Two Days in Munich

We were starting our holiday which would begin from Luton airport to Munich, then onward to the Dolomites, then finally in Verona before returning to Luton.

I was rocking my Z7 and 24-120mm which was a great combo but in hindsight I wish I’d have taken something smaller and lighter, or maybe even my 28mm prime/pancake lens or a compact Fuji.

First Night

We arrived and got the train to Munich centre, checked into our hotel and went out for dinner.

We found a fabulous restaurant nearby and I immediately got the large jug glass of beer and a delicious dish of pork belly and potato dumplings.

Both lumps of pork I got had melt in the mouth crackling, and I was really enjoying the German cuisine straight away! 😁

Day 1 – Exploring Munich

We were exploring the city today so it was a wander around to see what we would bump into.

We passed a fountain which had too many background distractions but I amused myself by catching this shot of two pigeons.

We wandered further stopping occasionally to listen to some very talented buskers, then we popped into the Bayern Munich shop.

Kathryn had enquired about tickets for a match as Bayern were playing at home the next night but apparently you have to apply to go into a ballot.

Side note: Bayern beat a bottom club 7-0 so we missed out on a good one, but we did watch it on TV in our hotel room.

We then visited Münchner Dom aka Munich cathedral and I grabbed this shot of a chap outside in traditional Bavarian Lederhosen.

We wandered around the inside of the cathedral and down the crypt to view a small art exhibition, and I grabbed this shot.

The wire/steel art sculpture in the bishops’ crypt of the Munich Cathedral is titled "Heart" (also known as the “Against Forgetting Abuse” memorial). Created by the renowned Munich multimedia artist Michael Pendry, this three-dimensional, 60-centimeter-high grid-like sculpture is crafted from square-edged structural steel and powder-coated in a golden hue.

We decided to go up the tower to see the views of the city from that vantage point.

The shot below taken on my iPhone 15 is a sample of the view through one of the many windows – you can see in the distance the Bayern Munich football stadium.

I considered what image I could grab with my main camera and I quite liked this abstract shot of one of the adjacent towers.

On leaving the cathedral, we headed to the Marienplatz square where old and new city architecture sits side-by-side, something I think I captured with the following image.

As the city was preparing for the official start of Oktoberfest, we saw this stall for selfies and just had to grab one, although technically not a selfie as a kind volunteer took the image.

Below is a phone shot of the old town hall.

We walked a little further to the Angerviertal quarter where there is a food market and it was here I had to try a Werst – picture below of the sausages rather than of me scoffing it which Kathryn enjoyed taking.

We decided to head back through the city and back to our hotel. With a huge breakfast and snacks during the day, we decided to skip supper and pick up a sandwich and take this back to our hotel.

With a free hot water and coffee machine in the hotel foyer, and as always Yorkshire T-Bags in our case, we knew a cup of tea would accompany a lighter supper. Brits abroad, the more mature edition!

On the way back to the hotel, we left an underpass up an escalator and I grabbed this opportunistic shot.

These chaps look dodgy to me and I was pleased to have grabbed this shot in the moment with no questions asked.

Day 2 – BMW Museum and Olympic Park

After breakfast, we could hear lots of music, drums and marching nearby and found out this was the Oktoberfest Parade.

We hurriedly nipped out of our hotel and made our way down the end of the street, and I took some images by holding my camera up at arms length with the tilt screen adjusted so I could just about see what I was capturing.

I had identified the BMW Museum as a place of interest when researching where to go in Munich to get good images and this location caught my eye, particularly in the knowledge an urban architecture club competition round was in this seasons themes.

We caught a train from Munich to the museum which was less than half an hour and walked a very short distance to the museum.

I’m definitely not a car person or petrol head so I was unsure what this museum would be like but I was blown away at how interesting the visit turned out to be.

BMW Welt and Museum

Aside from the full range of cars (several models of BMW, Mini’s, Rolls Royce) there were interactive screens one of which you wave your arms around and the machine tells you which BMW suits you best.

