From Christmas Markets to River Surfing: Exploring Munich

Home to the OG Oktoberfest and some of the best Christmas markets in the whole world.

Germany's third largest city will make all your Bavarian dreams come true.

Think huge steins of beer paired with steaming sausage, sometimes served by a guy wearing lederhosen, and some good oompapa polka music in the background.

This week we're going to talk about Munich.

David, how you doing?

I'm doing great.

I am just back from Munich.

I was just there about this time last week.

Fantastic, fantastic.

So all your memories are fresh and ready to go.

And it is one of my favorite places I've been twice this year and a number of times in the past.

So I really think it's an underrated city.

I think people think about Germany, they think about Berlin and, you know, river cruises on the Rhine and the Danube, which are wonderful.

But.

But, yeah.

Did you have a good time in Munich when you were there?

We had a great time.

It was a very quick trip.

My daughter and I were doing a quick tour through Europe as I was on my way to a travel conference and wanted to hit some of the best Christmas markets in Europe.

And we managed to route our flights so we could get about 12 hours in Munich.

And the great thing with 12 hours in Munich, you can actually see a lot.

We managed to.

There's a.

The train out of the airport goes directly to Marienplatz, the main sort of square in town where the main Christmas market is.

So.

So we spent a lot of time checking that out, trying out some.

All the different Christmas delicacies that you get at the Christmas markets in Germany.

We went over to the Munich residence, the former sort of royal residence, Royal palace, where they've got a beautiful.

That was probably our favorite Christmas market in kind of a courtyard there and toured around there.

And then the last one that I've got to give a shout out to was right at the airport itself, actually one of the best Christmas markets of the day.

Right outside between Terminal 1 and Terminal 2.

Had a skating rink, had tons of great German food.

So even if you're only on, like a short stopover at the Munich airport, you could still get that German Christmas market experience as well.

So we loved it that you've been a lot more times than we have.

Yeah, I love.

I love that they have a Christmas market at the airport.

And I mean, Munich is a major connection point for international flights.

I know there's direct flights from Toronto to Munich and lots of other cities.

So, yeah, even if you're connecting through.

That's.

That's fantastic to be able to experience the Christmas market there.

And you, you've been like a ton of European Christmas markets, haven't you?

Like, this was, this was my first time really experiencing that firsthand.

And I mean, first for anyone who's never been to a European Christmas market before, it's something, I think a bucket list thing you've got to do.

It's, it's a great.

From the food cultural perspective, it's just a ton going on there.

But I don't know how, how would you rank the German Christmas markets against some of the others across, across Europe that you've been to?

Well, I, I think the German Christmas markets are the best in the world.

And I believe we might need to fact check this, but I believe that the Munich Christmas market is the oldest in the world.

So they were the first to do it and they're kind of the best to do it.

And I know all year round Marion Platz is such a, such a beautiful, beautiful place.

The neo gothic old town hall that is there and then the residents, which as you mentioned, also has Christmas markets that's just walking distance, very close by.

The first bricks were laid.

And it's got 10 courtyards, it's got 130 rooms to tour through.

There's all kinds of museums and galleries.

I think there's even like an Egyptian museum, all sorts of things to see there.

So that is a very, very fascinating place to visit all year round.

And I have a couple other favorite places to go to.

You know, summertime, fall, whenever you visit.

Did you get a chance to go to the English Garden?

Was that a place where you went or.

No?

It was on my list.

We did not have in our 12 hours.

We didn't take it there.

Yeah, yeah.

Between three Christmas markets and everything else.

No.

I love the English Garden.

I was there in the summer this year and it is, it's a park that is 900 acres.

It's bigger than Central Park.

It's bigger than Hyde park in London.

And it is just a place that you can get lost.

You can walk right.

You can walk from Marienplatz, you can walk right from the middle of the city and you go down the paths and you're just surrounded by trees.

There's even a little lake.

And I think my favorite thing about the park and about that area remind me we'll loop back into a can't miss.

Because I have something related for a can't miss at the end of the episode is the river that comes down from the Alps goes right through the city, and right in the middle of the summer, you see people just jumping in the river, riding the.

Riding the current down the river.

So you just see these heads that are just above the water level drifting down the river, and then there's these ladders that come up out of the river, and so people just.

Just go for a dip.

I don't think I've ever seen that anywhere else in the world where.

Where people jump in the water, drift with the current down, maybe out in the forest or something.

