Our next day in Munich we slowed our pace down a bit. As we walked to the U-Bahn we saw a nice BMW Z8 roadster, something I had never seen before in person. These are sold out for years in advance. Note also the BMW station wagon behind it and the VW Passat station wagon driving by.
We stopped in at our favorite little bakery on Leopoldstraße to get some of their great pastries for breakfast. The pastries were outstanding: my favorite had a nut-paste filling inside layers of filo-dough. Mmmm.
We took the U-Bahn to our favorite downtown area, Marienplatz. We went shopping at the Galeria Kaufhof, the largest department store downtown. What a great store! They had clothes, jewelry, graph paper, and great reference books for very low prices. I went nuts buying stuff.
After a big shopping spree we needed lunch. We went to der Ratskeller, the restaurant in the basement (keller, i.e., cellar) of the city hall (Rathous). We had a great lunch, with Beth having Ente Viertel (duck) and I had Wiener Schnitzel. It was very, very good food and service. It is here that I really learned that they charge for each piece of bread or for every pretzel. I learned this by thinking that I would take a pretzel to go but the waiter quickly informed me that I had only paid for what I had already eaten. I had to put the pretzel back.
We then returned to the hotel due to our having too many bags from shopping again. On the way we saw this Audi A2, a fabulous little car that should be sold here in America. It is half again larger than a Swatch car at 3.83 meters (12.5 feet) long and seats 4-5 people. It weighs a mere 1819 pounds and has a coefficient of drag of 0.25 with its 14" tires. Servicing intervals are every 30,000 miles. It has a three cylinder direct-injection 1.2 liter turbodiesel engine with 61 hp and a 5 speed manual transmission.
The resulting performance is 0-60mph in 14.8 seconds, 104 mph top speed, and an unbelievable 78.7 mpg! The gas tank only holds 20 liters (5.3 gallons) but it still has a range of over 415 miles. Diesel fuel was selling for 1.559 DM per liter ($2.77/gal) so a full tank of gas there costs $13.85, but here where diesel is only $1.25/gal, a whole tank would only cost $6.25! Why doesn't America have these???
After dropping off our bags we took a taxi to the museum area where we went to the Neue Pinakothek, one of 3 art museums with paintings and sculptures by Picasso, Renoir, Monet, Manet, and others. We enjoyed a few hours browsing the art gallery. It was quiet, serene, and enjoyable to view the past through the eyes of these great masters.
We walked from the art gallery back towards the U-Bahn and entered the University district. The University in Munich is huge, with 60,000 students. We stopped once again to get some fruit and pastries at this stand on Ludwigstrße.
After a short ride on the U-Bahn from Universitat to Münchener Freiheit we observed these men playing two games of chess on large life-size chess boards. We stopped at the nearby ice cream store and got two ice cream cones for 2.60DM or $1.22 for both! My berry sherbet was excellent. We walked past a park filled with kids playing on swingsets, with parents nearby.
On the walk back to our hotel we saw this interesting BMW motorcycle.
We came back to the hotel and relaxed for 2 hours: we had done a lot of walking. About 8:30 PM we went across the street to a little restaurant called Zum Fassl. It was a small place, with only about 5 or 6 tables. We were at one table, a man by himself sat at the table next to us, and a young couple sat at the table nearest the large fireplace. Another single man came in and sat the furthest from us — Beth was convinced he was a terrorist.
Then the largest table was filled up by a large and happy group of 10 people. They began toasting each other and grabbing a hanging light and focusing it on each other as if to interregate or put a microphone on each other While they were doing this they caused a short and all of the lights in the small restaurant went out! Fortunately each table had a candle as well. It was a rather intimate look at some of the people of Munich on a Friday night. I had a plate of ham, noodles, and scrambled eggs all mixed together. After this it was home to bed, just a walk across the street.
On to day 6, our last day in Munich
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Created: 18 Oct 2001 Modified: 18 Oct 2001