Munich – Art & BMW

I love Munich and take comfort from the fact that I am not the odd one out. Although Munich, Germany’s third largest city, has only 1.3 million inhabitants, more than half of Germans consider it the most desirable city to live in in the German-speaking world. I hardly need a reason to agree on traveling to Munich, but having to pick up my wife’s new small BMW was about as good as it gets. In Frankfurt, having your car delivered to your house or local car dealer involves a delivery fee of around €500 – picking it up form the factory is free and gives Germans about the only opportunity to experience the customer being king. Although it meant having to schlep a suitcase, stroller, two car seats, and the two children on the train to Munich, we still came out ahead after 2 nights in the Arabella Sheraton Grand Hotel.

Munich is a lovely city with much to see and do. Although the surprisingly good weather on this particular late October weekend drew us out in the open, we still managed to visit a few museums and galleries. On this visit, I finally got around to visiting two of the three Pinakotheken (art museums) that house one of the most impressive art collections in Germany.

Picking up a new BMW was the purpose of our trip, so visiting the BMW Museum was a natural choice. Unfortunately, the museum was closed for a complete renovation, so we had to settle for a few minutes in the BMW Pavilion at the Olympiagelände, scene of the ill-fated 1972 Olympic Games. This area is particularly popular with locals who want to stroll, cycle, jog, and rollerblade. The fine weather ensured that the beer gardens were open, and we enjoyed some traditional Bavarian food washed down with the fine local Weißbier (beer made primarily from wheat).

Quick Tips:

Munich is a fine city to visit at all times of the year. The climate is generally moderate, and although winters tend to be a bit bleak, warm winds from the south, the infamous Föhn, blamed for all things, from migraines to licentiousness, sometimes provide a day or two of warm weather in the middle of winter. Beer gardens will open when the sun shines, whether February or June. Beer gardens were originally introduced to allow beer brewers to sell their wares to consumers without having to have special "restaurant" licenses. The proprietor sold only the beer and customers could bring their own food. This tradition still continues at many beer gardens, although most nowadays also serve food.

Munich has an astonishing range of art museums spread over many venues across the city. The Pinakotheken have the best art, but many of the former royal residences, including the magnificent Residenz itself, also have impressive collections. Most of the Bavarian State Collection museums are free on Sundays, drawing huge crowds. During our visit, the fine weather fortunately seemed to draw more to the sunny steps of the museums rather than the cooler interiors.

Best Way To Get Around:

The old town area of Munich is best explored on foot, as most of it is pedestrianized anyway. Distances are short, and the area is pretty and lively at most hours.

Public transportation is very well-developed and combines buses, trams, a metro, and trains. Buy tickets before boarding and validate tickets on train platforms or inside trams and buses. The date stamp must be on the front of the ticket – if in doubt, stamp both sides. Several day, multiple-day, and group tickets are available to bring costs down.

Taxis are expensive and generally available from taxi stands, hotels, and stations, or can be requested by phone - shops and restaurants will call for patrons. Taxis are always painted boring beige and are more often than not Mercedes Benz diesel models, although we had a VW Passat Variant drop us off at BMW.

Driving in Munich is very easy, although finding parking in the center is problematic. Plentiful free parking was available in the streets around the hotel over weekends and at night, but on Monday morning, a team of meter maids were fining the cars overstaying the 2-hour parking restriction on weekdays.

Reserving a hotel just days prior to arriving meant that the best old-town options were already taken. We wanted to stay somewhere comfortable with a convenient location and naturally not too pricy. The Arabella Sheraton Grand fitted the bill perfectly.

The hotel is located in Bogenhausen on the eastern side of the Isar River and therefore somewhat outside the main tourist areas. However, it is only 10 minutes from the old town on the very efficient underground railway system. The Arabellapark station is only a block from the hotel, and the location is very convenient for drivers. A shopping center across the road with a supermarket and a number of restaurants was also handy.

The hotel is in a large, modern building of limited architectural interest. It is apparently the largest and highest hotel in Munich, and views from the upper floors are quite spectacular. As could be expected, the reception rooms very modern and stylish and check-in as fast and efficient as I have became accustomed to on previous stays in Sheraton group hotels.

