Austria and Germany

In early April I attended an introductory weekend on Management Consulting in Kitzbuhel, Austria.  Situated in the heart of the Alps, the vistas from this small ski resort town were outstanding.  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to appreciate the mountains much, as I spent almost all of my time indoors learning about the life of a consultant. 

But, instead of flying straight back to Oxford, I met Chris in Munich to play tourist for a few days while staying at the flat of my good friend, Clarissa.  Our tour of Munich started at Marienplatz, the main public square that has been the center of Munich's social activity throughout history.  The new City Hall (below) dominates the square, and it contains a glockenspiel which, thrice daily, reenacts a couple 16th century tales. 

 

The pictures below are looking out from St. Peter's Church in the Marienplatz, having just climbed the long, narrow staircase to reach the viewing area atop the tower.

We hit the Hofbrauhaus for dinner, live music, a couple beers, and hundreds of tourists, though our visit was much more tame than Michael and Jason's Hofbrauhaus experience years back!

 

We spent the following couple of days at the Deutsches Museum, the world's largest museum of science and technology, the Residenz, the former seat of government and palace of the Bavarian Monarchs, and Olympic park, where Chris and I ventured to the top of the Olympic tower, shown below, to see a beautiful view of fog!

 

After trying on Clarissa's dirndl, we were obviously in the mood for more German beer, so we took a trip to Kloster Andechs, a monastery on a mountain just outside Munich which has been brewing beer since the middle ages.

 

It was a gorgeous hour hike up to the monastery, and we rewarded ourselves with some pretzels, sausage and beer (all very tasty). We even grabbed a beer to go for the hike back down!