It was 34 deg today in Munich. It was supposed to rain, but there were clear skies all day. This was a great relief to us, because it was our only full day in Munich and we wanted to hit the ground running.

Our hotel is in a perfect location, right on the square containing Munichs famous Viktualienmarkt. We went out to the market and bought some fresh fruit for breakfast.

We then did some souvenir shopping before joining a free walking tour of Munich that went for 3 hours. The tour was great and gave us a lot of history about Munich. Sad to learn that 90% of the old town was destroyed in 1945, when the allies dropped 3.5 million bombs on Munich. I know the allies were trying to force Germany to surrender and stop World War 2, but most of the historical buildings in Munich were destroyed. This means that 90% of the buildings in central Munich are only 70 years old.

We also learned that Hitler started the Nazi party on the first floor of the Hofbrauhaus. A sobering thought for an establishment where basically none of the patrons are ever sober.

This shouldn't and doesn't affect the mood of the place, where I believe this history should not tarnish the mood of 400 years of German beer drinking.

Apparently, the Hofbrauhaus started as the royal brewery and only aristrocrats were allowed to enter. After it was opened to the public, the history became interesting.

When the Hofbrauhaus was a men only establishment, there was a canal flowing outside the front door. When the patrons had drunk too much beer and had to relieve themselves, they would leave their bench and wander out to the canal. This became a problem, because the beer hall was so popular, and often the men would return to find that not only their seat, but God forbid, their beer had been taken. An urgent meeting was called about this terrible problem, and it was decided that channels would be carved into the floor under all of the tables, leading out to the canal. Great idea! Now all the men had to do was take their leaks directly under the table and wouldn't have to leave their place or their beer!

All was going swimmingly, with one minor problem: When a man took a leak under the table, all of the other men at the table would find their legs were splashed with urine. This was a major issue, so another meeting was held to discuss possible solutions.

The problem was quickly rectified by requiring that all men attending Hofbrauhaus were required to bring a walking stick with them. A rule was established that when one required a tinkle, one was required to firmly hit the legs of the other gentlemen at the table to warn them that a torrent of pee was forthcoming. Said gentlemen would then have the opportunity to lift their legs as high as possible to avoid splashback. Ingenious!

This idea was considered a revelation, and all patrons happily drank, peed, lifted their legs and carried on joyfully.

This arrangement worked beautifully until the plague hit Munich. After this, the regular patrons of the Hofbrauhaus suddenly found that their chances with the ladies decreased dramatically. The reason: The constant bashing of their legs by other patrons when pee-breaks were required caused the gentlemen to sustain bruises all over their legs. These bruises were seen by romantic hopefuls and the gentlemen were subsequently avoided like the plague.

Obviously this caused a great deal of angst among the beer drinking fraternity and so yet another emergency meeting was held to discuss possible solutions.

In a moment of pure genious, it was decided that the mandatory walking sticks be carved with a deeep groove from the top to the bottom, spiralling around the stick all the way down. This groove would allow the men to pee on the stick, the urine running down the groove and safely entering the channel wthout causing splash-back to the other patrons. The walking sticks were thereafter named "pee-sticks" and became an institution at the Hofbrauhaus.

After the walking tour, we did some more souvenir shopping and strolled down one of the main shopping streets of Munich, from Marionplatz to Neuhauser strasse. The sun beating down made us very hot and so we decided to go, sans pee-sticks, to the Hofbrauhaus to enjoy a nice cold brew.

The beer comes in one litre flagons, although Lidia wussed out and only had half a litre. We managed to score a seat right in front of the brass band, which served us liberal helpings of oom pah pah music. In between sets they all had 1 litre steins next to their chairs and chugged their beer in unison before starting the next set.

We met a lovely young Canadian couple and had a great chat with them. She was a French teacher and the same age as Alex. Freaky coincidence.

After we had our fill of beer, we left and went to a restaurant recommended to us by our hotel staff, where we enoyed schnitzel and apple strudel for our last meal in Germany.