Day one -- Saturday, July 4 -- Munich was to serve primarily as a transportation hub for us rather than a primary destination. We arrived by train from Salzburg and took a tram practically to the door of our hotel (Hotel am Viktualienmarkt). The markets were all closed by the time we arrived this evening, but we found an outdoor biergarten (Der Pschorr) for dinner (4 meals + drinks for 58 euro). It was a perfect evening to sit outside. The younger generation of the group -- ages 11-22 -- gathered in one hotel room for a movie night.
Day two -- Sunday, July 5 -- We slept in a bit today. We%26#39;re halfway through our European adventure and this was a day of catch-up for us, including doing some laundry in our room. After breakfast in the hotel we walked to the Marionplatz to see the glockenspiel. It was the most interesting of all those we%26#39;ve seen on our trip. Since it was Sunday, many of the shops and markets were closed, but that also meant fewer crowds. We went next to visit the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum. A rainstorm passed through, causing a little flooding in the entryway, but it didn%26#39;t stop our progress. This is a huge museum. We chose selectively to see exhibits of woodcarvings, suits of armor, tapestries, sculptures, stained glass, courtyard games, musical instruments and creches. This museum has the largest collection in the world of creches, and we viewed it pretty much all to ourselves. We rode back to the hotel area to find lunch. We ate at Cafe Lotter-Leben, where the kids were happy to find hamburgers and chicken fingers. We shared a plate of kaiserscharrn for dessert (4 meals with drinks + kaiserscharrn for 47 euro). My husband was having some back trouble, so he and the kids rested a bit at the hotel, and I joined up with other members of our group to head to the English Garden. We stopped for a while to watch the surfers on the river, then walked a path all the way to the Chinese Tower. There were lots of people throughout the park. We headed back to pick up the kids, and many of the group went to Hofbrauhaus for dinner (1 bratwurst dinner, 1 large pretzel, 3 drinks for 18 euro). We had a light dinner since we had eaten lunch late and mostly went to take in the atmosphere. It was very crowded and very noisy but a fun group experience.
Day two -- Monday, July 6 -- Bus tour to Bavarian castles -- A bus arrived at our hotel this morning to load the whole group up for a day of castle tours. John%26#39;s Bavarian Bus Tours transported us first to Neuschwanstein. We rode a bus up to the Marienbrucke bridge. I was disappointed to see the whole side of the castle covered in scaffolding. So much for the picture-perfect view. I had been told we%26#39;d be disappointed by the inside, but it was interesting enough. Our tour bus next took us to a national park near Ruette for lunch at Hotel Ernberg (soup and salad for 4 + 2 drinks for 37 euro). We continued our drive to Linderhof, driving past the Plansee and stopping briefly for a group picture. Linderhof was quite impressive, especially the grounds. We walked the steep hill to see the grotto, as well. We made a quick stop along the way at Oberammergau. We were only there briefly but stepped inside the church of Sts. Peter and Paul. It was very ornate and gorgeous. We also stepped inside a woodcarver%26#39;s shop for a few minutes before loading back into the bus for the trip back to Munich. We were dropped off at the train station to await our overnight train station to Venice. We ate in the station (4 meals and drinks for 30 euro).
Munich seemed to lack the charm of our previous destinations, but it wasn%26#39;t an unpleasant place to be.
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Crikey. Of course Munich lacks charm if you spend half a day in a museum and half a day within 5 minutes walk of the hotel... You missed out on a fantastic city...
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...I see you are following Rick Steves guidebook word for word... oh my... you miss sooooo many great things when you do that...
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If you think Rick doesn%26#39;t do Munich justice, you should see what he does with Frankfurt! Sad that people miss so many interesting things by following his %26quot;walking tour%26quot;, when for 10-12€ they could take a really good one from all the ones on offer in all the cities. His information is also not always correct. Found lots of mistakes about Frankfurt. I wonder how he is in other cities? I think he has done a good job getting people out and about and over to Europe, but I do wish he would research a bit better.
Anyways, Saxygirl, thank you for the trip report. It sounds like you are having fun and we do like reading reports. Wish more people would take the time to write. It must be difficult to travel with so many people! Glad to hear no one has gotten lost yet.
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That%26#39;s the trouble when you rely on ready-made tours, you miss out on many things... but with you did reasonably well considering you were quite a big group!
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Hello, from Cincinnati. I was more impressed with Linderhof than with Neuschwanstein. But I love gardens so that probably had a lot to do with it. Also, we were at Linderhof early in the morning and it was not crowded.
