By eevenden
Hello everyone!
As promised, here is a continuation of my blog form last week about my trip to Germany. On Monday, I took the train from Frankfurt to Munich as I progressed through Bavaria. Upon arrival, I was immediately impressed by bustle and diversity of the city and its inhabitants. After checking into my hostel, I immediately went to explore the old, picturesque city-center.
Monday (April 23rd)
For the rest of Monday, my primary goal was to walk-around and see some of the popular sights of Munich. What really impressed me was the architecture of the city. It seemed like around every corner there was a new grand cathedral or theater. What I really enjoyed, which I guess is not available in Reykjavik, was the energy of the crowds walking around. Over 70 degrees F, it was like a warm summer’s night in the city. I ended the evening with a pretzel, happy to be in Munich.
Tuesday (April 24th)
Before coming here, I had consulted one of my friends in Iceland (who is from Munich) about what I should do while in the area. I asked him for some hiking recommendations since I wanted to take advantage of warmth and nature. He gave me several recommendations for some closer and further away hikes. Since I had three days in Munich, I decided to do two of them.
On Tuesday I did a shorter hike since I was going to meet Dagmar’s brother for dinner in the city. This hike (I believe its called the Five Lakes Trail) was just outside of Munich, in a town called Herrsching, and climbed a forested hill to a monastery called Kloster Andechs. The monastery is both old and beautiful and today is famous for brewing beer. Honestly, it was a bit confusing trying to find the trail initially since it starts in a town. But eventually the streets thinned and forest took over. Over the course of three hours, I walked from town to woods to monastery to lake (luckily able to follow signs instead of checking my phone every 10 minutes). Overall it was a very good day with excellent weather.
I returned to Munich with the commuter train, and after washing up, met Dagmar’s brother for dinner. We went to an Italian restaurant near his neighborhood in Munich. It was an excellent meal with interesting conversation.
Wednesday (April 25th)
Wednesday was my big hiking day. Since I was in Bavaria, I couldn’t resist doing a trip south to the Alps region. At the recommendation of my friend, I decided to do a long hike in the ‘Pre-Alps” (the “foothills of the Alps”) near a lake called Walchensee. To get there, I took the earliest regional train I could from the Munich Central Station at 6am Kochel. From there, I took the bus to the trail-head. I made sure to pack lots of food and 5 liters of water for the journey since online it had said the trail would take at least 7 hours. The loop started from the base of mountain ridge that consists of several peaks including Heimgarten and Herzongstand, which reach over 1790 m in altitude (about 5,900 feet). This was both the first hike I have done by myself and the hardest hike I’ve ever done, so it was certainly going to be a challenge. However, I was never really alone. There were tons of very athletic retirees there too. You can follow my progress in the photos below.
I was very, very happy I decided to do this hike. The mountains were absolutely stunning and I really felt accomplished when I got back down. (The first thing I did was buy an ice cream and some French fries at the bottom). Afterwards, I took the bus and train back to Munich and was pleasantly surprised that everything went smoothly. Then I basically went to bed right afterwards.
Thursday (April 26th)
On my final day in Munich, I obviously planned to take it a bit easy after the hike. I started the day by going to a vegan café that my friend suggested. I’m not vegan, but at least if I can’t figure out the menu, I know it’s all vegetarian. I had some really nice scrambled tofu and cherry tomatoes. For my main activity, however, I decided to go to the Deutsche Museum, a museum of science and technology, at Dagmar’s suggestion. It was quite unlike any museum I have been to in the US because it focused on engineering history. I only made it to 6 exhibits (of perhaps 20 or 30), in the 3 hours I was there. I learned about metallurgy and different casting methods, power machines, alternative energy, and last but not least cartography! They had a whole exhibit dedicated to geography which was cool for me. Since I didn’t get to go through the entire museum, I bought a really big book about its different exhibits at the end, as well as a book about nanotechnology. Afterwards, it was time to head to the airport and fly back to Reykjavik!
In the end, my trip to Munich was very busy and fun! I am really happy I decided to take Dagmar’s advice and go!
I believe next week will be my final blog post, as my time here in Iceland wraps up. I will probably ask to push it back another week or two because then I am going on my glacial geology fieldwork trip and will have something more interesting than final exams to talk about.
-Emily