U6 Frötmanning - 4/96

One doesn't have to be familiar with Munich in order to know about the Allianz Arena. For many this is the only thing there is to do at Frötmanning: soccer, soccer and soccer! One would think the stadium is most known for being the home ground of FC Bayern, the munich soccer team, or it's ability to seat 70 000 people, but no - the Allianz Arena is most known for it's impeccable nightly light displays! 

At 8:30 every night the entire arena will light up in red, blue or white and switch to the next colour every thirty minutes. It's truly a sight to behold! Do note - on days that FC Bayern has played a home game, it will only display red.  

The outer grounds of the arena are open and one can even enter the stadium and have something at the restaurant within, but in order to actually see the soccer field one needs to go on a guided tour. The tour includes some other treats for soccer fans like the locker rooms, the press rooms and so on. 
One tip - bring comfy walking shoes. The Arena is some walking distance from the train station and within, contains quite a challenging number of stairs. 

This ofcourse, wasn't our reason for visiting Frötmanning. We were on our way to the 'Versunkendes Dorf' (the sunken town). 
My husband and I translated the story from German ourselves (we don't speak German) so I hope we understand this correctly =P
The big green hill behind the Allianz Arena was once upon a time the oldest settlement within the borders of Munich. This was in the year 815 AD! When war swept through Germany, Munich had a lot of war waste that needed to be removed and Frötmanning soon became the dumping ground. The dump site grew and the settlement shrunk until nothing was left except for a small church.
Much later the artist, Timm Ulrichs, was captivated by this land bound Atlantis and build a replica of the remaining church, setting it into the hill to give it the illusion of a hill overgrowing the church. 

The replica church by Timm Ulrichs.

The original church from the year 815 AD.

If it wasn't for the noise of the autobahn this park-like area would be very quiet, private and even romantic. The perfect site for a twilight picnic while watching the arena perform it's nightly sashay. 

In the good spirit of exploration we also crossed the rail to the other side of Frötmanning. This was a surprise! Instead of the lone residential block we usually see when passing by with the U-bahn, we found an entire neighbourhood back there! Packed with kids and student housing! 

There was also a nature reserve area with a small building called the Heidehaus, in which (it seemed) one can attend workshops on nature preservation. 

The last point of interest to us was a building we always saw in the distance, but never knew what is was... Turned out it is a sewerage plant... can't blame us for thinking it was some sort of space station.. I mean, just look at it:

And so our visit to Frötmanning came to end, but this is one place on the list I will definitely visit again.  

U3/U6 Giselastraße - 3/96

Ahahaha, well, if you are like my husband and I, you probably won't visit Giselastraße for the trendy high life vibe of Leopoldstraße or the boutique lined Hohenzollernstraße, but rather stroll the residential areas where the older buildings reside or spend the day lazying around in Englischer Garten. 

The sunny Saturday morning took us straight to Hohenzollernstraße. Although not one of the top 10 things on my list, I can't just ignore it on my adventures, right? I don't think I have ever seen such an accumulation of shoe and lingerie shops. Truly a lady's paradise! There are small shops selling quirky household things, kiddy boutiques, clothing galore (I read somewhere it's not the mainstream kind of stuff, but I won't really be able to tell). There was one shop that really stood out to me: 'Tea and More'. I remember my first time in Hohenzollernstraße, there were about 3 or 4 shops we actually entered and 'Tea and More' was among them. Apart from the place smelling like a dream, they sell the most purdy tea sets. Fine and delicate with the most intricate designs, looking like it was taken right from 'Alice in Wonderland', but also new trendy, minimalistic styles or something so casual you will want tea and cupcakes while watching a Sunday night movie in your jamies. They don't only sell tea sets. You can also restock your tea cupboard or pick up some tea making necessities. (patriot's note: no tea beats SA rooibos =P)

For us the interesting places were all hidden in the nooks and crannies of Hohensollernstraße. So keep your eyes peeled! A really nice find was the costume shop! The amount and variety they had available was just crazy! From Victorian dresses to animal suits, to Roman and Indian belly dancing costumes to wedding dresses and tuxedos! All handmade! I simply have to track down a couple of costume parties in Munich! 

