oday Uniworld transports us to Passau to get on the Riverboat Maria Theresa to begin our tour to Passau. If we had a few more days, we will learn all the wonderful food our Roomer’s Hotel’s buffet breakfast offers. Today we had omelettes, Eggs Benedict, waffles and always cappuccino!! We boarded busses and Yoda (whose real name is Franz Schega), took us back to München Old Town giving us many more important facts about München.
1. 1.5 million people in Munich
2. Companies located there:
Siemens
BMW
Microsoft
3. Munich was recognized as a city in 1558 and means “City of Monks”
4. Birth place of Nazism
1933 Hitler came to power
Hitler came to Munich to join the artist colony and to beat the draft.
Late in WWII in 1944 Munich was bombed hard by the Americans which flew in
from Sicily
80%of Munich was bombed
1950-60s Munich was rebuilt by Marshall plan first and then Germany paid for
rebuilding in the 60s. Unemployment rate was 0% during these years.
5. United States had many bases and much influence in Germany immediately following WWII
and still has 36 military bases there today.
6. Today there are over 80,000 Americans living in the Bavarian region.
We walked to St. Johann Nepomuk Kirche where a Catholic service was being held and no sightseers were admitted. We waited for about 15 minutes, going to buy coffee and toilet break at Starbucks during this time, until the service was over and entered the very ornate and beautiful church. It is always great to be in church on Sunday, even in Munich!!
We then meandered back to our bus and made a brief stop at The Munich BMW plant and BMW Welt. BMW stands for Bavarian Motor Works (or for the BMWs made in South Carolina - Bubba Makes Wheels!!). There are over 1.9 million BMW cars made each year in 30 production and assembly plants and over 450,000 of those are made in South Carolina. In 2003 BMW had some extra money and built the BMW World Complex for $200,000,000 as a showcase for their cars. You can order and pick your new BMW here, test drive a BMW, and see all models of all the BMW lines here- BMW, Mini-Cooper and Rolls-Royce.
Then we were off to Passau, a 2.5 hour bus ride and time to sleep, blog and read. We arrived at the Uniworld’s Maria Theresa just in time for a late lunch and some time on the top sun deck visiting with our fellow passengers. More on the boat tomorrow. We have been celebrating Robbie Hunter’s birthday today and what a fun place to celebrate. May we always celebrate our birthdays in such special ways!
München is a beautiful and very lively city. I would love to return someday and see more of the Old Town, markets and shops.