I, too, was with a group and a guided bus tour can make a lot of sense logistically when you are trying to keep everyone together and happy. But, IMO, a bus tour rarely provides the best value or the best use of your time.
Every tourist has to start somewhere which their planning and, like or not, Rick Steves provides an easy to read approach when you are starting to plan a trip.
Thanks for your report, I%26#39;ll look for others.
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As to Rick Steves, if you follow his advice what you are basically doing is visiting places packed with American tourists and his advocates. (He single-handedly destroyed visiting a not fabulous area of Italy, the Cinque Terre, now overrun by his disciples.) There%26#39;s plenty to see and do in Germany with its over 30,000 castles and palaces alone, other than follow his advice, but many of the places he recommends are excellent to visit if not for these foreign tourist hordes that destroy the experience for me, it shouldn%26#39;t be like Disneyland. (I%26#39;m an American living in Germany, and a few weeks ago I had to cringe at the loud voices I could hear a block away loudly speaking (shouting?) English in Baden-Baden.)
There are many excellent places you can visit where there are few German tourists and no, or almost no, foreign ones making for a %26quot;real%26quot; German experience. (Visit the fairytale-like castles Hohenzollern- www.burg-hohenzollern.com or Lichtenstein- www.schloss-lichtenstein.de instead of Neuschwanstein except in the Winter when visitor numbers are down. There will be few tourists of any kind although both places are excellent, and you can actually enjoy these places.) And when it%26#39;s all over, what you tend to remember fondly is the fun and adventure of trying to communicate in a foreign language (although most Germans speak English), not all those places jam-packed with foreign tourists. Visiting a foreign country is also about the people and interacting with them, largely ignored by many American tourists.
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Thanks for the report, I have to agree that you missed a lot of Munich.
I can understand why R.S. is followed, but we have the same discussions on London forum, used to on Rome forum, most that follow R.S. out of USA really miss what the cities in Europe are about, he really has little understanding of how to go %26#39;local%26#39;. Sorry.
You can see many points of interest on video or photo from your home, but you must experience a city. R.S. books are so popular, that many %26#39;hidden gems%26#39; he points you to are now tourist traps.
Difficult to describe the scenario, maybe if you look too hard you fail to see the wood for the trees. A bit like looking in the mirror and only seeing the wall behind you.
Stoofer
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I%26#39;ve resisted responding thus far, but so regret that this turned into mostly an %26quot;Anti-Rick Steves%26quot; thread. While I did use some tidbits from his books (in the 5 countries we visited), I think the places we visited were %26quot;standard%26quot; tourist sights for first-time visitors. The truth is that Munich is probably where we least followed Rick Steves advice. Since it was the middle of a hectic 17-member-family vacation, we chose it as a %26quot;down%26quot; day. As for the bus tour, it was certainly a good choice for our large group who wanted to stay together that day and experience the castles together without the %26quot;hassles%26quot; of logistics. This way we were all on our very own bus. The tour guide even made a special stop along the Plansee because it held personal family memories for the group. I%26#39;m not %26quot;pro%26quot; or %26quot;anti%26quot; Rick Steves. I used many guidebooks for advice. Some of his tips were useful, some less so. I hope to go back to some of the cities we visited some day to spend more time and experience more of the true character.
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Saxygirl,
I enjoyed your update, I felt like I was reading your travel journal. Where did you go after you left Munich?
I squirmed a little reading the replies. I love looking through the travel books and have visited several recommended places in those books. I am lucky enough to have some German relatives and guess what? They took me to some of the biggest tourist destinations there in Germany! lol I enjoyed going and spending time there at the destination with them.
I LOVE Germany. I keep wanting to go back and back and back. I hope you loved it enough to go back again too!
Jo Anne
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%26gt; But so regret that this turned into mostly an %26quot;Anti%26#39;Rick Steeves%26quot; thread %26lt;
I don%26#39;t think purposefuly so, Saxygirl. :-)
It is comments aimed, not at you, but at new readers.
IMO the purpose of TA is to offer local advice and opinion, a regular theme on many city forums is R.S.
and it%26#39;s often the same situation. Local people and regular visitors who have got to know a city don%26#39;t recognise some of the comments from R.S. followers.
It%26#39;s just a note for those want to listen to that opinion.
Many critics of R.S. believe those that follow his European guides in too much detail totally miss important cultural aspects of the cities in question. I%26#39;m from the camp that believes bringing an R.S. guidebook to Europe is a mistake, but there are two camps.
Someone said elsewhere, read some guides, do some detailed research before arriving but on arriving, use the school of life, you don%26#39;t need a book and will be better rewarded IMO.
Stoofer
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