Germany by rail. Destination #9B - Munich, North
MUNICH - North
Location of photos
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1. The next day we decided to see the outlying areas of the city, so we rented a car. We began the morning by driving east, through some residential areas that mixed with some fields.
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2. Further out there was a moderistic office park.
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3. We drove south in search of a place to eat breakfast (which at this point was almost brunch). We discovered a nice little neighborhood center here and had coffee and pastries at a little restaurant.
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4. We also passed by this immense modernistic facility!
5. South of that were some more modernistic offices.
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6. And even a modernistic park.
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7. We headed toward the northwest and again passed through the area where farms and towns mixed. Lovely!
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8. More of that.
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9. Then as we got toward the river, we once again passed some modernistic highrises. The design of one foreshadowed the Olympic Village we would see later on.
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10. We began to drive south toward the center of town again, but decided to turn around because we'd already seen most of the city center. We turned around at this housing complex here.
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11. We proceeded up the road which paralleled the river and, quite a ways north, encountered yet another quaint little town center. Here I picked up another pair of lederhosen, and stopped by a wine store to ship some wine to my mother in the states.
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12. Immediately east of the quaint town center was yet another ultramodern office complex. At this point we decided to drive north toward the freeway. We got on the freeway and headed west, when all of a sudden we saw . . .
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13. An alien spaceship!!!! 
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14. We desperately wanted to escape the alien invaders so we headed south as fast as we could! We took refuge in this nondescript neighborhood here.
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15. And then also killed some time in this nondescript commercial/industrial area here.
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16. After we had hung out in the industrial area some more, Hans suggested that, since we had not seen any epic battles and laser beams shooting from the sky, perhaps the aliens had departed and we could safely proceed.
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17. So we set our sights on one of the 2 BMW plants in the city, passing through this nice residential area on the way.
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18. And here was the BMW facility. It was glorious!
19. We decided to head to the north freeway again, passing by these highrises.
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20. When we got on the freeway, we passed a farmer plowing his land. Traffic on the freeway was light, and people were driving insane speeds! This was the Autobahn, after all.
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21. Continuing on the freeway, we passed another modern commerical/industrial area.
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22. Then we decided to get off the freeway in search of a place to have a (late) lunch. But we couldn't find anything good here.
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23. Nor did we find anything here.
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24. So finally, in desperation, we got some ready-made sandwiches at a convenience store here.
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25. Afterwards, we headed east and passed by a huge rail yard.
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26. Nearby were some new houses going up.
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27. To the east of that were some commieblocks.
"What's a commieblock?" asked Hans.
"You don't know what a commieblock is?" I said.
"No, I'm afraid not. Is that what these things are called? I always just called them apartment flats."
I shook my head. "I thought everyone in SSC and SSP knew what a commieblock was!"
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28. We continued east, heading back toward the city center. We passed the 1972 Olympic Village.
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29. Across the street from that was BMW's main plant. Fabulous!
30. In a park to the south were more Olympic facilities.
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31. And to the east was a university. We walked around the campus for a bit.
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32. It was starting to get late, so once again we began searching for a place to eat. There was nothing good here.
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33. But a few blocks to the south we found some good places here.I had steak for dinner, and the pounds continued to pile on. 
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34. Afterward we passed through some more old neighborhoods, ones we hadn't seen yet. This was not far north of our hotel so we had a couple beers at a pub here. Frans tried hitting on some woman and would have succeeded if Hans hadn't gotten drunk and threw up on the woman's pants!
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35. The next morning we got up quite late, in large part due to Hans' hangover. We headed west from our hotel and drove by an area where old and new met.
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36. On our way to visit another palace we passed through some really fancy neighborhoods.
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37. Finally we arrived at the Nymphenburg palace. Beautiful! We spent more than 2 hours touring it. It was filled with beautiful artwork and exquisite furniture and decorations.
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38. Afterwards we decided to more-or-less drive around aimlessy. Hans still wasn't feeling well from the previous night (we tolerated him in the palace), so we decided to make the rest of the day rather low-key and just drive around. We went north from the palace and drove through here.
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39. Went west and drove through this neighborhood here.
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40. We started to head north but realised we were getting near an area we had been through yesterday (when we ate the ready-made sandwiches in desperation).
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41. So we went farther west and passed an industrial area.
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42. And some more residential areas. At this point we decided to head back toward town.
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43. On the way we noticed the residential areas started getting denser once again.
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44. Unless you went away from the main road.
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45. In fact, there were even some farms interspersed between the towns or neighborhoods.
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46. Hans was starting to feel a little better, so we had an early dinner at a cafe here. I ate light this time, having just a salad with some fish. All of us refrained from drinking.
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47. Afterwards we headed back toward the center of the city where our hotel was, passing some boring apartment blocks. I noticed they were fixing some of them up.
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48. We even saw some Schrebergarten right near the western end of the city center. These things seemed to pop up just about anywhere! But finally we got to our hotel and called it a night.
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