Hofbräuhaus

So I thought I would start my blogs about the Munich beer gardens and houses where I started myself. The biggest tourist attraction for beer drinkers (other than Oktoberfest) is the Hofbräuhaus. It is a massive  brewery/restaurant in the center of Munich.

It is also the most touristy of all the brewery/restaurant hybrids, the Bavarians will be the least numerous people in there on a Friday night. There will be many more Americans than Germans in here, but that, I think is part of its charm.

It is the first place that many travelers will have a Maß (the liters of beer). I myself thought of The Lord of the Rings when Pippin says "It comes in Pints!". Only I said liters.

It is also the first place I had the legendary Schweinhaxe (Pig Knuckle), it makes you feel like a Caveman or a Viking. Then there is the potato balls (Knödl) that my friend Sarah dubbed "Gooey Potatoes". It was just so weird the first time and gave me the sense that I was going to enjoy it here. For that reason I always take my visitors there first.

So in order to get some fresh pictures and experience of the Hofbräuhaus I invited my friend Durante (my t-total vegetarian Australian friend) for a Sunday evening of liters of beer and meat on the bone (for me at least!).

A band plays Bavarian drinking songs most nights

Durante and his Alkoholfrei (which Durante may or may not know in German Law can contain up to 0.5% alcohol... weird)

A caveman that eats with a knife and fork

Gooey potatoes

This is not actually dress-up for him

We were met by more people from the Euro Youth Hostel to extend the drinking merriment

Some interesting fact about the Hofbräuhaus:

1) It inspired the worlds oldest food law in 1516; the Bavarian Beer Purity Law saying that only natural ingredients can be used in beer brewed in Munich
2) The beer there saved the city from complete annihilation during the 30 Years War when King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden invaded Bavaria in 1632. After threatening to sack and burn the city he agreed to leave the city in peace if they surrendered some hostages and 600,000 barrels of Hofbräu beer
3) In a poem Wolfgang Mozart revealed that he wrote the opera Idomendo after several visits to the Hofbräuhaus
4) Vladimir Lenin visited the Hofbräuhaus on a regular basis the year after he was released from exile in Eastern Siberia

Viel Spaß Homies!

Cycling Sabbatical

I was looking back over my posting history and realised that I wasn't giving you what I promised. 10/11 posts have been cycling related, I haven't even got onto the beer yet!

Well it turns out that unfortunately I have picked up a minor injury to my knee that means there won't be any cycling stories for a little while, so on with the beer stories! My friend Adi reliably informs me that I have Iliotibial band tightness and rubbing of ilitibial band over lateral condyle of knee (whatever that means :) ).

With well over 50 beer gardens yet to visit it hasn't actually come at a bad time, and at least now my liver will take some of the load off my legs in coming up with bloggable stories.

Oh and if you look to the right --> you can see a list. I will update my distance cycled and number of maß drank since the blog began. It also has the number of times my running and cycling would have taken me around the world. One of them links to my account on emdomondo, which is what I use to track my running and cycling by GPS. It is a very helpful and motivating tool for exercising, if you are thinking of starting a running or cycling training program it is absolutely amazing!

Anyway, I hope you you're looking forward to some beer garden action, coz I am!

Viel Spaß homies!

Tour de Austria: Day 4

If it weren't for my knee injury today would have been a truly amazing day, but it turned out just to be a good day.

I had planned a 3 lake route for today and returning to Salzburg, but this was not possible due to my inability to make powerful strokes with my right leg without enduring no small amount of pain. The shortest distance I would have to cycle was the roughly 30 miles, but it wouldn't have had any new views of the lakes, so I decided to lengthen it by cycling around the Mondsee.

This was probably my best decision of the entire trip. The views were simply spectacular! See for yourself) :-)

Even with a bum knee I was able to get some good speed today, on average there was a downhill which made the day quite easy cycling. Except of course circa couple of hills that would have been quite comfortable with 2 functioning legs but proved quite tough with just a left leg. Nevertheless I made it to Salzburg intact.

Distance: 48m
Time: 3h 30min

Viel Spaß homies!

Tour de Austria: Day 3 (Moon Lake)

During the previous days' grueling toil I decided that I would make this day mostly a rest day and for exploring the extremely pretty lakeside town of Mondsee (literal translation Moon Lake).

First though a word on the previous night, after checking into the hotel and doing a little check on how messed up my body was I called my parents. I started by saying "Firstly, im ok and checked into the hotel, but im such a fucking idiot!" and then I explained the story explained in the 3 previous posts. Afterwards I managed to find the energy to go downstairs for dinner. It was the best schnitzel I'd ever had, and well earned :)

You can't see it in the pic but there was more salad than chips!

I went to bed and slept like a log for I have no idea how long.

After loading up on breakfast I decided to have a walk around town, it was more of a retirement town than anything else. But still very pretty. At one point I was walking towards the hill I climbed, when I realized what it was I was laughing so hard I had to sit down.

As today was to be a rest day I thought I would have a massage as well, as a great reward for my heavily punished legs. It took me a while to find a masseur but once I did she turned out to be formerly of the Austrian Olympic massage team, so it was a good one! The thing was that she only spoke German, so it was a big test, but as I managed to not get my neck broken I guess I did OK.

I didn't do much this day other than walk, stretch my legs and eat ice cream. I spent most of my time trying to even out my stupidly uneven tan lines by the lake and reading my book.

Watching the sunset reading one of my favourite books in the world (Jack The Bodiless)

Hope you like the pics of this place, it was awesome and I'm definitely going to come back on my next trip!

Viel Spaß homies!