Munich (München) was our favorite big city. Our hotel had a lot to do with that. An elegant building in an elegant neighborhood. Not commercial, but an erstwhile wealthy residential neighborhood. A converted mansion on a still quiet street. Breakfast only (We learned here what garni means), but only two blocks from a nice restaurant. By the way, all our hotels served breakfast (included in the room rate) and we never stayed in a place which called itself a Bed & Breakfast. Has the industry changed? All had pleasant (in one way or another) dining rooms as well.
Is this a classy city or what? Mercedes taxicabs and delivery trucks with elegant names.
Europe's substitute for air-conditioning (left).
There might be a legend to go with the wild boar (right), but since they are indigenous to the area perhaps the statue is just an expression of local color.
Speaking of local color --
What a crew it must take to tend to all those window boxes (left).
We saw several sidewalk artists (right) on our travels.
And not to forget green --
An eye-catching restaurant (left)
Munich's Isar River (right) from the bridge next to the Deutsches Museum.
Like Salzburg, Munich was built to take advantage of a river and its salt traffic. Since the bridge there was built near a monastery, the town came to be known as München (monks).
In the center of the Old Town is the plaza called the Marienplatz. One of the dramatic buildings there is the Neue Rathaus (New City Hall). We gathered that this obviously not-new-in-the-usual-sense structure was so named because just around the corner is the Altes Rathaus (Old City Hall). The irony is that the Neue Rathaus survived the bombing of WWII (and was U.S. Army HQ in '45) but the Altes Rathaus was destroyed and so now is actually the newer of the two.
The world famous Glockenspiel is about halfway up in the tower of the Neue Rathaus. At the appointed hour it plays on and on and the automatons dance and cavort on and on, tiring greatly the arm of the cinematographer. Wouldn't have missed it though.