Munich and the Biergarten Time Warp

Thinking about Munich makes me hungry. I suspect this is because all I did with my three days in Munich was eat (and drink).

Sausage. Pretzels. Beer. Repeat. Oh, Munich! How I miss you!

Virtualeinmarkt in August

Trust me, it could happen to you. You think you're going to explore Munich's old town, tour a palace or two - but you never make it past the Viktualeinmarkt. It's a warm August afternoon, the communal tables under the chestnut trees are packed with ruddy-faced men in lederhosen and friends catching up over a shared pretzel, the cold beer makes time slow down and imparts an instant nostalgic glow: next thing you know, it's dusk.

In the midst of the English Garden

You think you're just going to check out Munich's giant English Garden (think Central Park), with its naked sunbathers and babbling brooks, but instead you wile away another afternoon at one of the park's renowned beer gardens. August midday, the famous Chinesischer Turm seems painfully hot and dusty; much more pleasant is the Seehaus, with shaded tables directly on the shore of the Kleinhesseloher See. 

You have every intent of taking a day trip from Munich, but on your way to the train station, you're side-tracked by Augustiner, the largest beer garden in Munich. 

In the courtyard of the Ratshaus

You plan to watch the daily dance of the glockenspiel at the Neues Rathaus (the "new" town hall), but the sea of packed tourists in the Marienplatz rattles you - and instead you veer left, into the courtyard of the town hall for a beer at the Ratskellar. 

You mean to step inside the giant red Frauenkirche cathedral, but the terrace seating of Andechser am Dom is just too dreamy. 

(OK, so these last two are not technically beer gardens - you can't opt to bring in your own food, and it's not self-serve - but MAN. We liked Andescher am Dom so much, we had dinner there twice. Plus I really like Andechs beer.)

Yes, there are museums and palaces in Munich that one might visit. We did spend a morning in the neighborhood just east of the river, poking through shops on Sedanstrasse - but my memory of this is pretty hazy, probably due to sausage-and-pretzel withdrawal. 

Yet despite my unbalanced approach to site-seeing in Munich, I do not think I went wrong. Beer gardens have it all: superior people watching; quality beer; self-serve sausages, sauerkraut, and big doughy pretzels; some sun, some shade, some gentle communing with nature; and absolutely no pretension. What's not to love?

(I recently came across this site, a wiki of Munich beer gardens, which seems worthy of a plug. So many gartens, so little time.)

Three Views of Salzburg

I have learned something from all my travels with Jeff: the value of a good city view. Except that while Jeff insists on climbing things (typically church towers), I prefer to take my views with ice cream or a celebratory beverage.

Luckily I was accompanied to Salzburg with a friend similarly inclined to food, drink and leisure.  Thanks to Rick Steves' Germany (yes, Salzburg is in Austria), we spent most of our one day in Salzburg staring out at three remarkable views.

View #1: If you take the train to Salzburg (as we did), you approach the city from the east side of the river. Before crossing over to the heart of the old town, we paused at the rooftop terrace of the Hotel Stein.  Lounging on wicker couches and shaded by giant umbrellas, we worked our way through multiple rounds of champagne and Italian antipasto while gazing out over a postcard of the city.

View #2: Salzburg does not take long to explore (it's not all that big, after all). After some ornate churches, pretty graveyards, and quaint streets in the midday sun, we knew what we really needed: ice cream. Enter Cafe Tomaselli, a classic ice cream parlor fronting one of Salzburg's main pedestrianized plazas. The ice cream itself was nothing to write home about (nor were the prices), but it was served in fabulous old fashioned sundae glasses, and it came with a fabulous balcony view. The ensuing hour was spent in the blessed shade, nursing our sundaes while watching other tourists struggle through the August heat.

View #3: Salzburg is ringed by rugged, forested hills. On other days, I might have insisted on hiking around the Monchsburg ridge to the old fortress. But not this day. This day, we took the municipal elevator up and wandered for about 10 minutes along the ridge until we reached the hostel Die Stadt Alm, where large, roughly hewed picnic tables were arranged right on the edge of a cliff overlooking the city. Heaven is a giant plate of wienerschnitzel, a cold beer, and Salzburg in the golden hour before sunset. Trust me. It's spectacular.

Waterworld

Here's what I love about Seattle: Water.

There's the water of the sprawling, placid blue lakes. There's the water of the wild grey expanse of the Puget Sound. There are dock yards with giant red cranes and rows of multi-colored shipping containers; steep city streets that dead-end into ferry terminals; real beaches looking out to distant rough-hewn mountains. There are boats on water and houses on water and planes on water and - best of all - sparkling lights reflected on water. Seattle is all about the water.

Sunset in Seattle

There is one particular form of water that is universally and instinctively recognized as high entertainment: boat locks. I have a happy Parisian memory of the mini-locks along the St. Martin canal, of a sunny Saturday morning in May when little children and bicyclists and middle-aged French men out for a stroll all stopped to watch the heavy gates swing shut and swirling white currents of water lift a little boat as though by magic.

Locks in Paris

Seattle has its own set of locks, a scaled-down version of the model used for the Panama Canal. On a recent sunny Saturday, the weather was decidedly crisper, but children, bicyclists and grown men alike still paused to watch as the gates swung shut and the water started to rise. 

Yet despite the inherent appeal of water works and boats, here's what really tickled my inner child on our recent excursion to the Ballard Locks: Seamoor Safety, the Water Safety Sea Serpent.

Coloring courtesy of yours truly.

Seamoor's red bear friend is called "Corker," and his blue bear friend is named "Sinker." Guess which one is used to illustrate what not to do around open water.

I'm not sure which impresses me more: that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers publishes coloring books, or that they devised a triple pun to name an imaginary sea creature of ambiguous sexuality who demonstrates how to wear a jet ski engine stop lanyard with flair. You might consider visiting www.Bobber.info to print out copies of Corker and Sinker's adventures for your own coloring pleasure.