Munich isn’t merely the venue for the Oktoberfest, but a
hypermodern exhibition- and high-tech city, besides being a soccer
capital with no less than three clubs playing in the Bundesliga,
the German equivalent of the English Premier League. She is also an
exciting film-and fashion centre and has the largest number of
publishing-houses of any place in the world except New York. For all
that, this metropolis seems to possess a charm of her own that at times
makes her resemble some large village. There is however this advantage
for the tourist: the inner city’s built-up area occupies such a
limited space that all is conveniently close together and easy to visit.
This guidebook provides tips and suggestions allowing everyone to
discover ‘their own Munich’. Opportunities for letting your hair
down or simply relax are legion, for this place has many aspects: chic,
gentle and jovial to the one, exuberant, vibrant and ever new to the
other. Then again, romantic, tranquil, aware of tradition and remote
from the march of time. A contradiction? Well, you know, Munich is after
all a city full of contradictions.
The metropolis on the River Isar has again and again been the subject
of many attributes linked to great expectations. For instance, Munich
was long dubbed 'Isar-Athens’ or ‘Italy’s northernmost city’.
The reason for this lay in the profound longing of the Wittelsbach
dynasty for a classical-southern awareness of life, to which they gave
free rein all through their 700 years of domination. They turned the
town into a panopticum of architectural excellence that still dtermines
the municipal image to the present time.
Today, however, the accents lie elsewhere: enjoying a fried sausage
from a stall on Victualienmarkt or perhaps a pint of the best at
the Englischer Garten when the Kleinhesseloher Lake sparkles in the night
air and the birds nesting in the Schwabinger Tower launch into their
final flight of the day, almost blacking out the sky. Or taking a stroll
through the Englischer Garten, where the beat of African drums, the
sounds of Brazilian Samba combos and the rhymings of German rappers all
intermingle in the shade of the copses of tall trees.
Everyone will find their fancy here, be it by surveying the city’s
spires from the Monopterus, be it in the evening sunshine on
Königsplatz, in an open-air cinema on a balmy July night, or availing
oneself of one of the many other attractions that this nocturnally
active city has on offer.
‘Grüss Gott und Servus,’ as they say in Munich. ‘Hello
and welcome to you!’