Our room was suitably large and stylish, using modern furniture and dark blue carpeting that tends to look good. The two large single beds were standard German fare – very soft but surprisingly comfortable, NOT leaving any backaches the next morning. The requested baby bed was already in the room, and we supplied our own travel mattress for the toddler. An electric kettle, bar fridge, iron, and trouser press were included – items often not standard in German hotels. The large TV had several international channels – mostly news – and of course, all the German ones. Although on one of the lower floors, we could still see the silhouettes of the Frauenkirche and the BMW headquarters from our room.

The bathroom was particularly nice – mostly white with black accents and stainless-steel furnishings. It had two washing basins in front of large mirrors and a separate shower and bath. The half-round shower swing-doors did a good job of keeping the floor clean, at least while showering. Physics determine that water will run down, and unless you plan to stand inside the shower until the doors have dripped dry, water is going to end on the floor the moment you open the doors.

The hotel has a lovely spa – wellness area in modern German – in the basement with a large pool and several jet streams and a separate Jacuzzi-like section. Several beauty treatments and a fitness center are available, but we never made it past the pool. The small meals served from the poolside bar looked pretty appealing, but we took all meals outside the hotel.

The Arabella Sheraton Grand caters mostly to a business clientele – the BMW headquarters-like, mid-1970s head office of the Hypovereinbank, one of Germany’s Big Four banks, is an immediate neighbor. However, on weekends, pleasure travelers reign supreme, and room prices fall from a lofty €300 to below €100 per night.

Emerging from the U-Bahn (metro) at Odeonsplatz, I spotted Tambosi and mentally marked it as a potential place for lunch. It is beautifully located at the far northeastern corner of the huge Odeonsplatz (square) right next to the Hofgarten, which formerly was the court garden of the adjacent Residenz. The trials and tribulations of the day saw us having lunch elsewhere, but when we passed Tambosi again in the evening, I enquired about opening hours and decided to eat breakfast here the next morning.

On arrival the next morning, the outside tables were not yet set up and we were fortunate to still find a table for four inside. Tambosi has rather elegant furniture for a café, and most of the clientele was equally elegantly dressed. Several men wore suits, and I was rather relieved that the elderly gentleman at the table next to ours took delight in observing the 7-month-old’s attempts to devour his own toes. (He finally got a mouthful about halfway through our meal.) Less pleasant was a man smoking stinking cigarillos, but most of the smoke dispersed through the open windows and he fortunately left before we actually started eating.

Tambosi is a café-bar, but during the early morning hours, coffee obviously takes priority – not that anyone would bat an eyelid if you order beer with your breakfast in Munich. The coffee selection is large and many are named after local luminaries. One glance at the names, and two cups of Lola Montez became the obvious choice. (Lola Montez was an infamous actress and parvenu who, in the mid-19th century, enchanted King Ludwig of Bavaria, the grandfather of the more famous Mad King Ludwig, to such an extent that he gave up his throne and went into exile in Switzerland. She sold her story while in California, but ended her life walking the streets of New York as a deranged pauper mumbling to herself.) The toddler had to make do with the standard chocolate milk.

The coffee was excellent, and we added to that an assortment of breads and a platter of cheese and cold cuts. In addition, we had two bowls of muesli, which somehow were labeled as Kuchen (cakes!) on the bill. The total bill came to €26.60, which is quite reasonable for the quality and amount of food in such lovely setting.

By the time we were leaving, the outdoor seating was filling up fast and seemed very popular with young families. In the lovely sunshine, this clearly is the place to be, with grand views of the Residenz, Feldhernnhalle, and Theatinerkirche. However, the ambiance of the lovely, elegant old-style café interior will be missed.

We were pleasantly surprised to have noticed Wiener’s Der Kafee on our short walk from the hotel to the subway station. The Frankfurt branch of this small Viennese-style coffee shop chain is one of our favorite locales. This is our favorite despite the bad patch it went through around the middle of last year when on two occasions we were told after ordering the standard breakfast, which consists of a few bread rolls, butter, and jam, that the chef has not arrived yet!

