Germany: Part Two

If you’ve stumbled onto this page, while it says part two above, it’s just part two of a trip to Germany, however it’s also part six of a series of blog posts chronicling my solo journey through Europe to the places my ancestors came from. You can start here to get caught up.

May 6, 2026

While none of my ancestors ever lived in Munich (that we know of), I knew I couldn’t go all the way to Germany and not visit one of the most popular cities, especially since a friend I met through Hanson lives there. And believe it or not, it wasn’t originally planned that I would be meeting up with her on Hanson Day*, but I’m so glad it worked out that way. There’s a statue in Munich that my friend was pretty sure Hanson visited in their promotional tour documentary, Tulsa, Tokyo, and the Middle of Nowhere, so our plan was for me to return my rental car at a train station, hop on a quick 10-minute bus ride from there, then meet her at her house to drop off my luggage, and together get back on a bus to the statue, all while trying to beat a rainstorm.

^{_{*If you’re reading this and aren’t a Hanson fan, their first major label record, Middle of Nowhere, was released on May 6, 1997, and at the time, the governor of Oklahoma declared it “Hanson Day”, and fans have celebrated it every year since.}}

Returning the rental car was trickier than I had expected. My GPS routed me to the street where their parking garage entrance was located, but that direction of the street was closed for construction, so I had to figure out how to go around and get on the other side of the street. Then, I pulled into the garage and couldn’t get the gate open. Finally, an employee walked by and I was able to explain, in German, that I was trying to return the car, and he opened the gate for me. Then, I couldn’t figure out where to actually return the car, it just said level 2 but once I got up there, there were no designations for returning the car. I found another employee, and he showed me where to park. After walking around in circles for about five minutes, I finally figured out where to return the keys.

I finally left the garage and found myself standing on the street in front of the train station, but my GPS was showing that to get to the bus stop, I had to go across about 10 train tracks. I saw a pedestrian bridge that only crossed two tracks, but not all of them. Getting to practice my German again, I asked a group of women how to get across, and one of them responded and I understood the words “together, follow me”, so I did. What I didn’t realize at the time was that once you go across the pedestrian bridge, there’s another escalator taking you down into a huge underground station which then leads to the subway and back up to the bus stop.

Once I found the bus stop, getting to my friend’s house was super easy, other than not beating that rainstorm and dragging myself and my luggage through a downpour. She gave me a tour of her apartment, and only a few minutes later, it stopped raining, so we made our way over to the statue. We had fun taking a few pictures, and then stopped at a Subway for dinner, with the plan of eating half our sandwiches then, and half the next day on our road trip. It’s always fun to see what options fast food chains have in different countries, and I ordered a döner chicken sandwich (a popular food started by Turkish immigrants in Berlin), paprika potato chips, and a drink called Schwip Schawp, which was basically a combination of Pepsi and orange Fanta. After getting back to my friend’s apartment, we pulled up a clip of the Hanson video online and realized the actual statue they visited was outside a castle in, appropriately, the middle of nowhere Germany, and not the statue we visited in Munich. You can see the similarities though, the left is the statue we went to, the right is screen shots from the Hanson video.

May 7, 2026

One of my priorities while visiting Germany was to see the Neuschwanstein Castle, which you may know was the inspiration behind the Disney castle. It’s about an hour and half outside of Munich, really close to the Austrian border. Despite living in Germany all her life, my friend had never been, so she joined me and drove us out there – it was nice getting to be passenger princess after a week-long solo road trip. We booked tickets to tour the inside of the castle, as well as the inside of Hohenschwangau, another smaller castle in the same area. We started with the Hohenschwangau Castle, per all the recommendations, and it gave a really good history of Kings Maximilian II and Ludwig II.

Between castle tours, we had a bite to eat at Restaurant Müller. Unsurprisingly, everything in the area was a bit overpriced, but it was worth it for the convenience. I ordered a Semmelnknödel, a bread dumpling in a mushroom cream sauce. It was really tasty and very filling. We then hopped on a shuttle bus up to Mary’s Bridge, which crosses over a waterfall and has stunning views of Neuschwanstein. I pictured us standing there for quite awhile taking it in, but what we didn’t realize until we got there is that the bridge is made of wooden slats that all felt very rickety. We each stood there just long enough to snap a quick photo and immediately got off the bridge. I’m glad I wasn’t the only one too nervous to stand out there for long, but I’m also glad we didn’t chicken out completely.

The outside of Hohenschwangau isn’t nearly as spectacular as the outside of Neuschwanstein, but we both agreed that the inside tour of Hohenschwangau was better than the inside tour of Neuschwanstein, perhaps because King Ludwig II never got to finish designing Neuschwanstein before he died. I’m really glad we did both tours, and while not as impressive of a tour, the inside of Neuschwanstein was worth it just for the views from the balcony alone.

Touring both castles, plus the drive out there and back to Munich, took up the whole day. We got back to my friend’s apartment, I grabbed my luggage, got on a bus back to the train station, and now that I knew how to navigate the station, it was an easy S-Bahn ride to my hotel, the Holiday Inn Munich – City Centre. The hotel was really great and conveniently located. I got off the S-Bahn at the Rosenheimer Platz station, and from there it was just a couple blocks walk to the hotel. The next day when I left the hotel, I noticed an elevator in the lobby that was labeled S-Bahn, so I took that and ended up in an underground shopping area with a couple grocery stores and drug stores, which then led to the Rosenheimer Platz station. But even after staying there for three nights, I never did figure out how to get to the tunnel from the station; it seemed every exit was taking me up to the street. I tried asking someone in the station, but I didn’t understand their answer – and this time it was even in English.

may 8, 2026

The next day, I let my friend go on with her regular life while I hit all the tourist spots in Munich. My first stop was a bakery called Cafe Frischhut for a pastry called a Schmalznudel, which reminded me of an elephant ear, but at much more reasonable size. For the savory side of my breakfast, I then made my way over to Weisses Bräuhaus to try Weißwust, a white sausage that is typically served with a pretzel as a regional breakfast in Munich. I ordered both, along with spicy mustard for the pretzel and another Apfelschorle to drink. I knew that the sausage is eaten without the casing, but I didn’t know it was served with its own sweet mustard. Because of its white color, I thought the sausage looked like it would be pretty bland, but it was so packed full of flavor. Everything was delicious and it was the perfect German breakfast to start my day.

