The Easter Bunny Froze!

Munich is a beautiful city, with lots of lovely gardens, wide streets, many pedestrians areas, fabulous architecture, and great restaurants. The last time we were here, in Oct. 2009, we enjoyed them all. However, this visit was a little different, as it was overcast and cold on Friday, rained all day Sat. (temp never got above 39 degrees F), and snowed on Sunday. However, we made the best of it and enjoyed our visit with Eddie Igenbergs. Here are the highlights of the trip. 

Eddie lives near the English Garden, a very large and magnificent park in the center of Munich.  After we arrived on Friday afternoon (April 6), we walked around the park a little bit so we could stretch our legs after our 3 hour train ride from Karlsruhe. 

This is the Chinese pagoda, a very popular place to have tea in the park on a nice day. 

First signs of spring in Munich. 

The Isar River runs through the English Garden, fed by streams from the nearby mountains. It is a popular place to surf. We saw about a dozen crazy kids on the river; water temp was ~40, so they all had wet suits on (you can see more of them standing on the banks of the river with their surfboards). They surf back and forth between the walls of the river on these small wave crests. 

We had a traditional German meal (schnitzel and kraut for Art, lamb for Eddie and I) here on Friday night, which is just around the corner from Eddie's apartment. 

Eddie lives on the top floor of a very nice apartment building, which was built after WW2. Here is the living room; Eddie is in the kitchen. The apartment is 85 sq. meters, almost three times the size of our original apartment in Karlsruhe!

Eddie and Art toasting their friendship.

Smiles all around.

Our sleeping quarters are in the loft, which is accessed via these stairs. Going up OK; coming down at night can be quite challenging.

The bed is tucked under the eaves, on the floor. Here is the sitting area, in front of a TV. The loft has several nice sky lights and is quite comfortable. 

On Saturday, despite the rain, we ventured out into downtown Munich. Here is one of the plazas. 

Another plaza. Much of downtown is limited to pedestrians, and Munich has a fabulous shopping district, with lots of high end stores. 

Saturday evening, we walked to a local biergarten to meet Eddie's oldest daughter, Katharina and her friend, Hannah. Here is the entrance to the biergarten. On the right is a lovely outdoor seating area where you can have dinner (when the weather is more cooperative). 

Katharina (on the right) just received her PhD in physics and now works for Siemens in Vienna.

The beer was a local brew and was excellent. We had another very tasty meal and a good time was had by all!

This is what greeted up when we woke up on Easter Sunday; the view is from Eddie's living room window. 

The English Garden again. I thought it was very pretty with all the trees and bushes covered with snow; however, it was really cold!

The yellow bush in the middle of the picture is a forsythia, laden with snow.  Needless to say, the weather precluded any Easter egg hunts! 


(Next post: our visit to Eichstatt on Easter Sunday, which was very interesting.)