Munich

In Munich, and much of Bavaria in general, beer isn't classified as an alcoholic beverage; by law, it's considered food. People drink it on their lunch breaks from work. They don't serve it by the pint - they serve it by the liter. When in Munich...

Our pension in Munich was right across from the grounds where they hold the largest Oktoberfest in the world.

According to our Free Munich Tour guide, some seven million people visited this year.

Since it was the beginning of November when we walked the grounds, it was just us and Bavaria, the second-largest copper statue in the world. (The largest was designed by the French, and stands tall in New York.)

Munich has beer halls, and we went to one every evening for dinner. Long tables, sit where you find a spot, and, whether you know the language or not, you will make some friends.

The first night we ended up at an Augustiner beer hall that is purportedly very old. But we took one look at the menu and immediately saw that it was out of our price range. We instead just had a liter of beer. Each. Tapped from the barrel. You'll forgive me, but, perhaps on account of the volume of beer drank that night, the type of that first beer escapes me. It just may have been Augustiner's Edelstoff. According to our tour guide, it's the Pope's favorite beer, and according to a beer hall mate, it will make you wake up with a headache. (He was right, incidentally.) We ended up at another Augustiner beer hall - more hall-like, and cheaper, but delicious, German cuisine.

Sandeman's New Europe puts on free tours in many European cities; Berlin, Munich, Paris, etc. Since it was free, we decided to check it out - if we didn't like it, we'd leave early. The tour was superb, and we stayed the whole three hours, learning about the gothic-style rathaus (town hall), the old town hall, King Ludwig II and his eccentricities, and how Adolf Hitler almost did us all a favor and committed suicide here because his Munich revolution fell flat. (Later, when the Nazis came into power, it was falsely framed by the Nazis as their first of many victorious demonstations.) Anyway, the tour was a fantastic way to see the city - I would highly recommend it.

We left Munich hoping we'd come back some day, perhaps during Oktoberfest.