A last look at Munich

After spending a long morning traipsing around the Residenz Museum it was time for a break. And what better than a beer at the Ratskeller.

The skilled linguists among you will have worked out that this is a beer cellar under the Rathaus. It's a lovely one too.

I got in there around 3pm on a Wednesday and it was packed. Luckily it is large, even by Weatherspoon standards, and I was able to get a good seat near the middle where I could observe the bustle without being dragged in to it.

The beer was very welcome, as was the apple strudel with ice cream. And the second beer.

I emerged from the cellar in to the courtyard in the centre of the Rathaus that looked all the more beautiful for being placed under a grey sky and coated with fresh rain. Gothic buildings should have Gothic weather.

From there I took the other main route that edges away from the city centre to the south-west.

This is another busy and pretty street sporting a fine set of statues and other decorations.

I took lots of pictures as I ambled along and while the black boy with the bells nearly made the final selection I settled for the safer classic angels instead, taking care not to blink as I did so.

I also found the Apple shop and popped in just for a minute to add it to my increasing, and pointless, collection of Apple Shops. I checked in on FourSquare and was relieved to find that I was the first of my friends to go there. The extra points awarded for that achievement do not matter either but collecting is compulsive.

One the edge of the old town is another gate to mark the passing from the old to the new.

To reinforce the point, on the other side of the gate are seven lanes of traffic and two sets of tram tracks. The change in energy and noise is dramatic and unwelcome.

What is welcome, once you have managed to cross the road, is the water feature in the middle of the tram turning circle.

There are a few flowers there too (Munich, like Zurich, does not really go in for flowers) and a few benches to sit on to enjoy the scene that somehow manages to defy the turbulence flowing all around it.

And that was it. A short walk to Max Pett for another excellent vegan meal (that's an excellent meal that happened to be vegan) then another short walk back to the hotel for a final sleep in Munich before another train the next day. And that's a story for another day.