Munich - Day 1

This past Saturday, we all boarded a plane and headed down to the heart of Bavaria, Munich.

Our hotel was nice and conveniently located near the main train station as well as the main pedestrian shopping area.

If we had been interested in hitting a strip club, our hotel was also conveniently flanked by two of those establishments.

The lion is the symbol of Bavaria, and as seems to be very popular these days, there were statues throughout the city that were painted in a variety of patterns and styles. However, Munich really went all out. While some cities might have a few statues around town, Munich has somewhere around 500 lions.

This was great fun for SJ, who really enjoyed looking at the lions. We usually only had to walk about 30-40 feet before we would run into another lion, with another opportunity to sit on top for a photo op.

We ended our first day in Munich with a viewing of the famous Glockenspiel. It's hard to really pin down what is the most overrated tourist attraction in Europe, but Munich's Glockenspiel would be a serious contender.

It features a "jousting match" between two knights on horses (one from Bavaria and one from Austria), that hurtle towards each other at the speed of about 0.1 miles per hour. Just when you think your heart can no longer stand the excitment, they actually miss each other.

They then circle around, and go at it again. This time the knight from Bavaria knocks over the knight from Austria. At least that is what happened the couple times we saw it. Personally, I think the match might be rigged.