The thing I remember most about my time in Munich is sharing a dorm room in a hostel…with 39 other people. I’ve stayed in a lot of hostels over the years (I think at last count I was at 60+) but this is the hands down the most people I’ve ever shared a room with.
I didn’t have many options as I was traveling when Germany was hosting the World Cup and I’d decided in Berlin after visiting Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp that I wanted to modify my travel plans to fit in Munich so that I could make a trip to Dachau. At the last minute, in peak summer season, during the World Cup, I was lucky to find a bed at all. So when I found a room that would be shared with 39 other people at double the price I’d paid anywhere else in Europe, I quickly snatched it and was grateful.
Munich is a very nice yet smaller city. However, there’s still quite a bit to do and I managed to keep myself busy while there. I spent some time just walking around the city, did a little shopping and bought some more chocolate. I just couldn’t help myself-there’s so much good chocolate in Europe!
This was the first place that I’d ever seen a 3D Braille map of a city, which was pretty amazing.
A trip to Munich isn’t complete without checking out the Glockenspiel chimes. I was a little nervous as my guidebook cautioned that ‘pickpockets have a field day’ since everyone is busy looking up, but I didn’t have any issues.
I also visited Munich Frauenkirche, where I was entranced by the legendary ‘devil’s footprint.’ Try as I might, I couldn’t get a great picture of it. I figured it was just the devil messing with me.
I spent the evening watching the games for the World Cup and it was definitely entertaining. There was absolute insanity there when Germany won against Portugal. I had to laugh the next night when Italy played France. It seemed that the French weren’t the most loved, as EVERYONE was cheering for Italy to win. When they won it kind of made me wish that I was in Italy for the game, but I still had lots of fun in Munich watching it on TV. Also, there was tons of cheap stuff to buy on the street since the games were over. It was too bad that I didn’t need World Cup scarves and socks because I could buy them for next to nothing since everyone was trying to get rid of all their extras. I even sent an email to my family back in the States asking if anyone had any special requests.
The best part of my time walking around Munich was that my ankle was feeling better. This made me pretty happy as I thought it was healing just fine since twisting it in Budapest.
Have you ever seen the ‘devil’s footprint’? What did you think of it?
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I didn’t see the Devil’s Footprint when I was in Munich for Oktoberfest in 2014. Because of travel points, I lucked out and got a really nice room at the Marriott closest to the Beer Gardens. I think my favorite aspect of Munich turned out to be the Viktualienmarkt. I had great fun trying to ask for various types of food in German. Most vendors would try to speak English once they heard my accent, but I made myself stick to German, and that made me feel really good 🙂
Good for you! It can always be hard to stick with the foreign language, especially if others speak English. But it’s always good to practice your language skills with native speakers.