Hofbrauhaus @ Munich

Hofbrauhaus is a Must See/Do in Munich!Sure its a tourist trap, but its one of those touristy places that is worth getting caught up in. Munich's oldest beer hall is one of the best experiences in Munich, tradition and history along with great beer, oompah band and decent bavarian food.

 

 The beer hall is is enormous and can seem intimidating at first. The atmosphere is loud, joyous, chaotic, but not always friendly. The been hall is very open with the standard large tables and bench seating. The place does get very busy so find a bench and just sit on it! . There are 3 floors so you can normally find somewhere to sit. You just need to find a spot and claim it! No tables to yourself. Long communal tables basically force you to sit with people you don’t know. But, everyone's fine with that, since people come here to drink and socialize to their heart's content. . Finding a seat is hard work but you can always squeeze in somewhere

It took about 15 minutes to find a spot and another 5-6 for a server to come by. Don’t go here expecting Haute cuisine and attentive service. It is unlikely to be awarded Michelin Stars anytime soon. 

Apparently the locals have their own beer bugs which they lock at the Beer Mug Lockers which was a bit difficult for me to understand, but I don't know the whole story either.

Beer Lockers

We tried the pretzels,  the Hofbräu München Dunkel (dark lager) and  radler (half beer half lemonade). All were amazing

Radler & Dunkel

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Munich and BMW Welt

During my last visit to Munich, BMW Welt was still under construction, and the BMW Museum was in a temporary tent in the Olympicpark . Naturally, on my recent visit to Munich, BMW Welt and the Museum was  on top of my list.

My flight from San Francisco landed in Munich in the evening. I was staying at the Le Meridien, Munich which is right across the Munich Hauptbahnhof station. So I took the S-bahn S8 train from the airport to Hauptbahnhof station which is about 30 mins ride. 

After checking in to the hotel and relaxing a bit, I walked across Marienplatz to Hofbrauhaus for dinner. You can read about it in my other blog here. 

The next morning I took the subway to the Olympic Park station (Olympiazentrum) which drops you right at the BMW Welt. Since it was around 8am in the morning and BMW welt was not open yet, I strolled around the Olympic Park for an hour or so before walking across to the Welt

Looking at the Welt and BMW HQ from the Olympic Tower

BMW Welt and the BMW World Headquarters building

BMW Welt Double Cone

The BMW Welt building is amazing to look at and huge. Contrary to the popular notion, the BMW Welt and BMW Museum are not one and the same, they are two separate buildings on
the adjacent sides of the Lerchenauer Strasse but connected by a pedestrian over-bridge, but both are unique in their own ways and must see whether you are a car buff or not. BMW Welt houses all the latest offerings and the entrance is free whereas the BMW Museum houses the history in a chronological orientated display of its vehicles from past. 

BMW Welt is a massive car complex dedicated to everything BMW has to offer. I strolled around the building for couple of hours and what I realized is that the site is divided into 2 sections. The Welt ("world" in english) on the lower level.....a showcase of BMW's pursuit of engineering perfection and the company's vision for the future  and upper level..... entirely dedicated for the customer experience. This is where you come to pick up your BMW if decide to do the european delivery program, your car will be waiting for you in the building and BMW concierge will go thru a sequential ceremonial steps before you drive away in your new BMW.

Okay I will stop writing now as the pictures do the justice!

After I walked over to the museum from the Welt. You take an overhead bridge. Unlike the Welt, the Museum is not free. It cost 9 euros to get in but  worth the value. You get to see the past 100 years in the history of BMW and its evolution, from the first engine till the newest models including some futuristic designs too. It's pointless to describe, you need to see it yourself.

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Berlin in 48 hours

We arrived at Berlin main train station just after 1 PM and I was surprised how huge the glass structure seemed to be. You can check out my Frankfurt to Berlin post here . We came to the hotel at about 3 PM . The location of our hotel was great – located in the Mitte area, only few blocks away from the Alexander Platz  and right next to a U-bahn station (the subway) so only  few subway stops away from all the main tourist attractions.  

Berlin is a big city and it is of course great to walk around the entire city looking at famous monuments, museums, gardens, etc. But eventually you’ll get worn out from all the walking and then you need a good and fast way to get around. It seems like the public transportation is quite excellent in Berlin. The U-Bahn covers most of the city with frequent stops around town.

We were in Berlin just for the weekend, so the typical touristy stuff  we covered are the main historical sights in Mitte (the old centre of town in former East Berlin covering the area between Brandenburg Gate and Alexanderplatz ),  Brandenburg Gate, the street of Unter den Linden, the Reichstag, Berlin Wall, Holocaust Memorial, Museum Island, Checkpoint Charlie and enough time to walk around the Potsdamer Platz, Tiergarten and former West Berlin.

We took a walk along Unter den Linden towards the Brandenburg gate (Brandenburger Tor). Brandenburg gate is one most recognized places of Germany, hence lots of tourist here. Still an impressive site. 

Alexanderplatz is not a particularly nice area of Berlin, has a  large shopping area. Kind of grim, concretey and unattractive. The TV tower- Fernsehturm is imposing.

