Pittsburgh, meet Munich

The Glockenspiel towers over Marienplatz.  (photo by Carson Allwes)

The Glockenspiel towers over Marienplatz.
(photo by Carson Allwes)

by Carson Allwes

Point Park University’s International Media class arrived in Munich on Friday from the airport and straight into a tour of Germany’s third largest city.

Tour guide Arnoud Beck provided a bus tour from the airport to the hotel. Beck pointed out key points such as the Autobahn, the highway in Germany famous for not having a speed limit. The advisory speed limit is 130 kilometers or 81 miles per hour, and buses and trucks should travel at 80 kilometers per hour or around 60 miles per hour, according to the highway’s website.

Old and new buildings, including Munich’s soccer stadium, flashed by the bus windows as the bus took the group to its hotel. The hotel, Europäischer Hof, is in the center of Munich, near Marienplatz.  And it was very close to the main train station, which the group used a number of times for visits.

Henry the Lion founded Marienplatz in 1158. Today it is a shopping center. Downtown Marienplatz was filled with people browsing shops, eating in cafés, visiting street vendors and enjoying outdoor street music.

Vendors set up along the streets with their carts full of fruits, vegetables and white spargel, or asparagus, which was in season.  Their customers were dressed in everything from lederhosen to everyday apparel.

This Marienplatz street vendor sells fresh produce. (photo by Carson Allwes)

This Marienplatz street vendor sells fresh produce.
(photo by Carson Allwes)

Marienplatz has several key points that depict Munich. Beck showed the group a couple of churches, including Bürgersaalkirche and the Frauenkirche.

Bürgersaalkirche is between two buildings and almost blends into the scenery. The church has a museum for the Rev. Rupert Mayer SJ. He was a Jesuit priest who was a chaplain in World War I, losing a leg in a grenade attack. During World War II he preached against the Nazis and was placed in “protective custody” and later sent to a concentration camp by the Nazis. He returned to a hero’s welcome from Catholics and others after the war ended and died of a stroke in November 1945. Pope John Paul II beautified him in 1987, which is a path to sainthood. The museum also displayed many other different religious statues and relics.

The Frauenkirche is the tallest building in Munich. It was decided by the city that no building should be taller than the Frauenkirche’s two towers, which are around 100 meters tall.

Beck explained why the Frauenkirche survived the war.

“The high points of the church gave the army [a marker] to bomb the city,” he said.

This saved the Frauenkirche and many other tall buildings as they were used for the military during the second war.

Inside the Frauenkirhe, Beck told the story of how the church was built. According to legend, Jörg von Halsbach needed funding in order to build the church and asked the Devil for help. The Devil would help but only if Halsbach did not put windows in the church.

The devil's footprint sits on a tile inside the church. (photo by Carson Allwes)

The devil’s footprint sits on a tile inside the Frauenkirhe church.
(photo by Carson Allwes)

Halsbach tricked the Devil by using the architecture to give the appearance of a windowless church. Devil was not fooled.

“In [the Devil’s] anger at being fooled, he [stomped] his foot and left his footprint [in the floor],” Beck said, showing it to the students.

The Frauenkirche is also the home of the archbishop. This is the church where former Pope Benedict XVI practiced as bishop before moving on to the Vatican.

Another famous piece of architecture is the Glockenspiel.

The Glockenspiel is in the center of Marienplatz, an old gothic-themed building with gargoyles and flying buttresses. The clock is in the center tower. The clock tower has two open windows with pieces that move at 11 a.m. and 5 p.m., attracting a crowd. The inner mechanics put on a show for the people in the square. The entire show lasts about 15 minutes.

Beck’s tour ended with permission to begin exploring and sampling Munich’s cafés and restaurants. The tour formed a foundation of important landmarks and history that better shaped the group’s understanding of the city over the rest of their trip.

Alexa’s Blog – Day 6

The following events transpired on 5/17/13.

The day started bright and early. I’ve never been as tired as I was today. We were up at 4:30 am this morning for a very early flight to Munich. As soon as we got to Munich we were had met our new tour guide, Arnoud, and took a bus tour of the city before arriving at our hotel. We followed Arnoud to Marienplatz and lunch nearby. My first impression of Munich is that it is stunning. The architecture and atmosphere is exactly what I thought a European city would look like. In other words, what I thought was missing in Berlin. Not that I didn’t like Berlin, I just find Munich to be what I was expecting.

After lunch, we met back up in front of the Glockenspiel with the rest of our group and went to the Munich Tourism Office for our first Munich media visit. I liked hearing about the variety of attractions that the city has to offer. It’s all up my alley – sports, theatre, museums, music – it’s perfect. I would have loved to be here for Oktoberfest or the Long Night of Music. I think that everything here is so compelling to me. I was intrigued that the X-Games are going to take place in Munich for the next three years. Isabella had a lot of interesting things to say about working with tourism and public relations. I was impressed that she is doing such an important job a young age.

I had been pushing Carson in her wheel chair for most of the day and was getting pretty confident in my abilities. But a blow to my ego came when I tried to cross traffic and get her onto the next street: I didn’t hit the curb in the right place and she flew out of the wheelchair with all of her papers and belongings! Luckily she was able to react and stay standing but I felt so bad! Imagine if we hadn’t been that lucky. That was when I knew that I was 100% done with the day.

Our free time consisted of catching up on missed sleep. I left the hotel an hour before we were supposed to meet up for dinner to look around for a bank to exchange my American money. I wanted to put everything on my debit card but my parents recommended cash. I wish I had just done things my own way, because it has been a pain trying to find such a place. I got some money from the ATM to hold me over until Tuesday but I will have to be quite thrifty this weekend. It’s a holiday weekend and all of the banks will be closed until Tuesday morning. Arnoud has tried explaining where to go to exchange money but I have no idea what he’s talking about. I basically need someone to physically take me to get this done.

We went to a café in Marienplatz for dinner and had an assortment of very strange meats. I could handle most of it but there was a strange substance resembling spam that I couldn’t quite bring myself to eat. And naturally there was beer.

The one thing I have noticed about Munich is that it is very difficult to navigate if you want to go to specific places. Getting to Morienplatz on my own was easy but when I tried to find a certain shop or street I was completely lost! What are you doing to me, Munich?! I don’t like this feeling! It’s my one and only complaint about the city so far, but I’m sure I’ll get over it in a few days.

Also, the wifi in the hotel is sketchy. Just throwing that out there.

Reporting from the Z floor,

-AB