Last week was one of such few occasions when holidays in Slovenia have a decent length. Given that half the population goes to Croatia these days, we usually stay in here; we can have a bit of peace and, anyway, someone has to stay to defend the country from invasion. However, this year we didn’t have plans to go to Spain and meet “our people”, at least for a while, so we all decided to change the scenario and meet for a weekend escape in the capital of Bavaria, Munich.

We were promised a great weather and the gods up there actually kept their promise -unlike during our last trip- so we’ve been enjoying those 3 days without a drop of rain. While our friends had arrived by plane, we’d reached our destination by train. It took us more or less 6 hours for those rough 400kms of trip, making stops in countless villages, passing through mountainous, snowy parts of Austria, via the town of Mozart, Salzburg, and finally arriving at the Hauptbahnhof  München.

We met in the very center of Munich, at Marienplatz, the most famous checkpoint in town: the whole place was overcrowded so you could hardly walk through. A short walk from Marienplatz takes you to the Viktualienmarkt, a daily food market and a square covering 22.000m², with some 140 stalls and all kind of products you can imagine. A place for gourmets with the greatest variety of delicacies in Munich. We only made a short stroll through the stalls (which I regret very much because we didn’t make it to see it later again), admiring the abundance of locally grown asparagus which are on its peak season at the moment.

On the walk back to Marienplatz we stopped at the Alter Peter, the tower of Munich’s oldest church, dating back in 13th century. This tower offers a great view of the town, BUT first you need to climb the 306 narrow(!) stairs. Once we’ve reached the top (56m high, the tower itself is 91m high), half-dead, we were almost blown away by the strong wind… and the magnificent view. However, if you fear the height, you might wish to skip the visit to the “Old Peter”.

On the way to our dinner place I’ve discovered one of those shops of my dreams: Schuhbecks Gewürzladen or Schuhbeck’s spice shop, self-service kind, with over 100 spices from all over the world. You can imagine how this story went on: I ended up in the shop, smelling the intoxicating aromas and buying 4 types of pepper, ground sweet paprika and savory, my favorite spice for legume dishes.

If you come to Munich for Bavarian food and wine experience, you should not miss Hofbräuhaus am Platzl, a beer garden with great reputation.

As we entered the place, it was literally bursting at the seams – there must have been a thousand of people inside, or even more. Luckily for our stomachs, we eventually found a table outside in the “patio”. The food was overall tasty and I could certainly not complain about the beer . We drank some of these heavy, liter jars – not a small deal.

Our first day ended with the view of the Neues Rathaus at Marienplatz. The plan for the next day was to visit a place 130kms far from Munich…

… continues!