Continuing up the street we came to Das Kinderzimmer, a toy shop, which sells many.. erm does one call it 'classical' toys? (hand puppets, wooden train sets, large wooden castles etc) The wooden interior with the roof-high shelves stacked with little oddities gave it the real treasure chest feel! We were also lucky enough to meet the owner. He was very keen to talk and show us around. He said he had started the shop 50 years ago and it was the first toy shop in Munich for educational toys. I should have been less people shy and asked whether I can sketch his shop and get a full interview, ahahaha! He said he isn't around the shop that often anymore, it's mostly his son's business at the moment.

Right on the border of our day's adventure we found a really creepy looking tall green house, isolated on a hill, in a really creepy looking corner of some park. We tried to get into the park but couldn't, unless I suppose we went through the Beschleunigerlaboratorium..  which was right outside our borders for the day.     

Fine me here

We sauntered into more quieter areas and came to Leopold park with a statue of, what I thought would be Leopold himself, but it turned out to be a statue of Anton Ažbe, a painter. A mysterious man who's unremarkable life story can take one to a quiet place of melancholy. He founded his own school of painting and trained four great Slovenian impressionist artists and many Russians, but he himself never realised his potential. Although a socialite among people and a humble man, lending money to students in need or offering free tuition, his private life was quite sad. He was crippled from birth and had a peculiar fashion sense along with a manicured chestnut mustache which made him the object of much ridicule among cartoonists and young boys in the streets. He was an alcoholic, a chain smoker and lived on a couch in a workshop among paintings of his students. He was a lonely man and died in August 1905 of cancer. His story was somehow obscured and turned into urban legend - there's one quote from Leonhard Frank (a student of Ažbe) on wikipedia: "Nobody ever saw his paintings. Nobody knew if he ever painted at all. Nobody knew his past. One chilly December night, intoxicated with cognac, he fell asleep in the snow. He was found dead in the morning. Nobody knew where he had come from." - wiki

We exited the cool, dark park and found ourselves again blinking in the sun on Leopoldstraße. We watched a squirrel trade branches and found a bunch of shoes hanging in a tree! I would've drawn that, but in all likelihood it won't be there in a week's time! (Maybe I'll go back and check =P) Leopoldstraße is a buzz of roadside cafe's and restaurants and many times you will find people on the sidewalks selling off their old books and DVD's.
We went over to the Walking Man - a HUGE white statue of well.. a walking man. If my memory serves me correctly then it represents the busy people on Leopoldstraße. By this time we were hungry and decided to go to the Block House restaurant since they claimed they have the best steak in town. Well, I don't know about the 'best in town', but that was certainly the best I had in a while. The waiters were friendly and could speak English, always a plus! They also have multilingual menus - even French and Spanish I think.   

We didn't go to Englischer Garten. If that's your destination then Giselastrße is your stop. (Well okay.. depends which part of the garden you want to see.) I am hoping to join a Japanese tea ceremony in the garden in April, so I'll do a post about the whole park then :)

As for what I decided to draw for the challenge postcard: Car spotting! We saw so many rich-man cars! And why not, Schwabing (the area there) is after all "the place to see and be seen". 

Yes, the picture is only half done, and it'll probably still take me some time to get it done, but don't worry, I'll have it up here when it is ;)


Places of interest:

Block House
http://www.block-house.de/
Leopoldstraße 32
Google maps

Breuer Costume hire
http://www.kostuemverleih.com/

Hohenzollernstr. 22a

Google maps

Englischer Garten
Google maps

Leopoldpark
Google maps

Tea and More
http://www.teaandmore-online.de/
Hohenzollernstraße 36
Google maps

Walking Man
Leopoldstraße
Google maps

U6 Studentenstadt - 2/96

And there I was thinking that Studentenstadt was going to be boring! 

As the name implies it is a residential area for students, the largest in Germany (see sources below). We saw a pub and a small coffee shop in the area and of course, the lovely Englisher Garten that stretches out behind the residential area. 

The day was beautiful for exploring, but our first sights were everything but. Tall buildings looking dirty and run down, neighboured by flat almost perfectly square buildings looking somewhat depressed and all around a noticeable layer of trash playing in the mild breeze. Our adventure ahead looked pretty dull..     

