Holiday: Day 11 - Munich

Today was always destined to be a big day for us as we made our way from Berlin to Munich which is my favourite city in all of Germany, and it sure was a big day in more than one way.

It was another early start with our express train leaving Berlin at just after 8am with a roughly 4 hour trip to get down to Munich.

The inside of Berlin Hauptbahnof

I think so far this trip Berlin Hauptbahnof has probably been my favourite big city station, it has a very open plan design and is set out on many different levels which all seem to be well connected and to get to other parts it always seems like only a short stroll away. They also have an excellent selection of shops so we stocked up on some nibbles for the journey we had ahead and with that we went down to the lower levels to where our train would be arriving and departing.

Now I was optimistic that things were going to go better than they had with our previous train ride, and it was looking good, right up until the train before us going to Munich was 30 minutes late and then right when our train was due to arrive the previous train turned up along with only half of ours. I have my suspicions that there was an issue with the previous train so they split our train to get the others on their way, we then had to wait about 25 minutes for the other half of ours to turn up, but nevertheless it did eventually turn up and we get to our seats, which we had booked a nice little family cabin for the journey.

Things seemed to be going well but we just kept dropping time at every stop along the way, and then we saw people walking from the carriage behind us into the next carriage…. this seemed concerning. Turns out there was a similar issue with the air-conditioning and we stopped at one of the next steps and attempted to resolve the issue. To cut a long story short it turns out that our train ran 100 minutes late getting to Munich, but at least we had made it there, and it was kind of okay because we just sat in our little compartment room thing and enjoyed each others company, but it did leave us one challenge and that was that Sebastian and I had booked in for a tour of the Allianz Arena so we had to get there quickly.

The good news was that we were pretty organised so had already organised tickets to be able to get around town, it was also convenient that we didn’t have to get a metro train to another part of town we just simply left the station and caught a tram 3 stops and then got off and walked, this saved us a considerable amount of time.

We literally dropped our bags and ran out the door, quickly getting the tram back to Munich Hauptbahnof so that we could get a train out to the stadium. A quick dart for the underground and we made our way along the first metro line and then switched over, we were making great time and before we knew it we were pulling into the station that services the Arena.

Outside the Allianz Arena

We had finally made it, our plan had been to get to the stadium 2 years ago before the pandemic kicked off and we had to cancel, there was a massive sense of relief when we were sitting amongst the tables, waiting for our tour to begin, we had a waited a long time for this.

The tour itself didn’t disappoint, Sebastian was amazed at the size and quality of the stadium. It kicks off by sitting in one of the higher tiers in the corner where you get to familiarise yourself with the various areas of the stadium. 75,000 makes this one of the biggest stadiums in Europe but it is also probably the second biggest stadium we have been to outside of ANZ in Sydney which isn’t really the same because it was built for athletics not specifically for football.

After viewing from the high seats we got to go down to the pitch side seats which give you an unbelievable view of the stadium, it would be awesome to watch the football from this close. What is also impressive is how serious they take their grass, with a fully natural pitch it means they have to provide additional lighting and air to ensure the grass continues to grow evenly despite patches of shade through the day, this is all automated.

This is when the tour gets exciting as we head down to the press conference area, which I think is always interesting because that’s something you always see on TV. But what follows is a look into the players change rooms, you can only imagine what it is like in there on game day, all of our heroes had sat in these very seats before, the only disappointment being that Lewandowski had already completed his transfer so his spot was vacant, but it was interesting to see that of the players in the squad today Mullers spot seemed to be the favourite to have a photo with.

Finally we got to what is one of the best parts of the trip, walking down the steps from the change rooms and up to the opening where you walk onto the pitch, for effect they play the champions league music, I’m sure that this was possible one of the best moments for Sebastian as this is the part you see the most of on TV.

And with that our tour was pretty much over, we made our way through the museum and to the team store which probably didn’t have as much as I thought it would have and then we made our way home, goal achieved and memories created :)

We eventually made it back to our hotel where we picked up the others and headed off to get a bite to eat and have a walk around town. Unfortunately we didn’t nail where a good spot was for a bratwurst but we did find some schnitzel to ensure we embraced the local culture. It was great to be back in Munich!!

Michael