Muchen

Spent the last two days checking out Munich and it's a great city - this wasn't completely obvious when we arrived on Friday night as we're staying on the edge of the CBD with plenty of bad 60's design, but once you get into the centre it's beautiful. It's hard to believe that most of the bulidings are only aroudn 60 years old as the place was carpet bombed during the war then rebuilt - many building to their historical specifications.

The hostel we're staying at is probably the best so far - these guys really know what they're doing and we took the free (well, it works on a tips basis) walking tour from here yesterday morning. Our guide was great and we packed in heaps into our several hour tour - he even gave us useful and accurate information, unlike our bus tour guides. Finished up walking through the large and beautiful public park and having a beer at the huge beer garden (not before seeing the clothing optional section, though unfortunately we didn't see the local sun legends 'Tripod' and 'Robocop' - guess how they got their names).

We spent Saturday evening on a beer appreciation tour (or more accurately, a pub crawl). At times I think we were the only two actually listening to the beer history and trivia. There were were plenty of 'interesting' travellers on the tour and by the end we were pretty ready to leave them all but it was still a good time. I wonder what the locals think of us boozed tourist. Must have eaten something funny though as I had a bit of an upset tummy when I got back to the hostel ;-)

Today, we took the metro out to the Duchau concentration camp memorial - this was a very sombre experience but something very worthwhile. We feel like we're got a much better perspective on the war from our time here in Munich.

The metro system here is fantastic and we arrived back in town nid afternoon. It was very hot so we took refuge in the historical Hoffbrau beer house and enjoyed some more beer and local food. Back at the hostel now doing some necessities like washing before we head to Austria in the morning.