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Germany: the land of beer and sauerkraut! We arrived in Munich a week before Oktoberfest. It would have been awesome to be there for the festival but it meant good accommodation would be hard to find and probably wouldn't come cheap. Either way, that wasn't going to stop us from getting stuck into the local brews! Munich was the Nazi 'headquarters' during the second world war, and as such there are many memorials around the city. Furthermore, Dachau Concentration Camp is nearby and we did a tour on our final day here. To add to the excitement, the Pope was due to give a speech in the middle of town on our second day, and the place was all a buzz and swarming with people. However, being the atheists that we are, we didn't bother hanging around for it hehe, not that we'd be able to understand a word of it anyway. I would've liked to have had longer to look around Munich, but there's plenty of time for that.

Central Munich, busy busy busy, but great to wander around!

Pedal power is a very popular mode of transport in relatively flat Munich. There were cyclists everywhere which made me want my bike even more!		As mentioned above, the Pope was due to give a spiel later in the afternoon, and as such the city was absolutely swarming with cops. We did think about coming back just to get a photo but people were pouring in and taking up all the space pretty quickly and we really weren't that interested enough to get caught in it all.		Munich was founded in 1158 by some bloke who called himself Henry the Lion, and so there are several of these colourfully-painted lions around town.

Transvestite. They wouldn't have tolerated this during the war.		The Glockenspiel in Marienplatz (the hub of Munich). This thing lets rip at 11am and noon (and 5pm from May to October) and the little figures on the right put on a little show. The square gets packed with tourists just to stare at this, and so pickpockets are common around here.

The craters in these columns of this building were caused by attacks in World War II. Scary thought!		Being nowhere near a beach, the local surfers make do with this fast-flowing river and the wave created at this point hahaha!		Englischer Garten (English Garden) is one of the largest parks in Europe, and to quote Lonely Planet, "In summer, nude sunbathing is the rule rather than the exception. It's not unusual for hundreds of naked people to be in the park during a normal business day, with their clothing stacked primly on the grass." So I had to join in; it would've looked weird not to ;)

This is Chinesischer Turm, one of three beer gardens in Englischer Garten. After all that sunbathing in the raw I was getting hungry and thirsty ;) And what better way to eat and drink than in the hot sun in the middle of a park with an Oom-pah band pumping out the sounds?!		Perfect: sauerkraut, schweinswurst (pork sausages), chips drizzled with ketchup and mayonnaise, and...		...BEER (and a pretzel hehe). Our beer of choice here is Hofbrau - bloody good stuff!

In this country you don't fuck about with stubbies or pints, you get steins! These babies hold around a litre of the good stuff (and I flogged one for a souvenir). Little ol' Mo needed two hands to drinks hers.
Another round? Hell yeah!

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