Staring up at the Neues Rathaus from the crowded Marienplatz, awaiting the glockenspiel's chimes and story, I basked in the sun and fortune of a 45-degree February day.
Then someone frantically shoved a hand in my back pocket.
Though I wore a money belt beneath my shirt the entire trip, I instinctively sprung toward my assailant - to try to prevent him fleeing with my free bicycle map of Munch, apparently.
Until I saw he wore a Winking Lizard World Tour of Beers T-shirt.
Chris spotted me in the crowd and knew (I thought they departed for soccer, but they decided it could wait for the figures to dance high above Munich). Revenge will wait, but it will come.
I had just tested my bicycle with a quick buzz through the neighborhoods surrounding the old city, and walked it up to the Marienplatz to find a good viewing point for the noon spin.
While waiting for the bike rental guy to give me appropriate wheels, I spoke with an Chicago aerospace engineer taking his last day in Munich to tour the city under this own power. He told me just to go, and to enjoy the Englischer Garten, the largest public park in continental Europe and a cycling paradise with miles of paths.
You can only get so lost in a German city where the tallest spires are the churches you passed on foot the previous evening; so long as I could orient
So, juiced on the adrenaline rush provided by Chris' fake pick-pocket attempt, I rolled past the Odeonsplatz, a square modeled on those of ancient Rome with the Theatinerkirche, another large church piercing the skyline with its muted gold towers and dome.
In an English-style garden without shade
Quickly falling in with cyclists more seasoned on Munich's streets, it took no time at all to find hit the massive green blob on the map.
I was a rapid student of cycling through crowded European parks, weaving through the swell of people the park produced as I neared its attractions.
The major paths allowed walkers and bikers, with many offshoots marked just for pedestrians. A rare path was marked only for horse riders, and I only saw one user, a man riding a steed flanked by a pack of dogs.
Usually I stuck with the Eisbach, the man-made river that winds through the Englischer Garten and fans out into lake of varying size.
That route covered the main sites – the Monopteros, a small Greek-looking temple atop one of the park's few hills; the Chinesischer Turm, a pagoda with a sprawling beer garden attached; plus the all the nature I could soak up. That last one tapped the imagination frequently, since the warm weather could not hide its true season with the garden's acres of bare trees.
When I finally stopped aside one of the smaller lakes, 15 second elapsed before an Italian greyhound tattooed my pants with his pawprints. He dragged a stick twice as long as him over for me to toss while the woman who owned him smoked under a nearby pavilion. Three tosses, and they both were done, off to parts unknown.
Speaking of parts unknown, I strayed pretty far by 3 p.m., well off the central city map the rental guy gave me, and miles from the hotel, so I rode until the Isar River blocked my path, and turned back.
No ocean, no problem
I just traced the Isar south till familiar street names filled the signs, then headed back toward the central city. I was down the handful of photos on my FunSaver, and too many gorgeous – and anonymous buildings stood along my path.
Along the way, a mass of chattering people crowded against a small bridge; below them, on a standing wave in the Eisbach, a crew of wetsuit-clad Germans took to surfboards and road that surging wave for a few brief seconds before succumbing to the artificial river.
Even in the suits, they must have been cold – clear, sunny day receded into moody clouds drive by cutting, Arctic wind. Maybe the cheers drove them, as the crowd spilled over into the trees and shrubs on the Eisbach's banks.
Without food since breakfast, my meandering had purpose, but only directed me through the heavily-traipsed tourist rows with overpriced restaurants and stores hawking garish steins meant for the mantle, not lager.
I passed the infamous Hofbrauhaus, probably Munich's best known beer hall, which Dietmar remembered a friendly warning from Dietmar, and pedaled on as pain crept up my legs.
The needle finds “E”
I found a courtyard cafe with similar ambiance to the Parisian cafe in Amelie; I wish it's food and lager never found their way to my table, since the skunky golden lager called Schweiger and a ham sandwich were a poor man's lunch at a tourist rate.
But my legs were scorched, my mind exhausted, and a few hours of German television sounded fine.
In my typical masochistic way, I kept walking, going back through the altstadt in late afternoon, when the crowds reached their peak and walking fast required me to almost run when zipping through walls of pedestrians pushing toward the attractions.
On a different route back, I found the old botanical gardens, a little park overwhelmed by a fountain of Neptune surging from the ocean; it was less dramatic in winter, with no water to fill out the sea god's ascent. The garden ground was filled with small purple flower, a welcome contrast to the grays and browns everywhere else.
Night was not for the faint, even if that was the only thing I couldn't do. I was irritable from all the exercise, the lack of sleep and the news that the law closed almost every store in Bavaria on Sundays, killing most of my souvenir shopping. We ate at an American restaurant (the tortellini with sausage was pretty blah) and cramps fired down my calves, quads and hamstrings.
In a hunt for a new place for a nightcap, we crossed the train station and checked out the city blocks opposite from our hotel.
“Wrong side of the tracks” was no cliché, as all manners of tawdry hotels, strip clubs and nude revues greeted naïve tourists, who wasted little time in killing our curiosity.
We tried the streets north of the hotel, found the Spaten Brewery and glass windows displaying its brew kettles, but no bar. Better luck surfaced closer to the train station when we decided on a little bar with decent beer and no bullshit.
As a peace offering, I paid the full tab at our evening bar excursion, where Paulaner hefeweizen half-liters disappeared like water in August.
Next chapter: (A final gasp, a final gulp and a heap of art)
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