The Professional Tourist

A bit unrelated to tour guiding, but today my mom and brother arrive from Minnesota, so there will be another break in the tour action. Well, technically tomorrow morning I’ll have a city tour (which they’ll go on as well), but it should be raining, so I don’t expect a lot of people. After that, thursday I have no idea on, but the Friday events are already scheduled…and the same with Saturday of course…so not a whole lot to think about right now, it’s auto-pilot time…which is nice.

Here’s a picture of John the Baptist’s head on a plate, which is in Neuburg:

Continuing in the series of possible things to see as day trips from Munich, let’s look at the beautiful town of Kelheim’s “Hall of Liberation.”

This large monument was built as a memorial commemorating the victories of the Bavarian armies against Napolean in 1813-1815. More information on it here.

Ok, so Kelheim is about an hour 1/2 north of Munich, near Prunn castle and Rosenburg castle, so you could do all three in one day, no problem.

Here’s some pictures of the Hall of Liberation:

[Listening to: We March To the Beat Of Indiff - NOFX - They’ve Actually Gotten Worse (5:40)]

As part of a series of places you could visit as a day trip from Munich, today I’d like to talk about Burghausen for a minute.

Burghausen is a town north of Salzburg, but on the Bavarian (German) side of the river. It has the longest castle in Europe and apparently gets very few tourists. The museum of the castle is owned by the Bavarian government and is included in any annual or 14-day pass for Bavarian palaces and castles.

Also in the castle is a seperate torture museum and city museum. All of the courtyards and walking paths around the castle are completely free and wonderful opportunities to explore an ancient castle.

I usually do Burghausen as part of a full day trip which also includes Fucking Austria (for the sign pictures) and Altötting (to see the Wittelsbach hearts & Tilly’s corpse). However, Burghausen alone is probably enough for most people.

I recently had another trip over there…and I believe it was one of the highlights of my friend’s visit to Bavaria, more so than anything in Munich. Here are some pictures of Burghausen:

For anyone who has visited Munich in the last 4+ years and was hoping to see the BMW museum and only found out while you were here that it was under construction: it’s finally done.

Three days after it’s grand opening, I had a chance to go through it with my friends Flipper, Brooke, and Karen.
Personally, I thought it was better than I expected, though lots of walking up and down and could be just too much for those not used to walking as much as I am. However, I still had a great time at the museum.

It costs a bit more than I had hoped, 12 Euros for an adult. Anyways, it’s finally open, YAY.

Well, as I’m writing this I feel like absolute crap. The last couple weeks I’ve been sneezing more than I have my entire life I think, and then this Monday I started noticing my throat hurting and my lungs burning…followed by a constant headache and running nose. SO, I’m doing well…umm…yeah.

Our house guests left on Wednesday, but I haven’t been back to work yet. Yesterday and today I should have been down at Neuschwanstein, I wish I could. The weather has even been nice….*sigh*.

Good news came last night of course, when Spain made it into the finals of the european soccer championship by beating Russia. Spain vs. germany for a final sounds good.

The last couple of weeks have flown by for me, though my visitors will note that we were doing 7-13 miles a day, every day. I uploaded the pictures to my photobucket account, anyone looking for the older pics from 10kegs.com might find it rather hard as 10kegs was moved to a German server and I have yet to transfer anything over to it.

In other news, my mom and bro will be here in less than two weeks, and then we’ll have the wedding…which should be fun. Yesterday the city we’re getting married in even sent us a free cook book, which I though was pretty cute. *sigh* ….I should try to find if there’s a max amount of dayquil that I can take in a day…

Well, since I’ve had a couple days without tours, it’s kinda relaxing around here…although that stops at 12:40pm tomorrow, when I pick up our three guests at the airport, probably greeting them by immediately grabbing some good ol’ bavarian beers.

I do have a couple of tours this week, however. I have a Neuschwanstein tour on Thursday and a city tour on Friday. I took the weekend off so we could feel the full experience of Munich’s 850th anniversary, which should be fun. The European Cup soccer championships are taking place right now, so far everything is going as expected…nothing exciting. I want Spain to win…I highly doubt that will actually happen, but then again, I have no idea who plays for Spain. All I know is I want Germany to lose but gets reasonably close.

So, have a good one everybody, it’s time for me to eat some watermelon.

For the last 11 days I’ve been working every day mostly back and forth between Neuschwanstein and Salzburg. Tomorrow I only have a morning tour…and then I’ll have a break until Thursday, which feels great.

On Tuesday my good friends Flipper and Brooke will be here and so I’ll be giving more personal tours (if less professional). After the last couple of weeks, it feels just weird to have a few days off, but I’ll try to enjoy it. While I have visitors, it’s likely that I’ll be traveling with them all over Bavaria, to many places I haven’t been since the last time I had visitors…it’s been a while. It’s good because the more I go to these places, the better I get at them…and the more ideas I get for possible future tour day trips.

Here’s a pic of Flipper and Brooke’s last trip:

Want to know the best time to visit here? Well, I wrote an article on that recently and you can see it HERE.

Recently I’ve been quite busy as always. Our wedding is coming up very soon (July 12th), and so of course we have to find rings, a dress, food, cakes, invitations, etc, etc. …and I’ll use that as an excuse as to why there is a slight lull here.