As Wiener’s was literally only a minute’s walk from the hotel, we decided to have breakfast here on Monday morning prior to picking up our new car. This branch of Wiener’s has several outdoor tables, but with a slight chill in the light morning breeze, we decided to sit indoors. Typically German, half the lights indoors were switched off, presumably to conserve energy, but were turned on as soon as we decided to occupy a dark corner rather than parking the stroller amongst the tables where suited gentlemen enjoyed an early morning coffee with a newspaper before presumably continuing to the adjacent head offices of Hypovereinbank.

We were pleasantly surprised to find the food menu somewhat more comprehensive than the very limited fare available at the Frankfurt branch. We decided on a Guten Morgen Frühstück (Good Morning Breakfast) that goes for €7,20, which included a number of bread rolls, a platter with cheese, cold meats and jam, a glass of orange juice, and a large portion of muesli with freshly cut fruit. Germans have a thing about old bread – they hate it. The hunger for fresh bread allows bakeries to be open for 3 hours on Sundays while all other shops generally have to remain shut. Fresh bread at breakfast is guaranteed, and the ones we received were still warm from the oven. On the waitress’ recommendation, we allowed it to rest a few minutes before devouring it all.

Hot drinks have to be ordered separately and generally cost just less than €3. Coffees are described using the appropriate Viennese terms – ordering a cappuccino will identify you as a first-timer and eyes will be rolled. In Vienna, a cappuccino is a Wiener Melange – pronounce the Melange in French rather than German. As in Vienna, all coffees here are strong and served with a glass of water with the spoon on top of the glass just so.

I found the atmosphere in this branch of Wiener’s more laid-back and new Munich than traditional Vienna. However, the service and taste of the food and coffee were first class.

I would have loved to take a factory tour of BMW’s plant in Munich. However, the presence of two small children made this problematic, while being in town on a weekend made it totally impossible. Therefore, I decided to settle for the next best thing – a visit to the BMW Museum.

The BMW Museum is located at the head offices of BMW next to Olympiapark, site of the ill-fated 1972 Summer Games. A stroll in this pleasant park after a visit to the museum would be the ideal way to end the afternoon. It was not to be…

Exiting from the underground station, it is easy to find BMW. Its gleaming head offices resemble four offices, around 24-floor-high cylinders seemingly suspended from a central pillar. It still looks ultramodern, even 30 years after it was constructed. However, large areas around it were fenced off for construction purposes, and it soon became apparent that the museum is closed and will remain so until a BMW Experience Center opens in 2006. BMW clearly took a cue from Volkswagen’s huge and massively popular Autostadt in Wolfsburg and is erecting a large center to showcase its cars and technology.

We had to make do with a small BMW Pavilion inside the Olympiapark. Here around 20 cars and a few motorcycles are on display, ranging from the humble Dixie that started the car production in the 1920s to more modern vehicles. Particularly popular are the BMW 328, which looked marvelous in silver, and the BMW Isetta, a small two-seater with three wheels and a door opening to the front. The Isetta and similar mini-cars made Germans mobile again during the 1950s. Also on display are a few items of BMW’s aviation history – between the two world wars, BMW was primarily famous for its aircraft engines. This is reflected in the company’s blue-and-white emblem that resembles an aircraft propeller. The emblem also reminds one of the blue-and-white check colors of the Bavarian flag. BMW is the abbreviation for Bayerische Motoren Werken (Bavarian Motor (Engine) Works).

A farther away tent housed a few of BMW’s racing cars and in between the two locales was parked a fleet of around 20 BMW Bobby cars. In contrast to her parents, who ordered a car in good faith 2 months before a demonstration model was available, toddler Becks insisted on test-driving every one before settling on a blue-and-white one with a hubcap missing from the front right wheel. If you want to see BMW’s slogan, Freude am Fahren (Joy of Driving), in action, ignore NASCAR, ignore Formula 1, and ignore boy-racers in overpriced GTIs. Simply let loose a bunch of toddlers on Bobby Cars in a large, unrestricted space.

We finally managed to drag her away to stroll in Olympiapark to see the famous tent-like glass roof, which was finished on time but over budget, and just bask in the glorious sunshine with a few thousand others on this late October Sunday afternoon.

