Where are the Park Rangers?

After and extremely long and exhausting train ride from Prague to Munich, I was finally ready to experience Germany for the first time. Traveling with my good friend Dave and new friend Brian, we didn’t arrive into Munich until about 10:30 Friday night. It has been said that first impressions are everything, but Munich showed me this is not always the case. After getting out of the train station, I found myself feeling the opposite way I did in Amsterdam; I was surprised at how FEW people were walking the streets. Once we checked into our beautiful yet pricey “Hotel Adria” we decided to take a stroll around the central square to find some drinks. One would think in a city with about 1,300,000 people it wouldn’t be hard to find a standard bar open on a Friday night, but this wasn’t the case. The only bars which seemed to be open were bars with all glass windows and candle lit tables, packed with 25-35 year old business professionals. We all agreed those places were not our “scene” and called it a night. At this point I couldn’t help but think how my experience in Prague would completely overshadow Munich, but I was wrong.

Before sleeping on Friday night, I decided to do a little research about the places to go and sights to see. Like most large European cities, a river (the Isar River) flows directly through the urban area which once allowed for easy transportation and trade. This river branches off in many places throughout the city, causing many creeks to run along and underneath roads and sidewalks, leaving countless striking scenes. Again like many old European cities, Munich was once a small town enclosed by a wall, but eventually tore down the wall due to population increases in order to expand further out in Germany. With this expansion came the beautiful and lush green parks, also known as “beer gardens”. Brian, Dave, and I all agreed we had to see these gardens because they are in a huge European city where you will rarely see any green grass within city limits.

http://www.discover-munich.info/about_munich.php

After a hardy breakfast of frosted flakes, coffee and a beautifully bright orange-ish pastel colored peach on Saturday, we were ready to experience my favorite part of the weekend: the beer gardens! As we were making our way onto the giant open lush green grass fields, I couldn’t help but notice something a little different from a park in America; there were naked men lying out under the bright sun everywhere! We all shared a few chuckles realizing this was a simple cultural difference between Europe and America, but it was one that I was not quite prepared for! Seeing naked men all around made me wonder why these gardens were created instead of creating residential areas or industrial areas. I later found out from a Munich tour guide these gardens were created for military soldiers to pursue normal civilian activities like gardening in the 18th and 19th centuries. Walking on the bright green grass made me notice how there was virtually no trash anywhere to be found on the ground. To even more of my amazement, trashcans also seemed nowhere to be found (Another cultural difference from America).

Finally we all made it to our desired destination: the Englischer garden. In this garden live music was playing with a large sized building which sold everything from huge beer steins to seemingly every cooked animal you could imagine (and of course many sausages!). Wonderfully large trees shaded the sun from reaching our backs while sitting on the benches, which made this beer garden visit especially tranquil. After we finished our steins, it was time to head to the rumored fan-favorite beer garden in Munich: the Seehaus beer garden. In about a five minute walk, we came upon a large picturesque pond filled with mallard ducks, swans, and many other birds. The Seehaus garden was located directly on this large pond, with the benches and tables no more than a foot away from the water! We all bought another round of steins, this time to my dislike, a very sweet tasting beer. Fortunately the surroundings around me made my girly beer still taste like heaven :)

The beer gardens were the most soothing and relaxing experience I have had since arriving in Europe, and It completely changed my perception about Munich as a European city! If anyone is to ever ask me about Munich in the future, the first thing I will tell them is about the beer gardens. Even though Munich is a city with wonderful architecture, it was the beer gardens which distinguished this city from all other European cities I have seen so far on this trip.