Long Journey to Europe 04-Germany, Munich neuschwanstein castle germany

 As soon as I got to Munich, what I thought was that Munich is totally different from Berlin! Like I mentioned in Berlin post, Berlin was more like street life. However Munich looked very luxurious and rich, and yeah, Munich is the most expensive city in Germany and has 2^nd expensive street (where the expensive brand shops are) in Europe, following Paris. The day I got to Munich, it was holiday that most shops were close. Since I got there in the evening, there wasn’t enough time to do something anyways.

(Me @ Marien Platz)

 On the next day, I went to Marien Platz, the city centre. The most magnificent architecture in the square, of course, was Neues Rathaus (New Town Hall). Luckily, though I didn’t know that the dolls in the town hall rotate on the specific time, I could see them moving because I was there on that time (can’t remember what time it was).

On the top of the town hall, I could see the whole Munich city centre. When I was in Bruxells, my roommate told me about “Free Tour” which guides tourists in the big cities in European countries for free. Since I didn’t know about Munich and traveled alone, I took ‘Free Tour’.

 Through the tour, I could learn many things about Munich and Germany. 2 funniest things that I learned from the tour were that Neues Rathaus is actually much older than Altes Rathaus (Old Town Hall), because the old one was rebuilt in 1971-1974 after destroying 2WW.

(Top : Old Town Hall / Bottom : New Town Hall)

Next thing was that when they reconstructed St.Peter’s church after its crash in 2WW, they put a cannonball on the exact same place on its wall. How German-like!!

Also, I cannot forget how glamorous The Munich Residenz (The Munich Residence) was. Especially ‘Antiquarium’ was very impressive. There were so many sculptures. I felt like I was in Italy. If there’s one right thing that Hitler did is that Hitler buried all the relics in Munich Residence to protect it from attack in 2WW.

Though people think Germany as very honest and rich country, they committed very cruel and massive murders in the past. I could saw how evil they were in Dachau concentration camp. It was stupid me that I asked how much the entrance fee was. The receptionist said it’s free and then I thought “Yeah, of course! They didn’t do anything good! It should be free!” I felt really sad when I saw ‘wash rooms’ in there.

While I stayed in Munich, I visited 2 castles. One was Schloss Nymphenburg (Nymphenburg Palace) and the other was Schloss Neuschwanstein (Neuschwanstein Castle).

 Nymphenburg Palace has a huge park and garden. Particularly, it has huge terraced ponds in the garden were but I couldn’t see water flowing because they didn’t supply water, being afraid of the pond frozen. In the castle, there’s a room called Schönheitengalerie (Gellery of Beauties). As the name says, there were 36 portraits of beautiful women who were, as referring my free tour guide’s word, one night stands of Ludwig I. :P

 For Schloss Neuschwanstein, I took a train about an hour and half heading to Füssen. When I got to Füssen, it was snowing so I thought I could see very beautiful castle which was covered with snow.

←It was like this...

          This was what I thoguth↑

But the reality was...

...totally different. It was so foggy that I could barely see the castle. L However inside of the castle was amazing so it was sorry that I couldn’t take pictures in there!

If somebody says ‘Munich’, Beer is, of course, the first thing that pops up in your mind! That was same for me, and there is world famous beer house Hofbräuhaus. Since I cannot drink alcohol, I just went there and saw people drinking. I wished I could have drink or at least had brought friend who can drink so that I can stay there.


























 While Berlin showed me a total different Germany from what I thought before, Munich showed me the exact image of Germany what I imagined. Munich was really beautiful city at the same time, it was expensive though. :P