Luke found a two hour walking tour that began at 10.45am in the Old Town, so took his family to find breakfast before that began. When Jarrod went to add us on to the tour, he found the tour was full, so we decided to have breakfast near its starting point and see if we could still join, or just do the 2pm tour.

Free walking tours would probably have no-shows quite regularly, and while the tour guide at first said she couldn’t fit us in, she then counted her attendees and changed her mind, so added another 7 of us to the tour. Meanwhile, Jarrod had received an email at dinner last night to say that Tom’s phone had been found, so he and Abi were on a train by 6am to Frankfurt this morning to pick it up.

Our walking tour was very good and informative, but a lot of walking! We watched the Glockenspiel at 11am on the city hall, and saw several important sites and learnt more about the history of Munich. Two spots stood out to me more than the others.

The tour guide talked about the monarchy and the successive kings: Maximilian, Ludwig the First, , Maximilian the Second, Ludwig the Second…… She mentioned Ludwig the First having several mistresses as well as a wife, and how he was very taken by and influenced by one called Lola Montez. Well that made Belle blush immediately!

In 2020 during lockdown, Belle’s year 6 class was asked to research a famous person, and she stumbled across Lola Montez who apparently created salsa dancing (amid many more sordid and scandalous details) and, according to 11 year old Belle, “looked prettier on Wikipedia than the others the teacher suggested they research”. Belle prepared a presentation on cardboard to present to her class over Zoom, and it was only because I checked the information and was horrified at what I read that she came to realise what words like “exotic dancing” actually meant. She thought she tore up the presentation and started again with one of the approved research suggestions, but she doesn’t know I have that Lola research stored away for her 21st 😂. It was funny to hear the tour guide talk at such length about that character today!

The other spot that stood out to me was the commentary on Hitler’s rise to power (and its similarity to some aspects we see in politics overseas today, but I digress…..). A clash Hitler and his supporters had failed but the experience taught Hitler that an attempt to overthrow the state by force would bring forth a military response in its defense. From that time on, he was committed to taking advantage of the Weimar democracy to subvert the state from within. He sought to come to power by means of the popular vote. He aimed to influence that vote by using the freedoms of speech and assembly guaranteed by the Weimar Republic.

A statue created for 16 of Hitler’s supporters killed in this clash (the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923) had to be saluted every time people walked past the statue in Odeonsplatz. If they didn’t want to salute, there was an alternative route to avoid the statue that became a cobblestone street of silent protest, The alternative way that jews and brave dissenters took to avoid the Odeonplatz went through the small alley of Viscardigasse, and a small cobbled stone path marks their way. In 1995, a line of bronze cobblestones called “Argumente” (English: “Arguments”) was installed in Viscardigasse to memorialize those who resisted the Nazi regime.

The tour ended at 1.15pm and we decided to have lunch at a famous beer hall we had seen on the tour, Hofbrauhaus, where everyone ordered …..schnitzels!

From there we divided into two groups – one wanted to climb many steps to a Tower lookout and the rest wanted to take the elevator option to the top of Munich Cathedral to its lookout. I tapped out once I heard that option involved 90 steps to get to the elevator, and chose to sit in the Cathedral and wait for the others, but everyone returned quite underwhelmed with both lookouts.

Abi and Tom had arrived back by then, with Tom’s phone! We all returned to the hotel and ordered in pizzas for dinner so we didn’t have to brave the cold and go out again (it’s negative degrees here). This hotel has a rule that you can’t eat in your room or risk an additional cleaning fee, so they open up their dining room for free use. That suits us because once again we can all congregate together!