The Great Melt Down

As rains move in, all the ice that covered Munich and Bavaria seems to be melting away. The next few days call for temperatures right around freezing, but certainly not cold enough to re-freeze all the water ways. So for now, it looks to be the end of the Eisstockschiessen season for now. The sport, literally translated as Ice Stock shooting, is actually the Bavarian version of curling, and is played in Winter as well as summer. The sport is enormously popular in Germany and Austria, and actually was demonstrated at two Winter Olympic Games – in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in 1936 and in Innsbruck in 1964. The sport has origin in 16th century Scandinavian and Dutch history, but today is better known around the world as the sport of curling.

Four on the (Fl)oar

Just outside Munich in the suburb of Oberschleissheim is a fascinating rowing facility built for the 1972 Olympic Games. The 2KM long/135M across Olympia Regatta lake creates perfect conditions for rowing, and hosts some of the largest regattas in the world. For the World Rowing Campionships in 2007 in Munich, more than 181M viewers worldwide tuned in for the competition on TV, and more than 62,000 visitors watched from the bleachers, as it established Munich as one of the premier regatta sites in the world. During non-competition days, which are most this time of year, you can find countless crews training. And surrounding the regatta is a 5-KM, well paved, flat trail, providing a gem for joggers, bikers and rollerbladers.

Trails for two

In what’s becoming one of my favorite Munich parks (after the English Gardens – of course) is the royal grounds located just outside the city limits – at Schlosspark Schleissheim in Oberschleissheim. The gardens, which are some of the few Baroque gardens in Germany, seem to go on forever, and you have a fifth of the crowds that flock to Schloss Nymphenberg in central Munich. At the edge of Lustheim Palace (there are three palaces on the grounds) is a quaint little town called Lustheim, which leads to an extensive forrest called Berglwald. Berwald forest seems to be on a route of migratory butterflies, and is also a popular place for fox hunting, which has taken place there for the past 30 years. Go there on a weekday, and don't be surprised if you have the park to yourself.