For Kathryn and I, we both were advised by the machine that BMW Coupés were for us albeit in differing colours.

As we made our way across the hall and up the staircase, I was starting to appreciate the metallic infrastructure of the building and grabbed several images of interest.

As we walked towards the other building, I could see the building with the BMW logo on top which I believe is known as the four cylinders.

I’ve compiled some collages to show the range of architectural images I captured.

The next image is one of my favourites (not sure about the crane though 😏).

And another collage…

I quite liked the shape of the street lamps so tried to capture these with minimal overlap.

We wandered back through the buildings and out towards the Olympic park.

Olympic Park

Our first stop was to grab a picture of the Olympic rings.

We were walking along wide paths and through the park, and could see some really interesting architecture as well as the Olympic Tower which is 291m high.

Built as a television tower in 1964, unfortunately it has been closed since 2024 for refurbishment work and is expected to reopen in late 2027.

We were really enjoying walking round this vast park and I was trying to grab some interesting angled shots of the roof structures.

And another…

I took quite a fancy to this particular rooftop, and although many of these captures suit mono, I really liked the colour of it.

We were conscious of the time and catching the train back so decided to wrap up our visit and head back to the station.

One more shot of the buildings and I went for a wide shot this time.

We wandered back and encountered a really moving and thought-provoking multimedia memorial featuring videos of the story of the terrorist attack that could’ve stopped the 1972 Olympic Games.

Palestinian terrorists took several Israeli athletes hostage and a disastrous attempt to rescue them resulted in lives lost.

During the attack on 5–6 September 1972, 17 people were killed in total.

• 11 Israeli Olympic team members — including 5 athletes and 6 coaches or officials.
• 5 terrorists from the Palestinian militant group Black September.
• 1 West German police officer, Anton Fliegerbauer, who was killed during the failed hostage-rescue attempt.

The attack began when eight terrorists entered the Olympic Village and took members of the Israeli delegation hostage. Two Israelis were killed during the initial attack, and the remaining nine hostages were killed during the disastrous rescue attempt at Fürstenfeldbruck airbase.

Of the eight terrorists, five were killed and three were captured. The three captured men were subsequently released in October 1972 following the hijacking of a Lufthansa aircraft.

In the days after, it was decided to proceed with the Olympic games.

We were very moved by the story and thought the memorial was superb. Over one side, we could see the towering apartment blocks which were clearly the athletes accommodation.

We found the Olympic park to be a really wonderful place to visit, and felt we could’ve easily spent the whole day here. So many famous sports events (in particular football matches such as the famous 5-1 England win against Germany) have taken place here as well famous music artists such as The Rolling Stones.

It wasn’t until we got back to our hotel later that I realised the Olympic stadium (which we didn’t visit) was Bayern Munich’s home ground in the 1990s and until 2005 when their Allianz stadium opened.

The Olympic stadium was where Norwich City FC played Bayern Munich in 1993 where the Canaries famously won 2-1 with the Norwich goals from Jeremy Goss and Mark Bowen. The match is considered Norwich City’s best footballing victory and Goss’ volley from 20 yards out Norwich’s best ever goal.

I must admit, I regret us not visiting the stadium but as we read later it was closed on this day we visited anyway.

English Garden

When we got back to Munich, we walked up to the English Garden for a wander around and to see the famous water rapids where people surf.

Below is the best capture I could get as it was getting dark (note the high ISO).

We caught a bus back to the part of town where our hotel was located and just bought a sandwich and some snack for supper while grabbing some hot water and milk from the hotel’s awesome drinks machine. We had T bags from home so enjoyed a cuppa while chilling.

We had thoroughly enjoyed our two days in Munich and tomorrow would be making our way to the Dolomites which would mean leaving Germany and heading towards Italy via Austria.

Onwards and upwards…