Day 2
The weather was overcast with rain and bursts of sun. Despite this I booked a double tour so we could see as much of the city in the short amount of time left.
The first of the tours was on bike and we road the streets of the city like any other vehicle, it's amazing how accommodating drivers are for people on bikes- everyone gives way to people riding bikes.
We visited all the major attractions and learnt a lot of world war 2 history, the most alarming fact was that 90% of this beautiful city was completely destroyed from air strikes during the war. When you see all the amazing architecture it's hard to fathom it in ruins. Restoration projects are still ongoing and if you look closely you can still see a lot of damage from the war.
We road into the Englisch Garten (which is 12 km in length and 6 in width) stopping at the China Bier Garten for a beer and pretzel. Our guide Danni explained Bavarians created gardens to brew beer and Horse Chestnut Trees were traditionally planted in to provide shade and keep the beer at a constant temp during the fermentation process. Now the gardens are just for recreation and of course drinking. Apparently if a chestnut falls in your beer you have to shout everyone.
We followed the river through the park to a spot where locals surf the rapids, it's pretty cool. We were lucky enough to see Jon Imhoof (who is a crazy explorer and the founder of river surfing) surf the river so I recorded a little video of him out there, he's 75 years old!
Just before the 3rd Riech tour Ryan was struck down with some kind of virus and stayed at the hotel. The tour was on foot and we visited similar locations to that of the bike tour but this was of course a history lesson on Hitler and the forming of the Nazi regime. The most interesting thing I took from the tour was why Hitler formed so much hate for the Jews, apparently no one really knows but it's possible it started with something as trivial as a rejection from Jewish Art School and it escalated from there. f***en psycho! Irony is Hitler had an obsessive appreciation for art and architecture yet he was the single cause for destroying a s*** load of it through out Europe.
I was starting to feel the effects of jet lag at the tail end of the tour. I forced Ryan to get out of the hotel and eat something but we both crashed early.
I did manage to speak with Sherri and Ebony and that was definitely the high light of my day.