A series of art museums to the north of Munich’s Hauptbahnhof combine to form one of the largest art collections in the world. Works range from antiquities to the present, and in genre, from sculptures to painting, drawings, and photographs. The three most famous art museums here are the three Pinakotheken, which house mainly European paintings: the Alte Pinakothek (14th to 18th centuries), the Neue Pinakothek (late 18th to early 20th centuries), and the Pinakothek der Moderne, which has four museums of modern paintings, sculpture, and photography.

The Alte Pinakothek is considered to be amongst the five most important art museums in the world. It is housed in a two-floor Neo Renaissance buildings erected around 1830 (and restored after major damage during the Second World War) to house the art collection of the Wittelsbachs. The Wittelsbach family ruled Bavaria from 1180 to 1918, and in addition to their often strange habits, generally had excellent taste when it came to art. Parts of their collection are housed in various palaces and museums throughout Munich and Bavaria, but the best pieces are here.

The first floor is larger and generally more interesting than the ground floor. The museum’s catalogue reads like a who’s who of European art and covers all major periods and artists. (The Spanish collection, however, is rather small.) It has numerous works of Old German masters such as Lucas Cranach and Hans Holbein. Albrecht Dürer, the artist who brought the Renaissance to Germany, is represented by several triptychs and paintings, including one of his most famous works – Self-portrait in a Fur Coat (1500), often also known as Albrecht Dürer looking like Jesus. The Flemish and Dutch collections are also comprehensive, with works by all the masters, including Van Dyck, Jordaens, Rembrandt, Hals, and one of the largest Rubens collections in the world. Italian and French artists are not neglected. Several galleries have works by Botticelli, Raphael, Da Vinci, Titian, Tiepolo, Lorrain, and Poussin.

The ground floor houses mostly early German masters. This collection may be of lesser interest to the average foreigner, but art connoisseurs will rave over the Cologne Masters (including several works by Stefan Lochner) and the large section dedicated to the artistic Brueghel family.

The museum is well laid out, allowing for easy navigation and full appreciation of the works without having to back track constantly. It is a large museum, making it sensible to concentrate on the major works only, especially if some of the other nearby museums are also on the same day’s itinerary.

Admission is free on Sunday, making it the best/worst day of the week to visit. On this visit, we had only that Sunday available for sightseeing, but unseasonably sunny weather kept crowds down to reasonable limits.

Opening hours are Tuesday to Sunday from 10 am to 5 pm, closing at 8 pm on Tuesday. Admission is €5, free on Sunday. A combination day ticket for all three Pinakotheken is €12.

The Neue Pinakothek (New Art Museum) houses a collection of paintings and sculptures roughly from 1780 to 1910. The emphasis is on German and French artists of the 19th century.

The original Neue Pinakothek was opened in 1853 but was bombed out of existence during the Second World War. Its replacement only opened in 1981. It is a post-modernist style building with excellent lighting and very suitable for exhibiting art. Pick up a free museum guide or simply follow the numbered halls that lead visitors through the 8-shaped museum. Works are arranged more or less chronologically and according to styles and themes, spanning the periods from David and Goya to Munch and Klimt.

Joseph Karl Stieler may not be the most famous artist of the 19th century, but arguably more Germans would be familiar with his painting in Hall 4 than any other work in the museum. It is possibly the best-known painting of literary giant Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and was secured by the Wittelsbach-family in 1828. The painting shares the hall with two large paintings of the Arrival of King Otto of Greece in Nauplia (1835) by Peter von Hess. The Wittelsbachs ruled Bavaria for more than 7 centuries, but their brief foray into Greek royalty was less than successful, not least due to the mental instability of Otto II. He was considered unsuitable for the Bavarian crown when Mad King Ludwig was deposed, although, if memory serves me right, the Bavarians were quite happy to keep him in charge of Greece.

Although the museum’s collection of German art is impressive, it is still the French Impressionists that draw in the crowds. The collection is not particularly large but representative of the period with particularly excellent examples by Manet, Monet, Cezanne, and Degas. Three works by Vincent van Gogh are on display, including a Vase with Sunflowers (1888). (My wife once paid around $ 10 to see the Sunflowers in Tokyo, but I was content to see this sample for free.) The Impressionists came around 18 galleries into the museum, so Baby Becks may perhaps be forgiven for bringing shame onto the family by dozing off two galleries before the highlights.

