Description:
Spindle: After checking into King's Hotel around 1pm, less than five minutes by walking out from München Hbf, and recharging our sorely dry batteries for about an hour (though I had no real need to recharge as a spirit), we had our first lunch on European soil: a small pizza, sandwich and cheesecake slice from a Rischart outlet. Then we bought the promotional "€9 pass" (allowing unlimited travel on all non-high-speed public rail in Germany for the current calendar month) and embarked on a whirlwind tour of Munich's primary sights:
- Marienplatz, the city's central square flanked by both the old and new city halls. A monumental column of its namesake as the Queen of Heaven shines upon the busy crowd below.
- Frauenkirche (Münchner Dom), a Catholic church very near Marienplatz that seemed to be humming its mystical tune at us, but which turned out to be emanating from construction equipment inside. There's a hoofprint set into a tile near its entrance with some devilish tales about its origin.
- Feldherrnhalle, a forum-like building with a few large statues built to honour the former Bavarian army. Later on in our wanderings for the day we saw a gathering of ponies in the Odeonsplatz which it overlooks: "That's not a demonstration, that's a fitness promotion," Parcly remarked.
- Another neighbour of the above, the pleasingly symmetric and rectilinear Hofgarten. Its central pavilion was occupied by two young violinists when we came, and we relaxed there for a while.
- Viktualienmarkt – once a critical source of food for Munich citizens, now operating like a perpetual mini-Oktoberfest. We had sausages and mashed potato there alongside a glass of beer, except that I drank all the beer. I'm a spirit after all.
Applejack: I happened to be in the same city as Parcly and Spindle were looking for dinner, so to top off the long, hot summer day I met up with them at the Restaurant Augustiner, home to a famous arcade garden and serving beer from the eponymous local brewery. By this point they were very full, both in body and in soul, so they mostly just bathed in the chatter and joy of neighbouring tables, only to be interrupted by a waiter overtilting and shattering a tray-load of glassware in direct sight. It was but a brief pause though.
Parcly: All the travelling-induced excitement, confusion and fatigue of the first day was now behind us. We returned to the hotel as the sky finally darkened, two insignificant creatures among half a billion on the European continent.