However, this summer is going to be exciting for anyone reading here as well as, of course, for myself. I’ll have guests staying here in July, which means I’ll be traveling all over the region and will hopefully have fun things to mention about that. In July, other than my wedding, I’ll have my mom and brother visiting so I’ll be doing tours which I normally don’t do around the area with them as well…and so that might be interesting. Then, in August Petra and I will be going to Paris and I’m sure I’ll have a ton to write about on that one.

Also, for www. travel-plan-idea.com, I plan to write quite a number of articles to go along with the very randomness of my own blog here.

I had to buy’em…for the record, they don’t taste anything like beer.

In other beer news:  http://www.thestar.com/living/article/424975

[Listening to: X-Ray Hamburger - The Network - Money Money 2020 (3:15)]

For anyone not on my e-mail lists, I’d like to announce that Petra and I are getting married on July 12th…with a 2nd (bigger) wedding in Minnesota much later.

One of the most commonly asked questions I get is “where is the flea market in Munich?” To which I respond that there are no constantly running flea markets and although you can find ones on weekends (such as the flea market held in the parking lot of the olympic park every weekend during the summer), they’re just not impressive.

The Auer Dult is what they’re really looking for, but they have to be here at the right time of year. If you’re looking for a flea market in Munich and for whatever reason (no, I don’t understand) want to plan your vacation around it, here are the dates:

Maidult: April 26-May4
Jakobidult: July 26-Aug3
Kirchweihdult: Oct 18-Oct26

It’s located at Mariahilfplatz, which is outside of the downtown area, so you could easily miss it even if you spent a week wandering around town. You can take bus 52 from Marienplatz right to it or take tram 27 from Karlsplatz.

That’s right, it’s held three times a year. It’s a little more than a flea market as it has lots of food stands as well as rides and whatnot…could be fun. You can also find more information here.

Here’s a link to a good picture of it so you know what to look for.

Each year, around this time, they hold a medieval fair, night’s tournament, and whatever…on the south side of the olympic park. This year’s “Ritter in Munich” starts tomorrow and goes until May 4th. Last year I didn’t go because it was raining on the one day we had available for it (either that or Petra didn’t feel like moving out of her chair, which happens equally as often). This year, Petra’s in China until the 4th, so I’d either have to go alone or randomly find someone to go with…so I probably won’t make it.

For English speakers I don’t think it’s that much fun anyways, just as it might not be that fun for a German who doesn’t speak English to go to Renaissance festival in the states. Still…I enjoy that kind of thing…oh well.

For those who want to go and are in the area, April 25-May 4th are the dates for 2008, you can see the schedule here.

For some reason, I like the idea of launching a BMW one series off of a massive ramp.

Apparently others do too.

Munich’s spring festival has started here in Munich and will be running until April 27th. The city advertises it as the “kleine Schwester des Oktoberfestes” (little sister of the Oktoberfest), but anyone who has been there will say differently.

The festival itself is mostly known by the locals for the opening weekend flea market which is the biggest of the region, held just the one time a year, the first Saturday of the festival. The rest of the spring festival is rather normal for a bavarian volksfest and very small in comparison to the Oktoberfest. That being said, the comments you mostly hear from those visiting the Frühlingsfest is that it was a lot of kids (15-20 year old kids) and certainly not what they expected. From my experience I think that’s at least partly true, although all age groups are represented. I don’t believe the phrase “little sister of the Oktoberfest” is deserved, however, as it just isn’t the same atmosphere at all and isn’t even representative of similar festivals to the Oktoberfest.

If you happen to be in Munich during the spring festival, then by all means, have an evening out at the Theresienwiese (oktoberfest grounds) for the Frühlingsfest. Personally I prefer the normal Bavarian volksfests and even the actual Oktoberfest more so than the spring festival, although you take what you can get, I suppose.

For a list of volksfests around the area happening all spring/summer/fall, check this site out.

Here’s some pictures from the spring festival 2007:

My former favorite döner place is finally open again!  For those visiting Munich on a budget, döner is your friend.  There are a few döner places that I visit fairly often, but the one I’ve been craving for over a year, “Ali baba” is finally open again.  They renovated the entire building including the helvetia hotel above it…which took well over a year.  Now it’s back and the döner is as good as ever…same workers, same mostly turkish customers.

The place makes their own bread, has spices on the tables, and has all fresh vegies.  Next time you’re near the main train station in Munich, stop by and try one…you will be damn impressed.

It’s on Schiller str, a 1 minute walk from the Hauptbahnhof (main train station) of Munich. 

This is what a tour guide lives off of:

So, I was doing my usual thing as far as tours last December and a guy took my business card, as hundreds do a year, and I didn’t think much of it as time goes by fast as you’re going back and forth amongst Germany & Austria’s greatest sights.  Last week I was contacted to be a guest writer for his website/blog on travel.  This being right up my alley, I went for it.  Anyways, here’s the link.  I have a few articles already posted there, but you should expect to see more from me there as it will be an outlet for things that for whatever reason don’t fit here.

In other news, Petra and I went bowling last Sunday and it was a lot of fun…so we plan on going bowling maybe once a month, mas o menos.  Here’s a pic of the local bowling alley which is about 5 minutes away: