Silvester in Munich - When your in the fireworks (video)

Munich does not have any obvious restrictions on fireworks, you can buy then and on New Year's Eve, Marienplatz becomes the place to fire them.

Here thousands of people congregate each
day, but on NYE it became almost insane.  The 10 minute video below starts about 5 min before midnight.

Differing from other NYE celebrations there is no countdown or exact moment to mark the new year, apart from more fireworks going off than the last hour. It is up to us as spectators to keep an eye on the clock tower to know when it is midnight.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

There is always time for culture and beer

Starting later today as we are expecting to be out on the town for New Year's Eve, breakfast was as usual in the B&B.

After crossing town Katie and I made our way into the impressive Cuvilliés-Theatre for the matinee festive performance.

Before the concert even started we were amazed by the beauty of the
theatre.

In this case, we selected pricier tickets and we got a semi-private booth up in the lofty heights of the theatre.

The concert was amazing and we followed the music along with the program handed to us on entry, or we thought we did.

It was when we went to the cloakroom to collect our coats that we were informed that we had only seen part one of two parts, we were having an intermission!
A little embarrassed we stopped for a drink and then headed back to our seats. In all, the concert went for a little over two hours.

Here is a couple of snippets from the concert.

After the concert, we walked through Hoff Garden and visited the war memorial, a fairly uncommon sight in German towns.

From here it was a short walk to the edge of English Garden to see Eisbachwelle where the locals can get their surfing fix. It is here that the river reappears after transversing under the city. engineering methods have created a surflike wave and locals queue in all weather to have a chance of surfing.

 The afternoon was spent having a little lunch and dropping in on Frauenkirche.

After a few hours resting in our B&B, we were off again to Augustiner-Keller a beer hall famous for its outdoor garden and Bavarian dishes.  I was not expecting much of a meal but thankfully both Katie and I were pleasantly surprised, it was much better than expected.
We got to the hall around 6:30pm and started our meal, along with a beer each. By 7pm it had started to fill and by 7:30 all tables were seated, by now also the band had started playing, mostly English tracks with some Bavarian accordion between.

And a snippet from the beer hall.

Around 9:30 we were feeling uncomfortably hot and as we had finished our meal decided to depart and return to the B&B for some R&R before the fireworks spectacular in MarienPlatz at midnight.

Happy 2018 to all from Katie and Shannon

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