To Europe and Back

Biking and Beer in Munich

We woke up to the unfortunate news that we would have to switch rooms at the hostel, which meant checking out at 10 a.m. and checking back in after 2 p.m. Not the end of the world, since we were planning on going on Mike's Bike Tour of Munich and would be out during that time anyway. We had breakfast at the hostel, packed up our things to store in the luggage room, and headed out to meet up with the tour despite the ominous looking weather.

There were about 18 people on our bike tour, which began just south of the Marienplatz. Our guide, Sigi, was fun and friendly throughout the tour, which included most of Munich's highlights, from the Residenz and the Peace Angel to the surfer wave and Chinese Tower in the English Garden. About 2 hours into the ride, we stopped for lunch and beers at the beer garden in the middle of the English Garden, which is Munich's equivalent to Central Park. Our guide claimed that the English Garden is six times the size of Central Park, but that's not true, since the English Garden is 1000 acres and Central Park is over 800 acres :) Everyone bikes a little more comfortably (and dangerously) once they drink a Liter of beer, so the return ride was fairly amusing. It poured during lunch, and then again just as we were returning to drop off the bikes, but we survived. We headed back to the hostel to check into our new room, do laundry, and make phone calls. Not very exciting, but such is life, even when you're travelling.

We made our reservation to take an overnight train to Prague on Tuesday night, so we had no choice but to hit Munich's most famous beer hall, Hofbrauhaus to drink beer and listen to the house oompah band. We ran into a guy that we met on the bike tour and joined his rowdy table, full of flirty drunk Germans waiting for a bus to Venice, several girls from Australia on a Contiki tour, and a few other American travelers (MA, NYC, and Washington, D.C. all represented). Several liters of beer later, we returned to our hostel and I think I had the best night of sleep I've had since I left home.

posted by Heather @ 6:50 PM