The museum’s café is famous for its good food and pleasant setting, factors that no doubt contributed to our inability to find any open seats there. We had to settle for a pleasant café across the road, where service was slow but the portions big, tasty, and reasonably priced.

Opening hours are Tuesday to Sunday from 10am to 5pm, closing at 8pm on Wednesday. Admission is €5, free on Sunday. A combination day ticket for all three Pinakotheken is €12.

After visiting two of the Pinakotheken in the morning, we had enough of art for the day and headed for the subway station at Königsplatz. However, this being a Sunday, many Munich museums offer free admission, and I knew I was not going to make it to the subway station without at least taking a peak into the Glyptothek en route to see one of the most famous Greek statues in Germany.

Approaching Königsplatz along Brienner Straße from the Karolinenplatz, one enters what the Nazis intended to be the Acropolis Germaniae. The Nazi party hailed from Munich and had its early success here. After coming to power, Berlin was obviously the capital of the Third Reich, Nuremberg became the capital of the Nazi Party Rallies, and Munich was declared the capital of the movement. The area around Königsplatz was rich in neoclassical buildings from the 19th century and easily converted into what the Nazis thought appropriate for their forum. A plaque at the northeastern corner of the square (corner of Brienner and Arcis Streets if you left your compass at home) explains in German and English how the Nazis converted the area. Most of the Nazi additions were either destroyed during the war or pulled down shortly after – for real Third Reich architecture in Munich, visit the bombastic Haus der Kunst south of the English Gardens.

The square can serve as a basic course in classical architecture. The Propyläen gateway at the far end of the square was erected in the 1860s. It was inspired by the Acropolis and features Doric columns. At the south end, the Antikensammlungen (Collections of Antiquities) are housed in a 1840s building featuring Corinthian columns. It is the architectural counterpart of the Glyptothek, the Ionic colonnaded classical building of the 1820s on the north end of the square.

We made a brief stop in the Glyptothek, as it houses 1,000 years worth of Greek and Roman sculptures. It is one of the most important collections in Europe. Its most famous item is also one of the most famous Greek sculptures in Germany, the Barberinic Faun. It is in the second hall and is a large reclining male nude made around 220 BC. It was presumably originally on display in the Dionysus temple before the conquering Romans dragged it off to Italy.

(The Faun also is kind of featured in Mr Wonka’s Berlin journal – presumably Aphrodite streaked by?)

Opening hours are Tuesday to Sunday from 10 am to 5 pm, closing at 8 pm on Tuesday and Thursday. Admission is €3, free on Sunday.

On arrival at BMW European Delivery Center, we handed over the paperwork and number plates and were invited to take a seat. Unfortunately, we had breakfast just prior to arrival, as coffee and snacks were available on the second floor. A few minutes later, we were invited to go through to the delivery area to pick up the new car. A BMW staff member was at hand to explain everything you may want to ask and to point out a few things, such as not having to try and push the gear leaver right through the floor to get it in reverse - just gently pull it all the way to the left. For once, there is no rush to move the customer along. In fact, I got the feeling he actually did not want us to leave. Although there is a gas station on the BMW premises, our car had enough gas to make it to the Austrian border, after which gas is around 20 % cheaper. After a final double check of papers, chassis, and engine numbers at the gate, and we were on our merry way.

USA residents (Canadian residents need not apply) planning to buy a new BMW, or any German-built car for that matter, should ask dealers about the European Delivery Plan. This allows customers to pick up the car in Germany, drive it for up to 6 months in Europe, and then ship it back to the States. In the case of BMW, discounts of between $2,000 and $ 7,000 are available depending on the specific model. The catch? Not much! Some optional equipment may only be installed once inside the USA, so you may end up without music if radios are USA specific. BMW completes all the paperwork, and the car is delivered via the normal dealer channels once inside the USA.

(In the interest of fair disclosure, the writer is part owner of BMW AG (DE:519000) and increased his shareholding prior to publishing this article.)