Munich Dashes Preconceptions - Page 2
By Tom Kagy | 10 Aug, 2025

The 5th and final leg of our 12-day Central Europe road trip took us through the Alps, Salzburg and into Munich's unforgettable Old Town.

After dinner we strolled circuitously back to our hotel, including several blocks down our side street which provided access to a community of townhouses.  We knew from a bit of research that the vicinity of our hotel was considered one of Munich's most affluent districts.  The community's architecture was starkly utilitarian, with no decorative frills.  Very few of the long row of cars parked for the evening were BMWs.  A surprising percentage were Skodas, Hondas, Lexuses, Toyotas, Kias and Hyundais, along with some Benzes and a couple of Teslas.  We were getting the impression that BMW enjoyed little favor in its home town.  

Munich's Old Town offers the city's biggest concentration of shops, restaurants and historic Gothic and baroque architecture. (Photo, Tom Kagy)

MUNICH DAY TWO

We were looking forward to the breakfast buffet out of sheer curiosity.  At the equivalent of $50 per mouth we considered it pricey, especially as the breakfast buffets in our earlier hotel stays had either been included in the room rates or in the $20 - $25 range. 

The Munich Palace Hotel offers a breakfast buffet full of quality organic ingredients in an intimate luxe setting.  (Photo, Tom Kagy)

The Munich Palace Hotel buffet was set in an intimate dining room with about ten tables.  Its patrons appeared to be prosperous-looking locals rather than tourists.  The foods on display appeared similar to those at other buffets but my wife was impressed that the dishes were made with quality organically grown produce.  To me the major luxe touch was the assortment of health tonics on offer in small elegant glasses.  I downed a green one and got a jolt from the intense concentration of ginger, grass sprouts and herbs.

Looking west from the elevated base of the Freedom Angel (Friendensengel) monument offers a view along the north edge of the memorable Old Town quarter. (Photo, Tom Kagy)

After breakfast we picked up umbrellas from the lobby and headed west on Prinzregentstraße in a light rain toward the Angel of Peace (Friendensengel) monument in Maximiliansanlagen, a lush green park bordering the small, shallow Isar River that divides the city center and Old Town, to the west, from the suburb of Berg am Laim to the west.  

The small shallow Isar River enhances the extensive greenbelt running north-south on the eastern edge of Munich's downtown and Old Town.  (Photo, Tom Kagy)

After admiring the monument and its rain-drenched green surroundings, we crossed the Isar and turned left to head south on the riverwalk bordering Widermayerstraße which runs along the Isar's west bank.  After a drizzly but pleasant 10-minute walk we turned right onto Maximillianstraße, the boulevard famed for being lined with luxury brands like Dior, Hermes, Ralph Lauren, MCM, Cartier, Gucci and others.  It also serves as the main east-west boulevard penetrating Altstadt, Old Town.  

We strolled west along Maximilianstraße for a few blocks before turning south toward Old Town proper to Platzl, a busy pedestrian square lined with a variety of restaurants and cafes, including Japanese, Chinese and Persian, as well as a boba shop.  We then continued down Orlandostraße.  What stopped me in my tracks at the next corner was Bäckerei & Konditorei (Bakery and Pastry) Ludwig Riedmair.  

When I think of Europe's attractions, my imagination is shamefully early 20th Century, a time when an American tourist's highest calling was to sit at a cafe sipping coffee and nibbling pastries.  My first visits to Paris and Vienna in my youth were with a brain engraved with Hemingway-era images of lounging at a patio table at La Closerie de Lilas or at a Viennese cafe within sight of St Stephen's Cathedral.  Such modest dreams, one might suppose, are easily realized.  In practice, however, we rarely manage to be near a bakery when I'm not full or it's not too late for caffeine.  In fact, 11 days of our trip had passed without a single cafe interlude.

On that day in Munich's Old Town I resolved to seize the moment and return home having lived my European fantasy though I wasn't yet feeling peckish and it was still raining lightly, ruling out an outdoor table.  Having squandered perhaps better opportunities in Prague, Bratislava, Budapest and Llubljana, it was now down to Munich.  The heart wants what the heart wants.

The bakery was empty when we entered except the young woman behind the counter.  We ordered a latté for me along with a large split croissant stuffed with whipped cream and various fruit, and a coffee for the wife who had zero interest in partaking of anything.  The tab for this indulgence was $13.82.  

We sat down at a table facing the large plate-glass window to enjoy my European cafe moment when another couple walked in.  They turned out to be Americans from Philadelphia who too were planning on heading home the next day.  I wasn't the only American harboring the wildly, embarrassingly prosaic dream of sipping and munching at a European cafe, it seemed.  Never mind the rain and the fact that Munich is associated with beer halls, not cafes.  

We walked a half block west on Ledererstraße, then a block south on Sparkassenstraße to the eastern spur of Marienplatz (Mary's Square), Old Town Munich's most central and famous square.  This spur was dominated by a fanciful bronze statue of Shakespeare's fictional tragic heroine Juliet Capulet.  It was a replica of the original in Verona gifted to Munich in 1974 as a token of municipal palship.

A few steps west into Marienplatz proper put us in front of one of the most imposing and authentic-looking Gothic structures I've ever seen, the Neues Rathaus, New Town Hall.  Yet it was completed in 1874 to celebrate the architectural style of the mid-12th century when Munich first became a city.  The Rathaus's elaborate — not to say overwrought — moldings contrast starkly with its grimly monochromatic gray masonry, making it a gloriously ugly but terribly authentic-looking structure.  Of course at its best Gothic architecture amounts to an awesome violation of modern aesthetic sensibilities.