munich

on this trip back home to the states for work & thanksgiving, we did things a little differently by flying lufthansa instead of turkish air.  this was due to a much lower ticket price, and the opportunity to have a one-night layover in munich.  since ben & i had never been, we thought it would be fun (and cut down even further the cost of our tickets).  the layover was made especially easy by checking the majority of our luggage all the way to nyc (they held it for us overnight) and taking only our carry-on with us for our one-night stay.  it ended up being a fun mini-getaway, breaking up our trip and introducing us to a city we plan to re-visit.

we landed in munich at 6pm on a friday, headed to the hotel to drop off our stuff, and heading out on foot to explore the nearby neighborhood.  after a 15 minute walk through a large park (the english gardens), we ended up in a busy section filled with cafes, shops and restaurants.  

we found an authentic looking beer house where we decided to stop for dinner and were served this amazing appetizer on a slab of wood....

weird cheese concoction topped with red onions served with fresh pretzels = amazing

ben was slightly intimidated by his schnitzel but enjoyed it none the less

i opted for the 'sausages on parade,' because with a name like that, how can you not?  the sauerkraut was the best part.

after dinner we walked and walked and walked, ending up back at our hotel and sleeping well after all that hearty food & walking.  the next morning we were greeted to beautiful sunshine when we looked from our hotel room to the city center:

we had about 3 hours to explore the city before heading back to the airport, so we asked a cabbie to drop us off at the city center, which turned out to be city hall.

this was the perfect spot to explore from.  we happened across lots of fun bakeries and shops with plenty of window displays to entice us as we explored munich.

 although, disappointingly, the christmas markets were not yet open, there were still lots of the weekly markets who had already begun to sell their christmas decorations.

the markets were incredible, with so much fresh produce and mouth-watering prepared foods.  as ben said, 'they put our markets to shame. it's why it's called europe:  they're so advanced!'  i'm  not sure what that means, but i'm on board with it.

 zee germans were out in abundance, enjoying their saturday morning coffee and sausages.

we wandered over to the hofbrauhaus, because you have to.

surprisingly, it was already filling up with people out for their first beer of the day (it was 10am).

little shops selling your basic lederhosen were everywhere-- but i especially liked the children's versions.  so cute!

 at 11am we headed back to city hall so as not to miss the once-daily glockenspiel show.  it was unimpressive, but at least we can say we saw it!

afterward with just an hour to spare, we headed back to the market for breakfast.  here we enjoyed the very authentic german breakfast sausage, weisswurst, which comes in a thick white casing & is almost sweet.  it's served with pretzels-- but i opted for the german potato salad because it's delicious.  of course, you can't have it without beer...

alll of the locals seemed to be hanging out here (though most were opting for the liquid breakfast & looked as though they'd be staying for the better part of the day).  we wished we had more time, but will certainly look forward to another trip in the future.