GERMANY – Munich, Day 8 #Bavaria

Westpark

Westpark is a large urban public park in Munich, Germany. It was designed by landscape architect Peter Kluska and completed in 1983. It hosted the International Garden Expo 83 that same year. The park covers an area of 178 acres extending 2.6 km from east to west. The Garmischer Straße divides the park into an eastern and western section.
– wikipedia

West Park

I was very impressed by the number of parks in Munich; the amount of green space is amazing.  The fact that there are beer gardens is most of that green space – double amazing!  The origin of the planning of this trip to Germany centered around this day.  Friends of our cousins in Texas (our travel companions on this trip) that live in Germany were married earlier in the year.  Today was Fridric and Jessica’s wedding celebration.  My wife and I were happy to make their acquaintance and were appreciative we were invited to take part.  It was wonderful.  The beer from the wooden keg was exquisite.  Tapping the keg is a big deal as well (see videos below).

Rose Garden @ Westpark

The rose garden consists of more than 20,000 roses and 500 different rose species.  – wikipedia

Wirtshaus am Rosengarten

Had a beer and snack prior to the evenings festivities

Japanese Garden

Four of the originally 23 national gardens of the exhibit are preserved. The very first authentic Chinese garden in Europe is a walled garden that might have been constructed for an historic scholar. Around a pond the walkways leads along the four seasons and four parts of a lifetime. The Japanese garden was a gift from Munich’s sister City Sapporo and combines elements from the Heian period. A Nepali pagoda was carved by 200 master carvers and transported to Munich. A free standing Thai-Sala hosts the first consecrated Gautama Buddha statue in Germany.  – wikipedia

This garden was beautiful.  I was regretting not bringing my DSL to capture it.  It was going to be a lengthy day and I didn’t feel like dragging it along.  Mistake.  Smartphones do a pretty good job capturing scenes, but no comparison to a DSL.

The Wedding Celebration

I didn’t get a whole lot of shots of the celebration because I was…well celebrating.  The bride and groom had all sort of costumes for attendees to wear if they didn’t come dressed up.  A very fun evening all the way around.  Great people, venue, food and of course the beer.

I thought this door nob at the restaurant was interesting.  Drucken; means “press/push;” however it looked a lot like Drunken after a few beers.  It was on the way to the bathroom.

Drucken

Here, Fridric Taps the wooden keg of beer

Tap wooden keg of beer – fail

The people you meet

You meet all kinds of people throughout your daily lives and travel.  On this trip we met several wonderful people/couples.  Fridric and Jessica are a wonderfully jovial couple.  I felt fortunate to have been able to spend a considerable amount of time with them throughout the week.  They were wonderful hosts as they showed us around Munich, their hometown of Murnau and Salzburg, Austria.  Many thanks to both of them for their time, hospitality, generosity, suggestions on sites to visit and the knowledge shared about Munich and the numerous sites we visited together as a group.  Going through all of these photos is a bit like reliving all the fun we had on this trip.  Very grateful for all of the experiences.

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