Munich Christmas Adventure: The Food!

In the heart of Catholic Bavaria the food is good. The beer is good. The many varieties of mulled wine, cider and run are good. The fact that I didn't bring along stretchy pants is not good!

We started our feasting at an adorable little restaurant just down the street from one of the Christmas markets. It was our first night and we were surprised by the cold. This place was cozy and warm and served meatballs. This photo is of the homemade mustards - honey & curry and gingerbread. They went perfectly with the rabbit, beef & pork and chicken meatball feast.

We didn't try one, but these are stuffed apples - one with chcolate, one with marzipan and the final with rosemary and cheese.

Pretzels everywhere! You can even get them cut in half with butter in between - heaven! I think I had more pretzels this week than in the rest of my life.

Mmmmm, this is pork knuckle. Crispy on the outside (think fried chicken crispy) and oh so tender on the inside. This is a 1/2 knuckle, which we shared with some coleslaw and pretzels. Yum!

And of course sausages. You can see here the foot long brats they were serving. We had a number of different kinds and each really good. With pretzels or rolls or bread. Wow!

Munich Christmas Adventure: BMW Plant Tour

In between the eating, drinking and merry making, we visited the BMW plant. Munich is the headquarters for BMW (Bavarian Motor Werks) and as such, puts on quite a show. These photos are all from the showroom or BMW World. We also took a 2 hour plant tour, which was amazing but didn't allow any photos.

The Munich plant can produce up to 1000 cars per day. Much of the plant is completely automated and the robots putting things together were amazing to watch.

This is one of the new concept cars. BMW is currently experimenting with different types of materials (a plastic is in the works now), electric cars, lighter frames with better durability. Lots of research.

This is a little BMW classic they drive around the showroom a few times per day. Cute.

My Christmas present? Unfortunately not. :(

This is the delivery area for customers to pick up their new BMWs. They make it a very special and memorable experience. I remember my delivery in Abu Dhabi was pretty awesome - can't imagine how cool it would be to take delivery here. This area is on the second floor of the showroom.

The BMW motorbike section.

Munich Christmas Adventure: Beer

Yes, there is lots of beer in Munich! Germans were brought up on beer and still tax and consider it a food. A traditional Barvarian breakfast is 2 boiled sausages, a pretzel and a Weiss beer - and I have to say I highly recommend it! :) (Okay maybe only for breakfast while on vacation). Here are some beer facts we picked up along the way.

The head of foam means your beer is fresh and at the right temperature. This idea of ice cold beer is a marketing ploy to help us choke down sub-par beer. Real beer should be served cool but not ice cold so you can taste the flavors. Until commercial refrigeration came along, beer was brewed only in the fall and winter and stored in cellars with blocks of ice to keep it as long into the summer as possible.

Yes, this is breakfast and that's Brian's latte next to my beer. Hey, when in Rome . . .

We also tried Prosecco for breakfast and before you think Brian's innocent, there's a shot of bailey's in that coffee cup!

These were two of our favorites. The one on the left is a Weiss beer (wheat) and the dark one is a barley beer. There is actually a law in Bavaria to regulate the quality of beer that states the beer can only contain wheat or barley, hops and water. Kept things pure and is still the standard to this day. And, I have to say you can tell the difference. The beer here is crisp and clean and supposedly doesn't give you a headache the next morning. No, we didn't drink THAT much to find out!!

Munich Christmas Adventure: The Christmas Markets!

The Christmas markets in Munich are considered some of the best, and while we don't have anything to compare them to, we thought they were pretty great. Well, I thought they were great - you can imagine that Brian was less impressed with a craft market, but he was a good sport and put up with the cold for me.

The first thing to understand about the markets is the Gluwein. This is a hot mulled wine concoction designed to keep the cold at bay so you can do more shopping. We saw a lot of Gluwein drinking and not a lot of shopping so not sure it's working as intended. Here's Brian warming up at one of the many we visited.

Here's a view of one of the Gluwein huts - pretty festive!

You are served the drinks in real mugs and you pay a 3 euro deposit, which you get back when you return the mug. Nice environmentally friendly way to deal with all those drinkers. It's also important to note that there are many types of hot drinks at the Gluwein stands. The traditional is a red mulled wine, but there is also an apple-based mulled cider, orange rum punch, strawberry rum punch and an egg nog type drink served with whipped cream. Yes, we tried them all!

Here is a really elaborate Gluwein and brat stand. It turns just like those little holiday decorations with the candles that make the rotors turn. 

Each market also has a nativity somewhere - we heard that one was a live nativity, but didn't run across it. This was a particularly pretty one.

The best time to go is dusk as the lights are coming on and then staying until full dark. The markets run from about 10am to about 8 or 9 pm, depending on the location.

Here's a good view of one at the Munich Royal Residence. We were in the museum so could capture the market from above. This one had a live performance stage in the middle and then lots of craft booths along with Gluwein and sausages.

The markets sell everything Christmas - ornaments, candles, decorations, soaps, cookies, candy and warm weather hats, socks, mittens, etc. Like a craft market with a Christmas theme. We visited four during our stay and were told there are more than 15 across the city. There's even a small one at the airport!

Munich Christmas Adventure: Hilter and the Beer Hall

One of the stories on our walking tour was about Hitler and his brush with early demise. As many of you probably know, Munich is considered the birthplace of the Nazi movement in Germany. What you might not know is that it is also the birthplace of the Nazi resistance in Germany.

According to this story, Hitler was at one of the famous beer halls one evening spouting his views and rallied around 3000 people to march through the city. Sounds a bit like a drunken bad idea, but hey.

They marched through the town and came across a military road block so turned the corner to avoid it. Unfortunately, the police also saw them and came around to meet them. Shots were fired and Hilter was saved by one of his bodyguards who took 11 bullets to save him. Even more interesting is that the bodyguard survived . . . only to be shot by Hitler later in his campaign (so much for gratitude).

Imagine if just one of those bullets had hit their mark?