images taken from when members of Black September held Israeli athletes hostage. Whether this was the actual sight or not, it was still eerie to look upon these buildings, well aware of the tragic legacy associated with them.

Once we got back to the station, we caught the U-bahn heading towards the Allianz Arena. After reaching our stop, we learned it was something of a small hike to the stadium, but its unique structure was soon visible too us and we pressed on towards our target. It's hard to describe what the Allianz Arena looks like. Certainly like no other sports arena you'll ever see, but the first thing that comes to mind when looking at it is the future. That's where it seems to come from anyway. Like some oddly shaped spaceship from the future that landed in the middle of suburban Munich. It's really quite something to see, even more so before a game. As I've already mentioned, Allianz Areana is home to Bayern München and 1860 München, as well as the German National Team periodically, and before a matchday for these teams, the stadium exterior lights up with the colors of the various teams: red for Bayern, blue for 1860, and white for Germany.

The stadium, which holds up to 69,000, opened in 2005, and though still young, has already hosted some notable matches, including the opening match of the 2006 World Cup between Costa Rica and Germany. Later on in the tournament, it also hosted the semi-final between France and Portugal and is also slated to host the 2012 UEFA Champions League Final. So there is no doubt that this venue will one day be steeped in the same sporting tradition as the Olympiastadion.

We eventually made our way inside the mammoth structure and caught a brief glance of the field before heading up to the Bayern München megastore. Here, there were boundless treats for all. Ryan, Will, and I were particularly giddy to be surrounded by the soccer paraphernalia of one of the biggest clubs in the world. I was lucky to get out of there without spending too much money, though I did make do with an FC Bayern shirt and large beer glass to give to my brother Eddie as a Christmas present. The story was similar for Ryan and Will though Will made out like a bandit when buying an outdated Bayern jersey (though only outdated by a season or two) that he still wears frequently. After making some souvenir purchases, as something of an afterthought we headed down to the 1860 München megastore, but there was really nothing too mega about it. 1860 currently plays in a division below Bayern and have just about forever lived in their shadow, as the low key nature of 1860's "megastore" would attest to. We gave it only a cursory glance before bringing our time at the Allianz Arena to a close, catching the U-bahn back towards central Munich soon thereafter.

After getting our wires crossed for a little bit, we finally met up with the rest of our group, who had evidently at a fine time at one of Munich's biergartens where they were lucky enough to have a local Bavarian couple show them around a little bit and advise them on a nice lunch spot, where they actually ended up having a very large lunch together. They also had their own unique experience with an icy pond, but maybe they can tell you more about that later. Once we had exchanged stories of the day, we eventually jumped back on the U-bahn and headed back towards the Marienplatz. Here we had some more times to ourselves to do a little bit of shopping in the area before heading towards Munich's most famous beer hall, the Hofbräuhaus, for a drink before dinner at a nice restaurant Will had previously made a reservation at.

Or so we thought that was the plan. The group that had taken the sporting tour of Munich had not really eaten much all day and was ready for food immediately while the other group was still pretty full from lunch and probably would not want a large dinner anyway. Besides that, we were all pretty tired, so we all decided to skip the dinner reservation altogether and just drink and eat something at the Hofbräuhaus, calling it a night afterward.

The Hofbräuhaus proved to be something of a tourist trap, but even though the Bavarian experience was somewhat manufactured, it was still a lively atmosphere with plenty of singing, laderhosen, and most importantly, beer. Though I was unaware of this at the time, the Hofbräuhaus in Munich is also host to a bit of history. The Nazis held functions here and on February 24, 1920, Adolf Hitler proclaimed the twenty-five theses of the National Socialist program at the Hofbräuhaus, which reconstituted the German Workers' Party as the National Socialist German Workers' Party, better known as the Nazi Party. But history was not our concern this night; fine beer and food was. For my part, the dark beer I had did not quite reach the standards of the previous night, but the food was good, and, being German food, quite heavy on the stomach.

I felt overall that the Hofbräuhaus was a little bit of a letdown, but I think that was dictated more by the circumstances than the setting itself. I think that in a small group with a little bit of rest and less consumption beforehand, the experience would be a bit more jovial and memorable, but as it was, we were split up into two tables and lost something of the experience, interesting though it still was. I think fatigue was probably the greatest barrier to our enjoying a full experience, however.

Upon finishing our meal, we headed to the souvenir shop to buy some shirts and then made a quick exit to catch the U-bahn back to the München Hauptbahnhof, walking back to our hotel from there. We spent a fair bit of the walk back commiserating over our time in Munich, mainly lamenting the brief nature of our visit here. My Dad seemed to have found his favorite European destination yet, helped no doubt by the fine food and beer, as well as the addition of some local Bavarian flavor earlier. For now though, we were just happy to get some rest before the long travel day to Lake Como that awaited us tomorrow.