Munich at Night

Markus kindly offered me a ride to Munich on his visit home. We arrived rather late (left after work and its a 5 hour drive) to enter any buildings but I managed to get an overview of the city centre by night.

We exited at Karlsplatz (yes another Karlsplatz) and started our night stroll through one of the threeMunich Gates. This apparently the most impressive. The stroll continued past closed shops (surprise surprise its past 7pm) and onwards to the City Hall. I have to confess I like the Munich City Hall more than the Vienna City Hall. They have a clock that puts on a show :P

The photo is a statue on one of the four corners of a fountain in the city centre of which there are many. Have you noticed the large grey storm clouds in the background of each photo? The wind started blowing rather hard and the lightning illuminated the buildings quite dramatically, thankfully the rain didn't fall on us :)

The Residence is under construction (its seems every old building is constantly in a state of repair) but they have the most fabulous screen with a photographic scene of what its meant to look like shielding the scaffolding from view (same as St Stephen's Cathedral). The inner courtyard of the Residence is currently hosting a market complete with beer garden and touristy gimmicks. As I have now discovered you cannot go to a tourist sight in Bavaria without finding a Beer garden in the vicinity.

Sometimes the German logic confounds me, when buying our city transport pass for the night, it was cheaper to get the 5 person all-area pass than buy 2 return trip all-area pass tickets...

Something that confounds me constantly here is the concept of country size. Cape Town to Johannesburg is a 14 hour drive and you're still in the same country, Vienna to Munich is 5 hours and you're in another country or another example is an hours train ride gets you to Bratislava the capital of Slovakia (day trip coming soon complete with sunset cruise back up the Danube).