Our very first step (no, not exaggerating) out of the residential area proved us very wrong. There was something behind a bunch of trees that looked like a wooden train cart! We went closer to inspect it, but our attention was properly drawn away by the teepee standing not far from it! Yes! A teepee! Fully equipped with barbecue and wooden stumps for seats! We were still busy inspecting the teepee when we saw a forest pizza oven! ('Silver Spoon' anyone?) Covered with fallen branches and leaves and maybe broken beyond repair, but I wanted nothing more than to sit around it with coffee and good friends, while waiting for our homemade pizzas to bake within it.
The whole area was actually a kindergarden called Waldkindergarten Kallamatsch. Only fitting that we felt like wide-eyed youngsters making great discoveries =P   

 

Teepee - Find me here

We went toward a bunch of tennis courts where we saw another interesting thing! It looked like a blowup dome covering an entire tennis court and we heard people playing inside! Maybe this is a normal appearance for some, but I have never seen that before!
Not much further we came across beach volleyball! Yes, the discoveries continued!
 

We crossed the rail to the more industrial part of Studentenstadt. It was far less exciting than beach volleyball and hidden teepees, yet it was here that I found the special something worth a 'challenge postcard'. And ofcourse, it was also here that we took part in something far more exciting than most of my recent experiences: Hint Quest!

Ever you played a quest puzzle game on PC? Yeah? Well these guys created a real life version! You and your team are locked in a room and need to find and piece together clues in order to get out! You have one hour to complete the quest. (They open the door if you fail, don't worry =P) I recommend this to every person out there! You can decide at what difficulty you want to play the game, with the current record for the most difficult option being solved within 40 minutes by six people. We were 5 people and played at medium level, solving it in just over 40 minutes. Teams of 2 - 6 people can play, but bigger teams are recommended. You don't have to have any math skill or speak German. 100 Euros for 1 hour of play.
SOMUCHFUN!!  

Ahaha, and now for something somewhat disappointing: The highest beer garden in Munich. That's what I read online anyway. Not only was it hard to find the actual address of the place, but it was a complete dump. We were standing on the flats of Studentenstadt between the towers of student housing and looked for any sort of land elevation. My husband said: "It's probably on a building or something." And pointed to the tallest one within view. And so it was! That exact building! The picture I managed to get on my cellphone was even taken from that exact spot we were standing at at that time! There were no signs or any indication on the ground floor that the beer garden was there. It almost felt like we were trespassing as we took the scariest elevator ride EVER to the 19th floor of Hanns-Seidel-Haus.  
The beer garden was closed and in very poor condition. Almost worse than our forest pizza oven =/ 

Well, anyhoo!, Here's the Studentenstadt challenge :) If you want to do this then there is a nice place to grab a bite nearby - check here.

Find me here

 

Places of interest:

Beach Arena
www.beacharena.de
Föhringer Ring 5
Google maps 

Hint Quest
www.hintquest.com/en/
Company House Munchen, Frankfurter Ring 193a
Google maps

Studentenstadt also has a yearly music/theater festival in May/June:
www.stustaculum.de

A place we didn't visit, but that might be interesting is Domagkateliers. It's a studio apartment which offers creative space for over 140 artists and a showroom.

If you are looking to stay in Studentenstadt you might find this site interesting. I also used this site to gather some of my info.
 
   

Flavours of yogurt

Many of my friends from South Africa would mail me and ask: "Hey! How's Germany? What's different over there? What do you eat?" Well... for one. The yogurt section in supermarkets here are as big as the fruit juice sections back home! (And the fruit juice sections here are rather lacking.) But their requests gave me an idea.

Since I won't always be able to travel every week, but would like to post more regularly, I decided to do a 'mid month musing', which will mostly be a picture of something new I discovered or something that is different from home (SA) and.. erm.. in which the name 'mid month' has nothing to do with the time of the postings.   

For this musing I spent a week trying out newly discovered yogurt flavors. South Africa has the basics - banana, strawberry, peach, granadilla, plain, vanilla, chocolate... think that's about it. Over here I encountered the regulars.. didn't see granadilla (not that I looked for it)... but wait! there's more! I also found Orange and Rooibos (in one), Apple and Pomegranate (in one), lemon!, nut!, marzipan!!, was it cookie? This was only in one store. I believe there are far more waiting to be discovered and discovered they will be =D

I wonder what's the craziest yogurt flavour in the whole world?! What's the strangest flavour in your country?    
 

 

U1 Stiglmaierplatz - 1/96

Well, that was a cold experience!

Saturday, January 25th 2014, marked my first adventure of many to come. My mission: to visit every stop on the U-bahn (subway) and find something special in its surrounding areas to draw. 

