Munich - New Town Hall

From Hamburg Airport, I boarded on an early morning flight to Munich.

I got to catch such an early flight because my customer in Munich would like me to arrive their office before noon time, so that we could wrap up the meeting before 2 pm and they can leave the office as they normal do in every Friday. Fine, I have no objection about this, as I would like to end the task early in Friday too.

For short flight, I always ask for window seat instead of aisle seat, so that I can get to see the landscape from the window.

At 9.45 am, the plane landed Munich Airport safe and sound.

My customer in Munich didn't come to pick me up from the airport. Instead he asked me to take a train to Lame Station, and he would meet me there. Fine, I didn't expect warm hospitality from this customer neither.

When I arrived at Lame Station, I didn't see the customer waiting for me over there, though I walk 2 times from one end to another end to look for him. I made some phone calls to him, and 15 min later, he show up. Luckily his office is located very near to the train station, so we didn't waste any time for further travelling.

It's lunch time when we finally reached his office. Before the meeting started, we all went for a quick lunch somewhere nearby their office. During the lunch time, we chatted casually, and this help to ease my tension a bit. After that, we moved back to their office, I did some presentation and the customer also gave me some feedback regarding the projects we have been working on. At around 2.30 pm, we said good bye to one other. Whew, finally I was free!

I walked back to Lame station, from there, I took the train to Isator Station instead. My trip manager had booked a hotel room at that place for me.

The hotel is not easy to be found, though I had asked for direction several times with local people. When I finally check-in, the time was nearly 4 pm by then. I rested in the room for a while. About 30 minutes later, I walked towards the city's center....

The way towards the heart of the city....

I started to feel like walking to a fairy tale's kingdom.

Not too long later, I had walked into Munich's most important square, Marienplantz. The square is dominated by the New Town Hall (Neues Rathaus).

The square was originally known as Schranne but it was renamed Marienplantz (St. Mary's Square) as a way to ask Virgin Mary to protect the town from a cholera epidemic.

Husband said we have been here before when we stopped over Munich sometime back in 14 years ago. But I have very little memory of this place though, probably because it was night time when we were here last time.

The large column at the center of the square in known as the column of St. Mary. It was erected in 1638 to celebrate the end of the Swedish invasion. The statue is topped by a gilded statue of Virgin Mary which was sculpted earlier, in 1590 by Hubert Gerhard.

At each corner of the column's pedestal is a statue of a Putti, created by Ferdinand Murmann. The four putti's symbolize the city's overcoming of war, pestilence, hunger and heresy.

Awesome !

Absolutely awesome !!

The Fish Fountain (Fischbrunne), originally designed by sculptor Konrad Knoll in 1864, the fountain was completely destroyed in World War II, but was rebuilt in 1954.

I wanted to order a cup of coffee and sit here to see all walks of life, but couldn't find an empty seat. Too bad.

The square is simply too crowded at anytime...

I stood here and watched the live band for a while, then walked to the entrance of New Town Hall...

There is an open air restaurant in the court yard.

Coincidentally, a wedding banquet was held at the restaurant at that time.

As view from the other side.

Scared the hell out of me when I turned back and saw this "stone head" right in front of me.

One of the souvenir shops outside the New Town Hall. The price is not cheap.

Very beautiful, but quite expensive for my liking.

The shop that sell all sort of sausages. Ahhh...really not my plate of food.

I simply walked to any direction, and bumped into a super duber interesting market somewhere nearby (will blog about the market later).

The street lead to the market.

The original Old Town Hall (Altes Rathaus) was completely destroyed by fire in 1460. It was rebuilt between the year 1470 - 1480. But then the building was completely destroyed again during the second world war, yet it was rebuilt afterwards. That's proved how determine Germany people are.

The other side of Old Town Hall.