A Man's Day in Munich

Today was our last day in Munich and we had a busy day planned. We wanted to visit two museums and go to the English Garden for a swim. Dennis was with us for one last day and he was extremely excited for both the BMW museum, which of course focuses on cars, and the Deutsches Museum, which focuses on German contributions to the world (much of which is also engineering/automotive-related).

I thought the BMW Museum would be cool, but I wasn't salivating like Dennis. As we began our self-guided tour through the museum, I really started to enjoy it. I knew BMW started with planes, but I had no idea about their contributions to motorcycles, racing, and engineering in general. Fun fact: when BMW bought the company that would go on to be their automotive division, they modeled their first car after a British car, a fact they certainly don't advertise. Seeing the evolution of the motorcycle and their race cars and the enormous presence of BMW in F-1 and MotoRacing was very interesting. Overall, the museum had a ton of fascinating automotive history and of course some gorgeous cars (for those who care, my favorite was the 507 Roadster from 1956).

Next, we went got a delicious lunch and regrouped and decided that because of all the stuff left to see and the first overcast day in a long while, we didn't have time to go swimming. The Deutsches Museum is a museum of German achievements in a variety of fields including nanotechnology, all types of engines, alternative fuels, locks (actually very cool), sewing machines, boats and many others. The first thing we saw was the evolution of boats from what looked like Viking-style row-boats to modern cruise-liners. What was interesting was to learn how prominent a figure Germany was in building the mega-passenger ships that crossed the Atlantic in the Titanic era. At the door to the next room there was a piston from one of these enormous ships that was at least 20 feet tall. We looked at some really cool, huge truck engines and the evolution of the German truck-making company MAN, like the German version of Mack trucks.

Upstairs we looked at locks from the 18th century from castles and chapels which were very complicated and interesting. We looked at how they build tunnels, including the worlds largest underwater tunnel which stretches only 10 miles from Sweden to Denmark, but houses a four-lane highway and a two-track railway. We explored some newer technology that had to do with advanced microscopes, facial cue interpretation software, nanotechnology, bio-mass conversion and many other technologies that are used every day but not necessarily known as German inventions.

After we waited for Dennis to be kicked out when the museum closed, we got some delicious ice-cream and headed back to the hostel to send Dennis off.

All in all, Munich was a ton of fun and very beautiful. They have some of the beautiful, old buildings common to Europe, but they also have the super-modern architecture and technology that seems to be uniquely German. We got to experience an authentic German meal and Bier Garten, and see some cool museums, but we definitely didn't get all of Munich. I really enjoyed it because it had the feel of cities like Amsterdam and Dublin where it is small enough to get comfortable, but big enough to keep you interested for a lifetime.