Munich Germany December 2019

We arrived in Munich on December 26 to find that the city was all but shut down. Apparently this is called the second day of Christmas and is still celebrated as a national holiday just like Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Who knew? We had planned on visiting some of the museums and monuments in the city that day but instead found ourselves looking at the architecture and I was just happy we found somewhere to eat that was open! This was a German Beer House where we had traditional food consisting of pretzels, goulash and bratwurst.

With rain in the forecast we thought it would be best to find some things to do indoors so the next morning we headed for the German National Museum. We stripped for breakfast at a cafe on the corner right across the bridge from the museum and I highly recommend it! The museum itself is massive spanning several stories. It’s filled with nautical history, aviation history, space exploration, a physics lab, metals history, a children’s museum, and even an entire floor dedicated to the history of coffe complete with a coffee shop! We tinkered through the museum for the entire morning and had lunch in the on site restaurant.

We spent the rest of that day dodging the rain and sightseeing. We were staying in a great Airbnb apartment right in the middle of the city center in Marienplatz. The first floor of our apartment was part of a large pedestrian only shopping center.

One of the only things I wanted from Germany was a real cuckoo clock. I did some research and found Max Krug, a well known clock shop in Munich that sells real handmade in the Black Forrest cuckoo clocks. They had so many clocks to choose from I was completely overwhelmed. I did know that I wanted a mechanical clock that had to be wound and not a battery powered one because I wanted it to be traditional and authentic. I should warn that these clocks are not cheap. They are hand carved, hand painted, and hand assembled. There’s so many minute details on each clock the craftsmanship is amazing. I chose a mid level clock and it still cost close to €1,000.

I was also able to find a beautiful nutcracker in the Max Krug shop and that was another one of my must have souvenirs.

We had dinner that night at Pasta e Basta which was the sweetest little Italian restaurant. The staff was so friendly with the kids, even MM who doesn’t like anyone, hugged the owner before we left!

Our first impression of Munich was rocky because nothing was open and we couldn’t even find places to eat, but once the city came back to life and we got used to our surroundings we really loved Munich! We left Munich by high speed ICE train back to Berlin to catch a flight home the next day.