Kids,
Our third country on our tour of Europe was Germany. At this point in the trip our vacation changed from Christmas Market adventurers to true sightseeing, and with only two days in Munich we didn’t have any trouble filling the time.
Germany: Day 1: Thursday December 27th: Christmas Market, Deutsche Museum, Marienplatz, St. Peter’s Cathedral, Hofbrauhaus Munich
After breakfast at the hotel we headed to the Deutsche Museum, which was high on all the lists of places to visit in Munich. The museum was huge and a lot of fun. For the first time in our travels we didn’t have pre-purchased tickets, so we had to wait in line. Luckily it went fast, and we were able to preoccupy the three of you with the graffiti lion sitting right outside the ticket office.
Our first stop was the Kids Area where you three got to play with blocks, pulleys, and marble tracks. The place reminded us of any Children’s Museum we’d visited in the US, and turned out to be a great way to get the energy out before we started walking around the museum.
Right outside the kids area we entered the metallurgy exhibit that had plant models, process mock ups, and diagrams showing how we have evolved in our understanding and utilization of metals. Your mother and I thought it was fascinating, but you three were over the models in around 5 minutes.
Our third stop was the Maritime area, which had full size boats and ships from all across history. Of course with the newer ships being as large as they are those were just models in protected cases. It was amazing. They had boats from many eras of history and your mother and I loved it.
We spent so much time in the Maritime section that we flew through the electricity, Oceanography, and Astronomy sections in order to get out of there before anyone got ‘Hangry’. We could have spent so much more time here. But it was getting late and we had to get lunch.
I tried to have a plan for lunch everyday so we weren’t searching around last minute, and knew you three would eat what was on the menu. Nothing worse than standing on the street trying to figure out where to go when you turn down a menus like it’s your job.
One ‘must do’ on every list I found was to visit a beer hall, and I knew they would have sausages that you three loved, so that’s what we did. We headed to Hofbräuhaus München.
Entering the main floor was a little intimidating. The hall was filled with tables, mostly packed, and it was a free for all on open space. After a first pass we headed to the next floor, they had 5, to see if we could find space for the five of us. Apparently German’s don’t start lunch at 2:00 pm, so we found that most of the floors were actually closed to additional guests. We managed to find a small table on the 2nd floor near a window that was perfect for us. We all enjoyed pretzels and bread, while your mother and I enjoyed a pint of beer.
On our way out we ran into a street performer that was dressed up as a copper statue. You three thought he was a real statue, which we naturally played along with to get you closer. We almost got a picture next to him, but he startled everyone before we could get a picture taken. Christopher was totally into it. We gave everyone some change to give the man, and after a period of shyness you all dropped your coins into his chest. Johnathon was the only one with enough courage to shake his hand.
After the excitement we started our journey back to the hotel to relax and grab dinner in the bistro.
Germany Day 2: Friday December 28th: BMW Museum, Karlsplatz, St. Micheals Church, Fur Augustine, Starbucks
Today we headed to the Munich BMW Museum. To date we’ve never owned a BMW, or any other fancy car, but being a car guy, I’ve wanted one for a long time. I even test drove one when we moved to Kansas City to justify getting a BMW credit card, thinking I could use the points against the purchase. I never did… So although this wasn’t for you three, I was very excited about it.
It was clear after entering the museum that everyone was going to enjoy this visit. The museum has the entire history of BMW along with the the evolution of automotive engineering and design. My favorites were the motorcycles, marine engines, aircraft engines, and engineering advancements in safety and aerodynamics. It was Awesome.
Germany Day 3: Saturday December 29th: Travel Day
Our stay in Germany was short and the city was a lot of fun. The people were friendly, the public transportation very easy to get around on, and the city was beautiful. After grabbing breakfast at the hotel we packed back up and headed to the train station for a two part train ride, via Frankfurt, on our way to Brussels, Belgium.
Love,
Mom & Dad
The Hotovec's 