The end again, in Munich

Wow, four months pedaling from Corfu to Munich. That’s my longest bicycle tour in a decade. By the time we arrived in Munich, Corfu and Greece certainly seemed like a long ways away. The last couple days of riding from Füssen to Munich were flat. It’s easy to remember the few flat sections of whole tour — the Dukagjin Plain, the SW edge of the large Hungarian plain, and the Friuli Plain. That’s it — perhaps about 10 days of flat riding in four months.

Every time I go to Germany, I am more and more impressed with the cities and the sights. This was my first time in Bavaria, and, well, the scenery’s pretty good as well.

On the same Gökova tour where we met Sven who sent us to Neuschwanstein Castle, we also met Manuel. Hoping to see him we added Weilheim in Oberbayern, his hometown, to our route, but Manuel was in Finland when we passed through. It was another lively downtown.

We ended our trip with a fun five days in Munich. On the first day Wiltrud took us on a tour of downtown. We first met Wiltrud in Geyikbayırı, perhaps five years ago. During university she spent her summers taking tourists on tours of downtown Munich in a bicycle rickshaw. For our visit she managed to get a hold of one of these rickshaws and was excited to give the tour again after many years. However, she was hobbling around on crutches when we were in Munich so I drove the thing. All three of us really enjoyed the day.

We started with a traditional Bavarian breakfast — white sausage, mustard, pretzels, and beer.

That was in Marienplatz, next to Munich’s rather impressive town hall.

It’s a lousy photo, but this seems to be the only I have of the rickshaw.

For our lunch stop Wiltrud took Ferda and me to our first biergarten, the one at the Chinese Pagoda in the English Garden.

Thanks for the great tour, Wiltrud!

On other days Ferda and I further explored downtown and the English Garden. We also pedaled around the city quite a bit, (mostly) failing to find the bicycle accessories that we were sure would be easy to find at shops in Munich. We did, however, find a bit of the Berlin Wall.

There are biergarten everywhere. We stopped at this one in a community garden area on the way back from Bavaria’s largest bicycle shop, a ways north of the city center.

Packing up bicycles and touring gear for a flight and getting everything to the airport is always a logistical challenge. In Munich we contacted a North American couple (via warmshowers), Jennifer and Ralph, who helped tremendously with these logistics. The boxes were at their house, waiting for us, and Ralph offered his tools and time to get everything packed. The biggest support was the next day when Ralph helped us carry everything to a train (U Bahn), got on the train with us, and together we made the transfer at Marienplatz for another train (S Bahn) to the airport. We could not have managed all that on our own. Thank you so much, Ralph and Jennifer.

After our bicycles were ready for the airport, the four of us enjoyed dinner at a biergarten just a short walk from their house.

Then, guess what? On our last morning in Munich Jennifer and Ralph treated us to a traditional breakfast — white sausage, mustard, and pretzels.

We forwent the beer that time — guess we’re not real Bavarians!