Munich part 4 - English Garden

I Munich part 4
Left: That´s surfers doing their thing in the Eisbach (Ice lake) as it is a river that comes straight from the Alps. Watching them, I felt inspired to learn how to surf myself. :)

One of the best parts of Munich must be the English Garden. It´s the 7th largest Metropolitan park in the world and is even larger than Central Park In N.Y. Once the private hunting grounds of the king and training grounds for the Bavarian army, it was dedicated to the citizens of Munich in 1789 in a response to the French Revolution - to keep the people happy and hopefully decrease the likelihood of revolt. The entire garden spans 5.5 km long and 1 km wide - about 370 hectares (1,000 acres) and has 4 beer gardens!

Typical Bayerish food- pretzels and spare ribs at the beer garden. The tower is called "Chinese tower" because it looks like a pagoda. Live German folk music is played from this tower, which creates a very relaxed, casual atmosphere. I simply enjoy being at the beer garden - the sun is shining, the air is fresh and there´s so many people enjoying time and life together....
Lovey dovey picture in the garden

This is where the river runs through the entire park. People laze around the grass, read a book, play games and nudity is allowed too. We were warned in advance so that nobody falls off the bike from shock. Except for one naked guy, whom we saw from the back, we didn´t see any other public display of the human anatomy.

One of the many statues that adorned the sides of the river.

(Left: The gold figure on the top of the tower is the Friedensengel - the Peace Angel)

Bottom: We got to know some Americans - a father travelling with his two teenage sons, around the same age as my brothers. We went out for drinks with them and boy, they were downing 1-litre mugs of beer!

I find it really heartwarming that although the Dad is not physically with his sons all the time, they still make the effort to meet up and spend some time together.

Top: Notice that funny-looking utensil? That´s a "spork"- fork + spoon. How cool is that? One of the guys brought it and since I´d never seen any of those, I´m immortalising it in my blog!

A very interesting "person" I met along the streets of Munich.