(Sunday, Sept. 13) George gave us a few suggestions for spending the rest of Sunday afternoon. One was to take a “rickshaw” (a bicycle driven “carriage” for two, much like what one finds along the Pier 39-Fisherman’s Wharf section of San Francisco) ride out to the “Chinese Pagoda” in what is known as the “English Garden” (Munich’s equivalent of Golden Gate Park, or Berlin’s Tiergarten). It would have been much cheaper to have reached to the park by: 1) Foot (no Euros); 2) subway (probably 4 Euros); 3) or even in a regular taxi, than forking over 22 Euros (about $30) for a 10-15 minutes ride. But it was no never-done-that- before experience, and you have to expect to pay premium dollar for those.
The “Pagoda” sits in the middle of a popular beer garden and serves as a bandstand for local musicians. Every table was filled with locals quaffing their favorite beer. Since we’d just finished lunch a short while earlier, we skipped swilling more sudsy brew, and set out on a walk back to the main part of the old town and our hotel. We passed kids and adults on bikes, people just strolling along, the odd dog or two, and no one else who looked like a tourist. A stream runs through the park and a couple of guys and a black Labrador Retriever were swimming near a small “waterfall”, ignoring the “Swimen Heir Ist Verboten!” sign. But we hadn’t seen nothin’ yet.
As the stream passes under a bridge at the edge of the park, a large boulder or other obstruction creates what white-water rafters call a “standing wave”. Standing waves are like ocean waves nearing a beach, they crest and the tops curl over. But unlike ocean waves, standing waves don’t break --- they just “stand” there, perhaps increasing or decreasing in height and frothingness as the water flowing around them speeds up or slows down. It’s a perfect place for the favorite California and Hawaiian sport: Surfing.
Three or four surfers in wet suits with short boards lined each side of the stream and took their turns riding the waves from one bank to another, sometimes suffering a “wipeout” and falling into the stream, emulating the surfers who hang out near San Francisco’s Fort Point, catching the waves that pend around the point as they enter the Golden Gate. Muecheners stood shoulder to shoulder at the bridge balustrade watching the surfers scoot across the standing wave.
After shooting many photos, hoping to get just the perfect one depicting this urban sporting phenomenon, we left the park near the American Consulate and walked into the Hofgarten, a much smaller park that is next to the Wittelbach royal palace called the Residenz. Here were found locals engaged in another Sunday activity: Swing dancing in a stone “gazebo.” Some of the dancers were in their 60’s or 70’s, others were half that age, and some were of an age somewhere in the middle.
As we found on a trip to Rome ten years ago, there’s no better way to spend a Sunday in Europe than “hanging” with the locals.