Passed the Löwenbräukeller, a stone's throw from the Stiglmaierplatz U-Bahn station my husband and I discovered a small, empty and rather dreary looking platz (square in English - I don't speak German yet, but I've been here long enough to feel strange when I call a 'platz' anything other than a 'platz' =P). The platz takes the form of a triangle and is almost entirely outlined by long reddish concrete benches. To the side was a sketchy looking casino, a closed restaurant and a building that's being torn own. We dawdled around for a bit before we noticed it. On the benches, in the concrete, were game boards! For Chess, Go and er... another game we don't know. Do people ever play on those? What's this sad looking platz like in summer? Further inspection revealed a larger chess board on the ground with the nearby bench containing the large chess pieces! Unfortunately it was locked, but I bet it's open in summer =D

  It wasn't right to just settle for the first cool thing we saw, so we set off to see more. 

Stiglmaierplatz looked quite upmarket, but just a street further on in the direction of the circus, it took on another feel. Dead plants were standing on cracked porches and paint were chipping from dirty looking walls. It wasn't long before we came to the Krone Circus 'caravan park'. I think it's where the circus people stay, like.. their home. If I have it right, they stay in Munich during winter and travel during summer. Such a different way of life. When you are on stage it's glitter, glam and glory, but when the stage lights go out you return to a small caravan without much of the luxury I am used to...does it even have an oven?...hmm. It does have a strange appeal though. I can just imagine them all dancing and singing around a fire on a warm summer's eave. Everybody's family :) 
 

Krone Circus is one of the largest circuses in Europe and definitely seems worth a visit. According to Wiki, Krone Circus is still in possession of the family who founded it - fourth generation and going. Wiki also says the circus has a hippo and a rhino in the show! Wait what?!

I'll go see a show and report back!   

They also have a zoo that is open on Sundays and public holidays. I will include more info on this at the end of the post.

After that we went back in the direction of Stiglmaierplatz and tried to find the entrance for the Löwenbräu (the actual brewery), hoping there might be something like a beer tour. I want to know where the beer grows, what it looks like as a plant and how long it takes to become beer... but what we thought was the entrance to all this wonderful information, turned out to be the entrance to the Triumph factory outlet! (Not a bad find either! Although the number of sexy items were low, the amount of underwear was staggering with prices about 11euros for a piece. There was also a mens' section and swimming outfits.)     

I looked online to see whether there are brewery tours at Löwenbräu, but unfortunately not at the moment. (I did find this interesting site though. Should you be interested in beer and tours of such in Munich :)
We continued on to the Löwenbräukeller (restaurant) and had a look at their small beergarten, but due to the cold there wasn't much going on. They also have an inside area for events like Bavarian dancing, acts and festivals like the upcoming Strongbeer festival.     

Finally it was time to sit down and draw! We grabbed a couple of hot chocolates at Natale's, the pizzeria nearby, and made ourselves comfy on one of the reddish concrete benches in ... er ... it was something like Rudl-Kierl-Platz (please correct me if I'm wrong.. I tried Google earth, but on there it's nothing more than a parking lot 0__o) 

A big part of this 'visiting every u-bahn stop' challenge is to also improve my drawing. I've never done environment drawings from life before and on the very first outing I already learned a couple of valuable things:

1 - in winter, remember to take fingerless gloves... dead fingers don't draw.

2 - draw from the ground up

3 - a view finder might be a good idea... My plan was to draw the actual platz.. but when I was done with the drawing I realised I had almost missed the platz entirely! I'm not sure how it happened, but a view finder might help XD 

I also drew one of the game boards. If you want to explore the Stiglmaierplatz surroundings you can print this card and do the challenge to mark your city exploration :)

 

Places of interest:

Krone Circus

The zoo is open from 10am on Sundays and public holidays. Entry costs 3€ for adults and 2€ for children.

http://www.circus-krone.com/de/
089/545 8000 (probably better to call - website outdated when I last checked | English site under construction)
Zirkus-Krone-Straße/Marsstrasse 43  
Google maps

Löwenbräukeller
http://www.loewenbraeukeller.com/en/

Directly on Stiglmaierplatz
Google maps

Triumph factory outlet

Marsstr. 46  
Google maps

   

Also noteworthy near Stiglmaierplatz, but was not visited on this trip, is Cinema Munchen. They show only (I think) English films and have cheaper screenings on Friday nights at 12 - except, you won't know what you will be watching beforehand! It's usually something new. They also sell nachos and Ben & Jerry's at the popcorn counter. And Coffee. And there's a few tables for sitting down while you sip that coffee.

http://www.cinema-muenchen.com/

Nymphenburgerstr 31
Google maps