This is right in the heart of the city, so a very, very cool place.

Are they wearing wetsuits outside in the city?

Are they wearing wetsuits or how.

What are they doing here?

Oh, you know, I mean, I guess the water.

I mean, it comes down from the Alps, so it's got to be cold water.

But most of the people that I saw were just wearing bathing suits and jumping in.

So whether they're just especially.

I mean, Germans tend to be kind of hardy people, so maybe they're especially, you know, hardy about that.

But very, very cool to see.

I didn't do it myself.

I will put a footnote that I did not do it myself, but it was cool to see.

Let's talk a little bit about food.

I know we both have the same place on our list.

Tell me.

Tell me your favorite place to eat.

I mean, our.

Our favorites were actually just getting out to the various different market stalls.

And I mean, in addition to that, Marion Platz Christmas market itself, where there was all kinds of great food options.

They had their.

Their sort of renowned farmer's market that happens all year round that was just maybe another two, three blocks away from there.

And lots of great little restaurants there.

Lots of great, quick, informal places to stop and get some.

Get some food.

We also had to, of course, check out the iconic sort of Oktoberfest experience for a house.

I'm curious to hear what you think of it, Tim.

I mean, first of all, the music, the atmosphere was great.

The beer comes in giant steins as big as your head.

So that was a big bonus.

I thought the food was a little.

Little mid, in my opinion.

And some of the Germans, you know, their recommendation to me was definitely go check it out and go have a drink there.

But it wasn't their top choice for food.

But you had a better dining experience there.

I think than I did, I think.

Because, you know, I love those kind of German classics.

Actually my mother's side of the family is German.

Maybe it's in my blood, I don't know.

But you know that beef googlash they have, Suckling pig.

They have all the different German sausages that you can imagine.

So I really liked it.

But you're right, I mean, I think it's the atmosphere that really sells it.

Really delivers that quintessential beer hall experience.

I'm going to mention just as we're talking about beer gardens and beer halls in the Ingoba and going back to the English garden at the Chinese Tower, which is right in the middle of the park.

They have these food stalls and they are sort of Oktoberfest style food stalls.

And you can get sausages, but you can also get.

I'm going to look up the.

There's.

There's this sort of halfway between pizza and pretzel, which I think is like a match made in heaven.

They have this thing called brizza.

They also have like rotisserie chickens, salads, spaetzle, which I love, German spaetzle.

And it's all right here in the park.

And you can also get a big Lieder stein, which they call a mass of beer at.

In the middle of the English Garden near the Chinese Tower.

So great place if you're there.

Especially if you're there in the summertime or now for the Christmas markets.

That's a.

That's a wonderful place to get out, be able to have a nice al fresco German style meal.

Yeah.

Have you ever been there during Oktoberfest itself?

I have not.

I have not.

I've always wanted to go.

I've heard it's, you know, obviously it's a big party, but I have not made it there for the actual Oktoberfest.

I think that would be amazing though.

I was impressed with Wahafra House.

I mean, that's one thing that I.

You do get a lot of that Oktoberfest vibe.

Even if it isn't Oktoberfest itself.

They had live music going all day.

They have these massive beer halls that are, you know, multi stories.

So I was pretty impressed with that, that even if, even if you're not there in October itself, you could still get a lot of the.

At least a taste of some of that vibe.

I'm sure it's way more of a party atmosphere and a lot busier during Oktoberfest itself.

But you definitely get some of that year round.

And the thing about Munich, I think, is that it really delivers on the Bavarian thing.

You know, I mean, often people talk about the fact that when we think of Germany, really what we're thinking about is Bavaria.

You know, Germans, we think about beer, but actually Germans drink a lot of wine.

We think about lederhosen, but that's more of a Bavarian thing.

And you, you know, so it is everything that, you know, you go to sleep and you dream about Bavaria.

This is, this is your Bavarian dream.

So, no, I love it.

I tell you one later.

Most of the story is when we were there just last week, we saw a big group of like 15, 20 guys all in their later host.

We thought, oh, this is great.

You know, it's Christmas market.

They're out in their traditional German attire.

Want to get some like, quick pictures or videos?

And as we got closer to approach them, realized it was a group of drunken Americans all out on Bachelor Party or something.

And later I was.

There was no Germans wearing, like, any way to be found.

But I love it.

I love it.

Yeah.