I relied on Rick Steves’ Germany book quite a bit to plan my trip, and he also has a free app you can download with audio walking tours for many European cities, and that was how I went about exploring Munich. I didn’t want to walk around with earbuds in the whole day, but the app also has the script written out, so I’d walk to a stop, find a place to sit, read about the stop, take it all in, and move on to the next place. It was a bit slower paced that way than listening while walking, but it worked well for me and I’d recommend it if you’re visiting somewhere on your own, but don’t want to bother with an in-person tour guide. I started, of course, in Marienplatz just in time to see the Glockenspiel play, and then popped into St. Peter’s church

Next I wound through the Viktualienmarkt, passed the Ohel Jakob Synagogue, and peeped inside the Asam Church with all its gaudy, over-the-top decor, then sat outside the Frauenkirche with its iconic twin spires. I then walked through the famous Hofbräuhaus, but did not stop to drink a beer, as I’m not that big of a beer fan. I was able to hear a little bit of a traditional oompah band and of course saw some men dressed in Lederhosen.

The tour continued through Max-Joseph-Platz, alongside the Residence Palace, and then down Viscardigasse – a side street that is marked with golden bricks to commemorate the out-of-the-way path Nazi resisters would take to avoid passing Nazi soldiers and being forced to give the salute. The route then took me to Odeonplatz, a large public square which opens up to the Hofgarten where I decided I was ready for a late lunch. Right there on the corner was an Italian restaurant, Tambosi, and in that moment something other than German food was starting to sound really great. They had a lunch special that came with a small Caprese salad, octopus and black olive pizza, an Aperol spritz, and a mousse for desert. This easily makes the list of my top meals on the trip, and it was especially fun enjoying it in such a beautiful garden.

After eating and reading for a bit, I made my way over to the English garden, a huge sprawling public park. I hopped on a bus to start at the far end of the park where there is a Chinese tower, with another oompah band playing inside of it, surrounded by a busy beer garden. I followed a path that took me pass a large, open field where lots of people were playing soccer, over a little bridge that crosses the Isar River, and ends at the Eisbach where a man-made, permanent wave of water allows for people to surf in the river.

Having had a large, late lunch, I ended my day by shopping at the Aldi inside the tunnel that was attached to my hotel. I picked up stuffed sweet peppers as a “girl dinner” snack and some bread rolls for breakfast in the morning. There were a lot of other fun options that we don’t have at Aldi in the U.S., but since my hotel had neither a fridge or a microwave, my choices were pretty limited.

may 9, 2026

The following morning, I met back up with my friend at the train station to visit the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site. It’s about a 45-minute train ride plus a quick bus ride from Munich. They offer one guided tour per day in English, and one in German, but you can do a self-guided audio tour any time. The English tour was already sold out for the day, and my German is not that great, so we did the audio tour and each listened in our own native language. There were so many placards, so much reading, and even more information on the audio guide, including interviews with survivors. We spent a total of three hours there and still didn’t read or listen to everything that we could have, I think it would have taken an actual full day, if not more. It was, of course, very somber, but if you’re planning a trip to Munich, I would say you absolutely must plan at least half a day to visit it.

We took the train back into the city, then went our separate ways to freshen up and change clothes for the day. When planning my trip to Germany, I chose spring to avoid the summer heat, and also to avoid the Oktoberfest crowds. What I didn’t know at the time was that there’s a Frühlingsfest, or spring festival, in May and I was going to be there for the last weekend of it. It’s essentially a smaller, less touristy version of Oktoberfest, so this worked out well for me to get the feel of it while still avoiding the bigger crowds. While reading about it, I learned that it is acceptable for tourists to wear Dirndls and Lederhosen, so I bought myself a Dirndl online for the occasion. We stayed just long enough to take some photos and eat some sausages, knowing full well that the rides would likely trigger my vertigo. Instead of drinking at Frühlingsfest, she took me to a quieter Augustiner Beer Garden where I had a Radler and Käsespätzel (cheesy noodles).

Afterwards, we tried to go to a rooftop bar to catch the sunset, but the bar was closed for a ticketed event – The Long Night of Music. This event was one ticket to 400 concerts all night long all throughout the city. Just outside the rooftop bar, at the base of a ferris wheel, one of the bands was performing and we got to sit there and listen for free for a little while. I’m not sure why we didn’t need a ticket to sit there, but we did need one to go to the bar, maybe it was just a matter of how popular the band was. It was a fun way to end the night, and it seemed appropriate that I ended my time with my friend at a concert, since that was how we met in the first place. My friend had told me about The Long Night of Music in the early stages of my trip-planning, but I knew I wouldn’t want to be out that late since I had an early train to catch the next morning. So, after only a few songs, we said our goodbyes and I took the bus back to my hotel to pack up and rest before heading to Leipzig in the morning.

To be continued…