The Magic of Munich

Usually when we fly back and forth from Europe we go through London. This time we decided to visit our friend Robert in Munich. It was the first time I stayed in Munich longer than a connection flight at the airport. This Bavarian gem dazzles you with copper domed churches, grand stone architecture and city halls that have cuckoo clocks that are 4 stories high. Every 15 minutes the doors open and German florlines are chased by young dashing German mechanical boys. Motion on the street stops as people gaze at the huge display that would fit right in at Disneyland’s Small World ride. It is all ceremonial and wonderful.

Robert has three bikes so we spent the first day peddling around the city, visiting vast parks that were once international flower festivals and rivers where even in late March sun worshipers were prepping their tans for summer. Across the bridge and further up the river we stopped to see a bunch of surfers surfing the narrow river. Yeah you read that right. They surf in Munich. There is a section of the river that steadily flows under the bridge and as it comes out it crests into a constant wave. City signs forbid swimming because of the current. But surfing has become an acclaimed event that regularly happens and the cautions are ignored. We continued on to even bigger city parks, in fact the biggest park found in any city in the world is in Munich. There are open squares where kings once lived and circled plazas where people hang out in the afternoon sun. The architecture is beautiful old world built at a time when buildings were built of stone to last the centuries, not the decades. It is a very livable city that anyone would find charming and enchanting.