Visiting Munich

Although we had been staying in Munich, we didn’t get to explore around the city until our last full day. We had only seen a Christmas market the first night and explored Marienplatz after our Dachau trip. I knew that I wanted one full day for seeing Munich to the fullest extent. Just a short train ride into the city center, our first stop was scaling three hundred (steep) steps to the top of Peterskirche. The view from the tower overlooked the entire city, including Frauenkirche and Neues Rathaus. I circled the balcony at least three times to completely take it in. The journey back down was equally as exhausting, but the view was worth it.

For us, there was no real itinerary for visiting Munich. Our only semblance of a plan was to just walk around and do whatever we felt. At one point, we played around on a teeter-totter in the middle of a playground. Around lunchtime, we stumbled upon Eataly, a market-meets-food-court experience (complete with a Nutella cafe!). The atmosphere reminded me of Anaheim’s Packing District; it reminded me of home. The streets of Munich were exactly what I pictured when planning my trip to Germany. The quaint architecture and the brick orange rooftops made up my ideal classic German city.

Towards the end of the day, we were faced with two options: try to make a trip to Neuschwanstein Castle (two hours away) or visit the Nymphenburg Palace within the city. Guess what we picked. Well, I’ll just tell you, we chose Nymphenburg, but I still hope to visit Neuschwanstein one day! Swans paddled around in the lake, welcoming their visitors; walking up to the palace felt like a scene straight out of a movie. We watched the sunset as we strolled through the gardens for our last outing in Munich. Since it was our last night in the city, we visited the Christmas market for the last time, listening to a choir sing hymns from the city hall balcony and eating apple cinnamon crepes. Rather than planning every step of our day, we let spontaneity get the best of us, and it was perfect.