Photos will be posted on Flickr
I had intended that we go to the Deutsches Museum today, which sits on an island in the Isar River in Munich. It is an enormous museum. Because we got a late start to the day (confession, we slept in), we decided to go to the Assamkirche. We’ve been to the museum a couple of times, and you just can’t do it justice in a few hours.
Sitting in the Hauptbahnhof having blunch (breakfast/lunch), I looked across to the building across the street and recalled how, before the advent of smartphones with Internet access, we had ‘Handys’ (as cellphones are sometimes called here), and there was a four floor Internet cafe with hundreds of terminals. Easy Internet as it was called. You paid a ‘demand rated’ price per hour (based on how busy they were, sort of like Uber demand pricing). Easy Internet is long gone, as are the other Internet cafes we used to utilize when traveling. There is some free WiFi (Starbucks does offer it in Germany). Though I get ‘free’ Internet access in my phone, it is dreadfully slow compared to what I am used to at home. No free 4G LTE.
Our journey to Assamkirche took us only about a 20 minute walk to an area near the Sendlinger Tor. The ‘tor’ is a gate to what was one of the gates in the wall around Munich. There are a few remaining ‘Tors’ in the city, with Karlstor being the entrance into the Marienplatz pedestrian area.
Assamkirche is a small, but extremely ornate church, not far from Sendlinger Tor.
Afterwards, we walked on towards the Rathaus, visible in the distance, making a big circle. We passed the Apple store, just off the square where the Rathaus is located and it seemed as busy as ever.
The Viktualienmarkt is just around the corner from us, so we went to look through the various vendors stands. Being late afternoon and still winter, some things were closed (including the biergarten), but it remains an interesting mix of small specialized vendors: one sold only potatoes, another cheese, one sold a range of only teas, handwork, wines, flowers, sausages, etc.
Our walk took us on to see the Theatinerkirche. It’s about 6:30pm and there is a service going on, with Communion afterwards.
We left and walked back up towards the Rathaus and Marienplatz to find something for dinner, passing the Frauenkirche, all lit up at night.
Though you can’t tell it from the weather, the shops are starting to advertise spring and Easter goods.
There’s always a period of time when our feet protest all of the walking to which they are not accustomed. We are definitely in that period. We’ve walked about 5 miles each of the last two days, and our feet are telling us about it. Though we always regret having to leave Munich, tomorrow is a walking respite, as we travel on to Prague. Never having visited Prague, I’m really looking forward to it. New country, new language and €’s not spoken here (visit to the Geldautomat for Czech Korunas (0.041 US Dollar).
Do příště!
TerraTraveler 