And that's, that's often the case, right?

You get close, you're like, oh, well, I'm really experiencing local culture here.

And then it's like, no, these are, these are not people from Munich.

These are people from Boston or Chicago or whatever.

So.

Yeah.

Any final.

Can't miss.

Well, first, just before we, before we get into the canvas, I just want to mention a couple of, couple of hotels.

So I stayed at the Kempinski.

I'm gonna.

It was an amazing stay.

I'm gonna try to go with the whole name here.

Hotel Veer Jarretzeitn.

And he built it for his friends to stay.

So visiting royalty, heads of state, celebrities.

And it really still feels like, you know, like it's, it's fit for King.

And they have this lobby that is under this beautiful glowing dome and they call it Munich's finest living room.

So really it is.

I talk to a lot of local people about it and they come, even if they're not staying at the hotel, and they come and they have a coffee or they have a drink and a little bit of cake and they sit and they just sit back and they do people watching because the whole city comes to gather here at the Kempinski on Maximilian Strasse.

Which was a, the city that this, this street that was built to see and be seen by the King.

And then a quick, quick shout out to Andaz, which is a very, very different hotel from the Kempinski, a boutique hotel and a former industrial area with a really nice rooftop restaurant.

You can actually see all the way to the Alps from the restaurant.

So, so yeah, super cool place.

Do you have a, do you have a camp miss?

I have a, I have a can't miss, but do you have a camp miss?

I do have a quick camp miss which is, well, first of all, I was gonna say in your hotel recommendations, those are two very nice chains.

I know Kempinski is a chain I had never even come across until you mentioned it on a, I think an episode about Turkey that we were talking about a few months ago.

And then I was at a travel conference down in the south of France earlier this month and got to see sort of like the range of hotels they've got around the world which are, they're beautiful hotels and as very nice hotels as well.

So two solid recommendations there for sure.

In terms of a can't miss, I would say and this is, this is probably skewing very much because of the limited time that we had in Munich.

But it's an airport related camp miss which is a bit of a tip is the Lufthansa airport lounge is there if you've got Star alliance silver status, which in North America gets you almost nothing, including not into the airport lounges.

It does get you into the, at least at the Munich airport got us into the Lufthansa lounge there which was lovely.

They had German pretzels and giant sides of beer and a great airport lounge.

So a good thing if you've got your even just silver status, you can, you can get into not all of the lounges, but I think it's the senator lounges that it will get you into at the airport.

Yeah, Lufthansa does the lounge as well.

I know I have a couple favorites in Frankfurt and then also a favorite one in Munich.

And you're absolutely right.

They often have sausage.

They do have those pretzels with the spice with the mayonnaise, you know.

And you really, you know, you really do feel like you're in Germany even if you're just at the airport.

I'll quickly say my can't miss is again, we're going to go back to the English Garden, my favorite place in Munich.

And again I'm going to, I'm going to go for it on the pronunciation here, I believe it would be ice back there, but it might be ice back.

Well, which is a little branch of that same river that comes out of the Alps, goes through a tunnel, goes over an underwater step and rushes out as a year round wave.

And what do people do?

They surf it.

So people gather by the dozen in their wetsuits and they surf on this little river that goes through the English garden right in the middle of the city.

Again, I will say I did not do it, but it was so fascinating.

Every time I go to Munich, it's a place that I don't miss because it's different every time.

The dynamics are always different.

Sometimes you have, you know, a couple surfers who are really great people who are just trying it for the first time, but it's such a, almost a slightly bizarre but really fascinating thing to see.

You know, right in the middle of this large European city, people in their wetsuits surfing this wave.

Very cool.

I mean, that is not something, at least here in North America you see in a lot of the major cities, the rivers running through them don't get.

You're not swimming in most of those rivers or certainly not surfing in any of them that I know of.

That's very cool.

Absolutely, absolutely.

And it probably speaks to the environmental standards, the fact that it's not just safe, but it's also clean, which is obviously a wonderful thing.

Awesome.

Well, we're getting close to the end of the year here, Tim.

I know we were just talking today about Antigua and Barbuda, somewhere that we're both going to be traveling to later this year.

A lot more destinations coming up.

So looking forward to getting back on with you as hopefully one more time this year and then as we get into next year for, for more episodes of Travel Intent.

Absolutely.

Always look forward to it, David.

So can't wait.

Thanks him.

Thanks, David.