Last weekend was mine and Sara’s last weekend trip together before we return home, so to end with a bang we ventured to
Munich. This was my second trip to
Munich, but we meet up with John, a friend of ours from the sailing team who had recently moved to
Stuttgart and told him our two goals while there were to go to as many Christmas markets and beer halls as possible. Well let’s just say we probably hit over a dozen Christmas markets, they were everywhere! The whole town was one giant Christmas market. As for beer halls, we managed to go to three, and went to
Dachau, so in the end it was quite a successful trip.
We arrived in
Munich Friday night and stayed in the best hostel so far, all glass, a covered courtyard, an amazing breakfast buffet, and very clean. Our first stop was the Augistiner Brewery, one of the main four in
Bavaria. It is off the path and unlike the Hofbrauhaus, very un-touristy. We sat at an open table with a nice looking couple and there two friends. As we looked at the menu, we realized that the couple was on our menu....a few questions later we find out we were sitting with the owners of the place! They were very nice, helped us decide on the best things to order and even shared some cookies with us.
Saturday morning we woke up to very cold weather, about 14 degrees Fahrenheit and due to a large snowstorm earlier in the week, the ground was covered in snow. They don't seem to shovel there, instead the snow simply covers the ground, sidewalks, and streets until it becomes packed down and everything is blanketed in white. We saw some churches, went to the Oktoberfest fair grounds (where a giant christmas market had sprung up), wandered all around, to the English garden (christmas market), Mareinplatz (giant christmas market), Odeinplatz (gluhwein stand), and even saw Sinterclaus! We ended the night at the Hofbrauhaus, where we didn't meet the owners, but we did manage to consume 8 masses (those giant steins).
Sunday was another frigid day, but we bundled up and went to the
Dachau concentration camp. Seeing it covered in snow and freezing really added another element to the whole experience. We did the audio tour and saw the makeshift monuments set up for Christmas and Hanukah. In true Moffitt fashion we had a lunch of stolen sandwich material from the hostel and some hot chocolate just to warm up.
We hit up one last Christmas festival that afternoon and then headed to the airport, where low and behold there was another Christmas market! I love
Germany at Christmas time!
