Wednesday, 4/10, Mike's Bike Tour

After the tour at the Residence we started walking to our meeting spot for our bike tour. I was hungry, I saw a Starbucks and we stopped in there to have a snack and get some water. This Starbucks wasn't anything special, pretty much the same as at home. I didn't get any coffee, so I can't compare.

We met our group under the Old Town Hall tower.

Our tour guide was Chris and he was from Australia. He was a funny and entertaining guide, plus he seemed like he loved telling us about all the history of Munich. Josh wasn't really wanting to do the bike tour (I think mainly because of his 2 Liters of Beer the night before), but I knew from the reviews on Trip Advisor that he was going to have a good time. I was right! As soon as we started talking to Chris, Josh started to lighten up. There were 5 other people on the tour. One couple was from Ireland, another couple was from Arizona that had a daughter that goes to U of O, and then another guy that was from India and he studied at OSU. What are the odds of that! By the way, Josh was wearing one of his Duck shirts that day. Of course!

We started off our tour by talking about the New, but older than the Old Town Hall. Does that make sense? The New Town Hall was built in 1908, but the Old Town Hall was rebuilt after it was bombed in World War II. So it's the Old, but New.......Okay, I'm just confusing myself right now. Any ways, here is the New Rathaus (town hall). It's famous for its marionette dancers that come out a couple times a day. We missed it, but I guess its 17 minutes that you can never get back. This square is famously known as Marienplatz

This church here, is the center of Munich. This was were the Monks built their first church and started brewing their beer. Hence the name Munich or what German's call the city, Munchen.

Funny story about when Chris was talking about this church. If you go to the top, you have a beautiful view of the Austria Alps. Well Josh pipes up and says, "yeah we saw the Australian Alps yesterday!" Chris started laughing and says "Dude, did you just say Australian Alps?" It was pretty funny, especially since Chris talks with his Australian accent. Austria, Australian, pretty easy to slip and say the wrong thing.

Next up, we went back to the bike shop to grab the bikes. Isn't Josh cute on his blue bike?

This is the Feldherrnhalle (Field Marshals' Hall). In this picture we are posing like the statues. Note that Josh is not the one with his arm around me. Awkward!

Remember this picture for a later explanation.

This is the Bavarian woman I'm supposed to be posing like. Notice that the lion statue has his mouth open. This lion is facing the Residence and he is signifying that you can speak against the law.

Josh posed as this lion. This lion has his mouth shut and he is facing the church. This is meant to signify that you cannot speak against the church or God.











After our fun of posing, we walked through the church. We had seen The Dom in Bamberg and this church had a complete opposite look. It was so bright compared to the darkness of The Dom. The back story about this church is: Elector Ferdinand Maria prayed to God to please give him a son, who would be heir to the Bavarian crown, and he would build a church. This church is called The Theatine Church of St. Cajetan. The Electors son, Prince Max Emanuel, was born in 1662 and the church had started its construction that year. It took 100 years for it to be fully completed.

After we walked through the church, we walked behind the Felderrnhalle in the alleyway. If you go back to the picture of us posing, the areas on either side of the stairs used to be plaques of the swastika. The Nazi's forced the Germany people, any time they were walking by, to salute the swastika. The brave people would walk behind in the alleyway. The painted gold line is to show how far a person got before they were shot or beaten.

There is a lot of dark history in Munich, but I'll continue on with the rest of the bike tour with the fun stuff.

We had to touch the lion with the shield for good luck or something. We only touched one and you have to touch all four, so I guess no good luck for us.

Then we were off to the English Garden to have lunch at a Beer Garden in the center of it. The English Garden was massive and very beautiful. I can only imagine what it looks like in the summer with all the flowers blooming. There are parts of the English Garden where there are individuals who like to hang out in their Birthday Suit. Thankfully we didn't see any of those out today. Chris told us that there are two guys that are older and known as, "Tripod" & "Santa Claus". After hearing their names and that they love all the bicycle tourists, I'm really glad that they weren't out that day. I would have rode my bike as fast as I could in the opposite direction!

Since we were on bike's, I didn't get very many pictures in the Garden. Here is one of them.














We then stopped for lunch and beer at the Beer Garden. The food was so good. Sorry, Josh forgot to take some food porn.

After some lunch and good conversation with our group we headed over to see the Eisbach surfers. I couldn't get the video to load so here is a picture. This is really popular in Munich. No matter the time of year, there is at least one person out there surfing. You can imagine that in the summer the banks are crowded with spectators and surfers.

I forgot to mention one important person on our bike tour.

Meet "Butt Babe". Her name was really Ann and she was chosen to bring up the rear of the group, so we would all stay together. That's Basti standing next to her. He is from New Zealand and is in training to be a Mike's Bike tour guide. I'm sure he'll make a great guide. He was funny like Chris.

If it was a guy picked to bring up the rear he would have been called "A$$ Man".














Here are some more random pictures of the tour.

 These columns still have bomb damage that is kept there on purpose for remembrance of World War II.

 Entrance to famous night club in Munich where Mili Vanili got their start.

I feel strange posting a picture of Swastika's, but this is the only place in all of Germany that you will see any left over Swastika's. They left these here as a reminder of the dark time that the German's went through. Also, these Swastika's are curved and not as pronounced. You wouldn't notice them if you were just walking down the street.

That concluded our tour. I barely touched on the history that we learned and the places we saw. It was a jam packed four hours, that I highly recommend if you ever get a chance to visit Munich.

When we were done and had just made it back to the bike shop, it started down pouring. We walked over to the Hofbrauhaus to get our souvenirs and then off to the train to go back to Bamberg.