Munich 2024, Day 2: Long walks in the park (Viktualienmarkt, Hofgarten, and the English Garden)
For our first full day in Munich, we decided to go to Cafe Schmalznudel, which known for the schmalznudel (as their name suggests):
They're essentially like donuts in that they're a fried dough, but instead of a ring, there's a small film of dough covering the hole. When we arrived there was ample seating outside for us to easily find a table. Our server arrived rather promptly, and we weren't completely ready, but she was kind enough to explain what the various pastry options were, but we all knew that we were there for the schmalznudel. For the sake of diversity, Nick ordered the krapfen, which was like a jelly filled donut, and Tiffany ordered the striezerl, which appeared to be a donut in a bar form:
Both the schmalznudel and the striezerl were served without any sugar, but each table had a jar of sugar for you to use for those items. Mike appreciated that we were given the option to sweeten the pastries to our liking. We also ordered some cappuccinos, but we really wanted iced drinks. Based on our couple of days in Germany so far, iced espresso drinks aren't always available at every coffee shop
After we finished our delicious items, we decided to order a second round of schmalznudel before proceeding with our day. Our next stop was the Marienplatz to watch the famous Glockenspiel. Usually at 11 and 12, the Glockenspiel will have a short performance to music while depicting a couple of scenes from Bavarian history. In the summer, there's an additional performance at 5pm. While we were walking to the main plaza, we walked past a chocolate store with a man offering samples, so we held out our hands, in which he placed a pretty pink ball. We thanked him and walked away, each devouring our sample. The first bite was great, but then we hit the center, and quickly realized that this was a chocolate covered black licorice ball, which definitely was not something that any of us really liked, but we were still grateful for the sample.
We then arrived at Marienplatz at 10:55, where a massive crowd was already gathered to watch the glockenspiel. It's an impressive sight from the plaza:
The entire show was under 10 minutes, but it was definitely a fascinating show to watch. And with it being so high up, everyone in the plaza has a view of the glockenspiel.
From there, we headed off to what we thought was the Adidas flagship store. Adidas is based out of Bavaria, so it wasn't a surprise to find a store in Munich. But when we arrived, we realized that the store was called Terrex:
As we entered, we realized that Terrex is their outdoor brand, similar to REI. Still, it was cool to see this side of the Adidas brand. A few buildings down, Nick wanted to stop in Asamkirche, a Catholic church that's known for its baroque style. Unfortunately, the exterior was under construction with scaffolding and protective materials, but the inside was extremely ornate:
Next, we noticed what appeared to be a gate of some sort at the end of this shopping street, so we headed off in that direction. While this gate was our intended destination, we (meaning Tiffany and I) got very distracted with various stores between the church and the gate. First off, we found this amazing looking cinnamon roll store, Cinnamood. We were all still quite full from our schmalznudel, but these all looked sooooo tempting;
Next, I suddenly looked to my right and saw my dream store, a Haribo store!!!
They're based out of Germany, and are my favorite gummy brand, so I had to go in. Nick obviously made the comment of how I'm acting like a kid in a candy store:
I resisted the urge to buy a gazillion bags of gummies, and left with three small bags. So far, my collection of Haribo has increased quite a lot:
We then continued our way to the gate, when we saw this store:
Not pictured is the pink Snoopy shirt hanging outside that caught my attention (because I eventually bought it). Inside, a pretty German Shepherd was taking a nap, wanting nothing to do with all of the attention we were trying to give her:
With our retail therapy finished, we finally made it to Sendlinger Tor, a gate in the old city wall from the late 1300s:
From there, we walked back a bit to where we started our day and entered Viktualienmarkt, a large farmers market with many food, produce, and flower stalls. We were getting quite thirsty due to the heat, so we stopped by this cute little juice stall to get a refreshing drink:
With juice in hand, we were feeling more energized and began exploring the area. There were so many cute stalls to look at, and the produce looked amazing. There were also quite a number of people there, both locals and tourists:
Nick wanted some more coffee, and I noticed a sign on the path pointing to a coffee shop, so we headed over there…and then we saw the line and quickly changed our mind. Instead, we walked further down and saw this adorable coffee stall:
We had planned to grab lunch in Viktualienmarkt, but it was so busy at every restaurant and food stall, we decided to head to the Opera House instead in hopes of finding food on the way there. While we didn’t find lunch, we did get some nice photos of the opera house:
And then we did some quick research and walked a few minutes to this awesome Italian restaurant, Il Tenore:
It was located on a side street, so it wasn’t crowded, but we did have to wait a few minutes to get a seat outside. Once seated, Nick and I ordered the pasta all’amatriciana and the pasta pomodoro, respectively:
It was also nice to just get off of or feet since we had been standing and walking for a few hours up until this point. But we didn’t want to spend too much time resting because we had a few more things to see in the area, such as the Munich Residenz and garden next to it. We sort of took the back entrance, but we were still able to access some of the interior courtyards:
Outside the other side of the Residenz, we appreciated some of the awesome buildings in the plaza there:
And then we walked into Hofgarten, a beautiful garden that’s basically a public park. The central area with some fountains and a cupola was spectacular:
There were also numerous areas with trees offering shade for those who wanted to take a break from the sun. Along the outer perimeter of the Hofgarten were numerous groups of people playing pétanque. The old men would occasionally yell at people who walked through their not clearly marked play area, so we made sure to walk around all of them to avoid their fury.
Next to the Hofgarten is the Bavarian State Chancellery:
From there, it was a short walk to the English Garden, which serves as a large public park in the middle of Munich. Because of the hot weather, it was full of people enjoying the sun, taking a dip in the river, playing soccer in the large field, or just walking around:
Our first stop was the Monopterus, a Greek inspired structure placed atop a hill in the park:
If you’re in that area of the park, it’s pretty hard to miss, and once you walk up there, you get a great view of the park and Munich.
We continued on to the next stop in the park, the Chinese Tower, a pagoda like structure. I guess really we were supposed to visit it during Oktoberfest or some other festival because its purpose serves as a beer hall, but since nothing was really happening during our visit, all we got was the tower with many empty tables surrounding it:
After doing so much walking in the heat, we decided to head back to the hotel to rest before dinner. We hadn’t planned on anything for dinner, but we sort of wanted something Asian, so we decided on Aimy. We ordered a few appetizers and some entrees to share:
It was pretty good, but it seemed like the kitchen was understaffed because it took an hour for our entrees to arrive after our appetizers were cleared from our table. We had thought about getting dessert there, but didn’t want to risk waiting another 30 minutes, so we got the check and called it a night.
According to MIke, we walked 6.8 miles today, so we definitely deserved a good night’s sleep!