Reichstag, or the German parliament is an impressive building with beautiful views. We couldn't go up the wonderful glass dome, apparently you have to book in advance to go up in the dome. The line outside was close to the longest line that I have ever seen. So we settled for the view of the building 

Checkpoint Charlie is located on Friedrichstrasse which is full of shops,cafes and restaurants with lot of people and nice atmosphere.  At Checkpoint Charlie today you can find a replica of the sign and watch booth that was once there but there is not that much else to remind you of the history that the place holds. It  is very tourist centered with funny costumed "soldiers" to take pictures with, but this is it. 

Museum Island is a small island that contains the Berliner Dom, Pergamonmuseum  and a few other museums and hence the name museuminsel (museum island). The Berliner Dom church was partially destroyed during World War 2 but it has been restored in a "simplified" form. The church looked really impressive on the outside, but we decided not to  check out the inside

The Paragmonmuseum is not as extensive as museums like Louvre and the Vatican museum, so I wasn't expecting to spend too many hours inside, however the entrance had a long line, something like 45-60 minutes to get in, so decided to skip it.

Berliner Dom

Potsdamer Platz

Berlin is a huge city and well worth a visit. Lots of great restaurants to check out and lots of attractions to visit. We were not able to cover all the places that we wanted to. So the next time I go there I would like more time so I can visit some of the places that I missed.

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Frankfurt to Berlin on ICE, the german high speed train

I was in Frankfurt last month to attend a conference, since my wife had also tagged along with me, we decided to spend the weekend in Berlin. There were couple of things I was looking forward to my journey to Berlin;

1. Ride on the ICE train.
2. The new Berlin Hauptbahnof.

DB's Inter City Express or "ICE " high speed trains are among the best-known brands of Germany, that said, I decided to take the train to Berlin instead of flying. My only other experience on a high speed train was on Thallys from Paris to Brussels. We booked the tickets online two weeks in advance and were lucky enough to get the reduced price fare. I was hoping that I could get on the third generation ICE3 train which supposedly goes over a speed of 300km/hr (It takes less than an hour to travel a distance of 140miles from frankfurt to Cologne on ICE3) , but it turned out that Frankfurt-Berlin was operated by ICE2 trains which is slightly slower than ICE3, but ofcourse still way faster than the Amtraks we are used to.

We arrived at the Frankfurt Haupbahnof 30 mins before our scheduled departure. Since we had already reserved our seats, we knew which car to board and finding our seats was very painless. They even had our names printed above our seats. The train itself was very nice compared to Thallys. The seats were large with lots of legroom and looked like the business class seats of a transatlantic flight. The coolest part was the electronic tableau over the sliding glass doors which shows the actual speed of the train. When I looked at it on the way to the restroom it was showing 240 km/h. That’s probably the fastest speed I’ve ever traveled at, without leaving the ground.

The German country side had some breathtaking views. The train makes few stops on the way to Berlin including Wolfsburg. For all the VW fans outhere, the Wolfsburg station is right next to the Volkswagon factory and you can pretty much see the the entire factory, customer delivery center & VW museum buildings from the train.

It took slightly less than 4 hours to reach Berlin, we got off at the new spanking Berlin central station or the Hauptbahnhof. The entire building is made of glass, its huge and amazing to look at, it looked so delicate that I felt that the entire building could come crashing down if the glass shatters. If you ever get off at Berlin Hauptbanhof walk towards the center of the building and you could see trains moving in all three levels.It's a remarkable piece of design and engineering. It's also one of the biggest shopping centers in Berlin and pretty cool out there.

ICE Train

One of the three levels 

Main Entrance

In my opinion ICE trains are definitely much better than Thallys and I believe Thallys and French TGV operate similiar trains. Hopefully I can take the eurostar later this year and decide for myself which is the best train in Europe. My only advice if your are planning on taking ICE is to reserve your seats in advance.

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24 hours in Frankfurt

Most of the people coming to Frankfurt, are on their way to going somewhere else, which is to say that they are changing flights at the mammoth Frankfurt International Airport. But if you are at the Frankfurt airport and NOT a transit passengers, then fear not: Frankfurt is the financial capital of Europe, and public transportation from the airport into town is as good as anywhere in the world. Its about 20 min train ride (S-Bahn) to the city centre.

Compared to other european cities Frankfurt has a modern skyline. It is served with a mixture of subway lines & Trams, but walking is not at all a bad option. The city’s core, emanating from the city hall plaza known as the Römerberg is compact, with enough shopping to keep you busy. 

Romerberg

The Zeil – stretching between Konstablerwache and Hauptwache has the mainstream shopping. Head for the adjacent Goethestrasse if you fancy high-end and designer stuff.Walking along the paths on both sides of the river 'Main' is a nice experience. Most of the museums and galleries are flocked along the river and admissions to these are free.

Frankfurt is a cosmopolitan city and there are no scarcity of restaurants. It appeared to me that most Frankfurters eat everything but German when they go out. You can find all kinds of restaurants catering various budgets

European Central Bank

Lastly, Frankfurt is the home of the European Central Bank , which sets monetary policy for the Eurozone economy. So checkout the Euro Tower before leaving Frankfurt ,you can’t miss the big euro symbol with 12 stars .

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