By Patrick Griffin.
It was a Saturday morning and the 9.45am train from Regensburg to Munich was already packed.
The choice was to stand in the corridor or sneak into first class so I chose the first option while others made themselves comfortable in seats they had not paid for.
I was not alone. Squeezed into the vestibule area around the train exit doors were at least six students; a happy, friendly mix of various nationalities.
There was Michael from Boulder, Colorado, who was studying politics and was involved with the United Nations; Andreas from Costa Rica, who was fluent in four languages and possibly more; a girl from Belfast who was at university in Regensburg and another Irish student who was studying at Trinity in Dublin.
Day trip to Munich and standing room only on the train.
We were all going to Munich for the day and tried to make the best of our rather uncomfortable 90 minute journey.
Actually we probably could have found a spare seat or two at the far end of the carriage we were travelling in but on this train, for travellers like us, it was a ‘no go zone.’
Not an official ‘no-go zone’ by any means but about half our carriage was populated by young male football fans on their way to support their team later that afternoon.
Perhaps they were Bayern Munich fans on their way to the rather impressive 70,000 capacity Allianz Arena. (Actually fact fans the home of The Reds has a capacity of 69,901 but let’s not get pedantic.)
None of us ventured near enough to find out what team they actually supported as their loud chants, defiant hand gestures and pack mentality all added up to ‘stay away from us.’
The fact that many of them seemed well on the way to being a little drunk at 9.45am on a Saturday morning was another reason to allow them half of the carriage to themselves.
In England train companies will often stop selling alcohol on services during match days but this is Germany and it takes more than a bunch of noisy football fans to deny a German his beer.
As a result there was a steady procession of fans staggering up and down the carriage to restock on beer throughout the journey – it was like a lager production line on rails.
One young traveller, in particular, caught my attention. He was still swigging from a nearly empty bottle of lager as he set off in search of more and his football top was also drenched in beer.
Ah what a wonderful commodity beer is. Refreshing and wholesome enough to drink for breakfast and yet fragrant enough to use as a male fragrance on match days.
Anyway – probably because it wasn’t England – none of the other train passengers were stabbed, beaten up or subjected to foul-mouthed verbal abuse by the soccer fans who seemed happy enough in their own end of the carriage by preparing for their day ahead by chanting loudly and drinking breakfast beer.
The train arrived more or less on time and half a dozen black-clad police officers were on the platform to greet and video the soccer fans as they departed.
By the way I took advantage of a Bayern Ticket, also known as a Bavaria Ticket, which allows up to five people unlimited access to bus and train transport within Bavaria for 24 hours and it cost €28.
Munich likes you...an understated motto perhaps but people from all over the world like Munich too.
Munich, the Bavarian capital, is found on the River Isar, north of the Bavarian Alps and, up until 2006 it had the motto ‘Cosmopolitan city with a heart.’
Somebody important then obviously decided that this was a rather lame motto and called for a new slogan befitting Germany’s third largest city to be thought up.
‘Munich likes you,’ was deemed to be much better, much more fitting and, most importantly, less like a cryptic crossword clue for 27 Across than the slogan it replaced.
People also seem to like Munich because it was recently named the world’s most livable city by the lifestyle magazine Monocle.
I was told that the Jesuit Church of St Michael looked very impressive from the outside with its lavish early baroque architecture but it is undergoing renovation work so I had to make do with a picture of the church on large sheets which are draped over the whole of the front of the building.
Not the real deal...fake candles at a Munich church.
...and real candles at another.
Inside you can light a fake candle for just 80 cents. From a distance it looks like an ordinary white wax candle but up close it is really a hollow aluminium cylinder, painted white and filled with lighter fuel.
Confessions appeared to be very popular at this church and the faithful could choose which priest could hear them unburden their sins according to the language they spoke.
For example Fr Karl Kern, SJ, would hear confessions in German or English while Fr Hillengass, SJ, also offered his services to Spanish, French and Italian penitents.
Across the street at The Cathedral of Our Dear Lady there were more takers for the real candles which could be lit for just 50 cents each and the church itself is absolutely massive with room for around 20,000 people.
There would be a chance to check out the price of candles at one more church before the day was out but I was hungry and needed something to eat first.
Mouthwatering cakes...popular with locals and tourists
I found an open air market full of juicy fresh fruit, more vegatables than I could name, specialty produce, cheeses and meats and, of course, sausages.
I chose a stall with the longest queue and noticed that almost every customer was walking away with a thick slice of a kind of pork meatloaf in a white bread bun.
The stall owner would cut off a generous slice of the meat which was weighed before being put in the bread bun. The item was priced by the weight of the meat with a few more cents added on for the bread.
If you like beer and meat, especially various pork products then you will be happy in Munich but should you be vegetarian then there are fewer choices on offer.
Fresh in today...a selection of fruit on display at a Munich market.
The city calls itself the ‘beer capital of the world’ and a beer and brewery tour of the city is very popular with tourists. White wheat beer (weissbier) is very popular in Munich and comes in strength ranging from a relatively tame 5 per cent alcohol to the super strong Eisbock which contains 12 per cent alcohol.
I left the beer alone and went back to church – this time to St Peter’s Church, the oldest church in the inner city of Munich. I paid a man in a ticket kiosk €1.50 which allowed me to walk up the 330 steps to the top of the bell tower.
Now should you choose to to the same then it is worth it because there are wonderful views of Munich city centre from the top of the tower but the stairs and viewing platform are all extremely narrow.
There is also no separation of visitors going up to the platform and of those coming down the narrow stairs and the result is, at busy times, chaotic.
I got up about 15 of the narrow stairs, turned a corner and then saw a group of people coming down the same way and there was no room for two people to pass so I headed back to the street and tried again. This time I made it nearly all the way up to the first landing but another group coming down saw me retrace my steps and end up back on the street.
During busy times expect to spend a lot of time squeezed into the corner of a landing between sections of staircases as people pass in the opposite direction.
It is no better once you get out onto the viewing platform as there is no way to walk past other people without a lot of pushing and shoving.
Inside the church itself it was the usual 50 cents to light a candle or, if you prefer, you could buy a larger candle with a picture of the Pope on it for €4. This, I imagine, is a candle people really would not want to light – surely burning an image of the Pope must be some sort of sin.
For dinner I had half a pig’s leg served with a bowl of sauerkraut and a round ball of something which looked like mashed potato mixed with wallpaper paste. It was supposedly mashed potato with added starch but why anyone would want to add starch to potato is beyond me.
Pushbikes are very popular in Munich which has lots of wide cycle lanes almost everywhere and tourists can hire bikes in the city very cheaply – around €6 for two hours or €15 for 24 hours.
Brightly lit...Munich shopping street at night.
All lit up...nearly every church has candles lit by the faithful.
PG.
