Trip Report: 20060616
After we finished our formal work actions, we had to change hotels. The new hotel is in the high rent district. None of us spoke German but after awhile, we managed to translate the hotel name Vier Jahreszeiten into english: The Four Seasons. Ah, that explained alot. There were plenty of foreigners in the hotel besides ourselves. Indeed, the Saudi delegation purchased most of the top floor and had guards stationed at the lifts to prevent unwanted guests in their area of the hotel. And, there were tons of Mercedes sedans outside the hotel awaiting their riders. One of the amenities of the hotel are loaner BMW bikes. By registering with the concierge, you could borrow a bike for up to 3 hours. Mike, Todd, Kathleen and I got bikes and headed for the central park and beer garden. Eric, on the other hand, rented a real BMW bike -- a motorcycle. He went off on a full day road trip to the Alps and some famous castle there. We saw him later in the day and he told us an ugly story about how he tore his hamstring and was unable to make the ride on the bike. Sadly, he did not even get out of the parking lot. The good news is that the fellow at the rental place exchanged the motorcycle for a car and he did the trip anyway, but in pain.
Bikes are definitely the best way to see the city. Bikes are easy, fast and no hassle to park. Plus, the park was closed to cars, so we were able to traverse the park from end to end with ease. The park is big, perhaps 5km long and has contained within it forests, meadows, several rivers complete with waterfalls, a lake and of course several beer gardens. We were somewhat suprised to see that the locals sunbathe nude in the park and skinny dip in the river. While there were many sweet, young things, one of the laws of nature says that you will see none of them in the river or without clothes. I am not sure who created that law, but to my eyes, it was universally enforced. The shots below are what we saw.
At the Glockenspiel in the Marienplatz.. This is a big mechanical time piece that moves when the bell tolls. The figures in the center rotate and move while the bell is chiming. The thing only triggers a few times a day, so tourists gather to see it move. There were plenty on hand to see the noon chiming. We went to the Marienplatz to visit the ATM to get paper euros and to take photos of the O2 store for work. Here Mike, Todd and Kathleen stand next to our trick BMW loaner bikes.
This is an outfall of one of the streams that heads into the park.
A view down stream from the outfall. All the grass is mowed and there is no trash.
Another river, this one with a waterfall. Folks go into the river and ride the current downstream, but not over the falls. If you look careful, you can see several heads in the center of the stream in the trees.
Sunbathers by the stream.
One of the rivers heads through a weir. The outfall creates a giant standing wave allowing stationary surfing. Here a fellow in a wet suit navigates the wave. There were lines of folks on the banks waiting their turn to jump in. Only one person at a time could be in the hole.
A view from bridge above. Note the folks on the lift shore awaiting their turn.
Some of the local color.
Now this was a truely novel invention. The fellow on the wakeboard is tied to a tree upsteam. The line that connects him to the tree is a set of 5 bungee cords. He has a handle that is also hooked to the board. He gets in the current and stands on the board in such a way that the current pulls him downstream and stretches the bungee. When it has been extended sufficiently, he changes the angle of the board and it launches forward (upstream) due to the elastic action of the bungee. The board planes out and he shoots forward at high speed. We were watching and not knowing what he was doing and he came over and totally doused us with wake spray. Here, the cheering section is watching him.
The other half of the cheering squad.
I saw the signs indicating a horse trail in the park but did not expect to see animals. There were several.
An iron horse at the edge of the park.
Near the lake we came upon a big flock of geese in the park. They were totally unafraid of humans, although they honked loudly when you approached.
A portion of the lake. You can rent paddle boats and cruise in the water if you are so inclined.
An interesting monument near one of the beer gardens. Since I do not read German, I cannot say why it is there.
Lunch at the beer garden. This was a remarkbly expensive repast. Lunch was E35 (about $50) for 1/2 chicken, fries, a salad and a couple of beers. The beer was called Hell and it was good, even if it was mostly room temperature. For reference, the small beer is 1/2 liter, the big was a full liter. As the aliens say when they land on earth "take me to your liter".
Lots of folks just hanging out at the beer garden. This seems to be the thing to do on nice days.
We had a another great walkabout. This park rocks and it would be great to return again. We had to return the bikes to meet the 3 hour limit, so we had to return to the hotel.