Breakfast at the hotel of chocolate croissants, cheeses, meats, soft boiled eggs, an assortment of juices, and because we arrived to breakfast on the later side only two pretzels remained.

On Monday the Marienplatz in Munich city center was livelier than yesterday as many shops were closed on Sunday.

Late morning we walked to the English Garden, one of the largest public parks in the world and larger than Central Park. We enjoyed watching the surfers at the entrance to the garden at the made-made Eisbach River. I was tired from all the walking the day prior so we didn’t stay long at the park and headed instead to the nearby University of Munich campus.

After a quick snack we hopped on the very clean U-Bahn train to Allianz Arena, home of the FC Bayern soccer team. Seats 70,000 yet feels intimate. We visited the museum and had an informative tour of the facility (similar to what we experienced a few years ago at Camp Nou in Barcelona). The tour guy spent time in W. Roxbury and was a Patriots and Celtics fan who was awake at 4:30am watching the Celtics in the recent NBA finals. Now that’s dedication!

At night we went back to the Hofbrauhaus where Big D had apple strudel, Paul had schnitzel, Miss M had a pretzel, and of course more beer all around (except for Miss M.) While it’s full of tourists, it has a place in German history with Hitler and the National Socialists hosting their first meeting in the upstairs hall. Long shared tables that seat 10-12 so socializing with others at your table is expected. Last night we spent 4-5 hours with Stefan and Dirk who live outside of Frankfurt and were spending a few days away from their wives and kids. They had personalized beer counters to track their consumption and were full of stories and laughs. At the end of certain songs they had us standing up, singing and toasting.