Munich Miscellany

Tooling around the city center of Munich is quite the rush. The city's core, closed to motorized vehicles, pulses with vibrancy and prosperity. Yet, despite its urbane sophistication, Munich maintains  a certain provincialism that visitors find charming. Locals insist that their metropolis, which tops out at more than two million residents, is little more than a world village. During Octoberfest, the city welcomes six million more to hoist a glass to the conclusion of harvest season.

Munich prospered as a salt-trading center but was slammed by the bubonic plague in 1349. The epidemic subsided only after 150 years, when locals initiated a ritualistic dances as a reminder of their good fortune. The dance is reenacted daily by the little figures on the city's "glockenspiel" in the Marienplatz. By the nineteenth century, Munich witnessed an explosion of monument building, providing the city with its compelling architecture and wide Italian-style avenues.

The situation reached the point of excess when King Ludwig II assumed the Bavarian throne in 1864 as his grandiose projects, such as tlie Neuschwansten Castle, bankrupted the royal household and threatened the governmental collapse. Ironically, today the castles are major money generators of Bavaria's tourism industry. Munich experienced more back luck in the 20th century, nearly starving to death during WW I and suffering relentless Allied bombimg raids during WW II.

As anyone who travels to Europe will tell you, a big part of the experience is enjoying local cuisine. While Munich is a veritable world food court, our focus was on German comestibles. We dined at the some of the finest establishments Munich has to offer, including the Augustiner, where we had the best of the wurst (a variety of brats and dogs), and the Schitzelwirt, where the wienerschnitzel and jägerschnitzel were simply divine.

Another of Munich's "must see" features is the Englischer Garten, one of the world's largest urban public parks. Named after a form of informal landscaping popular in England from the mid-18th to the early 19th century. At the southern tip of the Englischer Garten is an articifical "permanent wave" in a frigid arm of the Isar River, where crowds gather on weekends to watch neoprene-clad surfers practice their moves. Residents of Munich also love their soccer team: FC Bayern.