Night Stroll in Munich

By the time we had finished our, ahem, business at Hofbrauhaus, night had fallen and the city had quieted. It was too late to finish the walking tour we had started, but we would have time for that the following day. 

Our first wandering had to be back to our Munich home base, Marienplatz, with its impressive New Town Hall. Pictured behind the Hall (farther away than it looks) are the twin onion domes of Frauenkirche. I love the way historic European buildings are illuminated at night. Care is taken to catch every facet of the buildings, and details can be seen at night that are washed out by bright daytime sun. The soft yellow and white glow bring out the figures of each of the countless statues, reliefs, and Neo-Gothic points on this beautiful building.

New Town Hall at Night

A Brighter Angle

It seemed the pretzels weren't enough for a sustaining meal. Luckily, street food carts were still open, and we had the first of what would prove to be many, many, (many) sausages on this Continental journey. The bratwursts here were, as expected, nothing like the old Johnsonville brats of American fame. We noticed much more fennel taste in all of the sausages here, and American packaged brats usually have very little fennel flavor. For those unfamiliar, fennel tastes just a bit like black licorice. As scary as that sounds, it only actually makes food taste like licorice when it is overused. When added in proper ratio with other sausage spices, it imparts a very fragrant and almost floral taste and smell. It's quite nice. Maybe not enough to make one forswear the old Johnsonville variety, but it's always good to enjoy more than one kind of sausage, right?

...I hope so.

First of Many Sausages

We took a nice walk through the now-sleepy shopping district of Munich. The nightlife scene is in a different part of town, so much like Dublin's Grafton Street, things seemed to shut down early and the street was left to the evening strollers like us.

Landgericht Munchen- Munich District Court Palace of Justice

A building we had seen shortly after getting off the train was the enormous Palace of Justice, which sounds better in English than Munich District Court. Not much signage labeled it as such, at least not on the side we passed each day. We made a note to look it up when we got home. We should have known it was a courthouse, as so many American local courts sport the same towers and statues. Lady Justice must be up there somewhere...

Upon returning to the hostel, we couldn't help but avail ourselves of the 2 Euro Augustiner beers at the hostel bar. Dubliners would scramble for a 2 Euro pint anywhere in town, even if it meant they had to hang around with a bunch of younger, more-attractive-than-they-are-and-so-what-if-they-are? backpackers.

We would pay a visit to the home of Augustiner beer the following day, but that's for another post.

First Augustiner Pints

We had to get our beauty sleep, for we had a big day of Munich sightseeing the next day, and had to get an early start.