With a ticket in hand I was now able to board a train into the heart of the city (legally). So, I took the strain first to central station, where I would find out my options for train travel to get to the next and remaining few countries. It was remarkably difficult to get to the right place but eventually I got there. I then found what I expected and learned that a Eurail Pass would be cheeped than a set of individual trips. So, I purchased a pass for 4 countries and 5 days of travel, which will be more than I need to finish my trip. Lastly, I made the necessary reservations for my approaching trip to France.
I then got back on the train and returned to Marienplatz. From there, I headed out on a walk towards the English Gardens. This walk ran along a few rivers and streams in the city, all of which had some pretty lovely waterfalls. Unfortunately, I found myself mistaken about which river I was walking along, so I actually walked the length of the garden before getting to it. But, I arrived at the northern tip, and then got to walk back to the city through the garden.
The garden is huge! It has multiple restaurants, a beer garden next to a chinese tower, a big lake, and a couple large fields where people were relaxing or playing sports. That said, despite being named 'garden' there seemed to be very few flowers. Perhaps its a result of the time of the year, but I feel 'park' would have been a much more suitable title. It was however, quite a lovely walk on a day with quite lovely weather.
I returned to Marienplatz just before 5, which was perfect. As the clock (all 5 of them visible from the square) chimed, I got to watch the Glockenspiel preform. It is a bit entertaining how many people show up to watch it... but then again... I did it myself. My favorite of the objects going around are the two knights how look very much like they will successfully lance each other.
Anyway, at 5:30 I moved the short distance to the base of the Glockenspiel, where I met with the guided/walking Beer and Brewery tour. Now, by the end I will say that this is much more of a beer tour, and not that focused on the brewing process. So, our first stop was to Schneider Weissp. Here I had my long awaited dark wheat beer. It was so good! I've been trying to come up with the flavor I'd use to describe it... but have been struggling. Its sort of a rich, mapley, sweet, deliciousness. Apparently this beer house made these as their specialty.
From there we were headed a bit further so we went down to the train station. There, we took advantage of the lack of an open container law. We purchased a bottle of Augustina each (a german lager) and had that as we trained our way to our next stop. Rumor has it that this is the most popular bottled beer in Germany. It was pretty good, so it is a rumor that I would believe.
This brought us to Paulner Müchen. Here was the small part of our tour dedicated to brewing. But, we did little more than see the equipment, and I feel learned very little of the actual process. But, upstairs we were served samples of their 3 main brews. They were (in order) a light wheat beer, a lager, and a dark wheat. The dark remained my favorite, but they were all good.
Since we were a small group, we were ahead of schedule. So, our guide took us to a small room which is apparently the back of a restaurant. That was...interesting. We then ended our tour back at the Hofbräuhaus. This place is crazy on a friday night. Its absolutely packed, and everyone has a stein. There's live music blasting and people yelling and beer drinking. Its pretty crazy, and a lot of fun. Here is also where we had dinner... and a bit of me wishes that that occurred a bit earlier in the night. That said, it was a pretty great place to end the tour. At this point I paid my bill, and trained back where I prompts went to bed.
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