BMW! Vroom! Vroom!

During our Eastern Europe tour last year, we were brought to BMW Welt and BMW Museum in Munich. The BMW Welt building is a showroom of current BMW cars and bikes in production. It is also a delivery centre for the automobiles purchased. On the other hand, the Museum showcases the past cars and bikes produced by BMW.

You may wonder what is Rolls-Royce doing in a BMW showroom. Well, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars now belongs to the BMW Group.

There is also an old F-1 vehicle on display in the Museum. This car dates back to the era when BMW was in collaboration with Petronas.

This is the interior of the BMW Welt building. All the current production BMW cars are on display for appreciation and test drive. However, I didn't get the chance to test drive any as we were given very limited time here.

Roaming the Old Town of Munich

Munich was our first stop of the Eastern Europe Tour last year. We arrived into Munich International Airport very early in a rainy morning, and the tour bus took us directly into the heart of Munich old town, the St. Mary's Square (Marienplatz). We alighted the tour bus at the outskirt of the old town square and it started to rain cats and dogs, so we ran for shelter. From there, we could already see the bell tower of St. Peter's Church (Peterskirche) to the left and the tower of Old Town Hall (Altes Rathaus) to the right.

At the outskirt of St. Mary's Square , there are many typical commercial buildings. We stopped by a bakery while waiting for the heavy rain to subside.

When the rain turned to drizzle, we started our walking tour. I don't know what building this is but it looks like an old church.

The first indoor sight for us was non other than the St. Peter's Church. The high alter has St. Peter's figure and the ceiling frescoes were recreated in 20^th century based on the original works in the 18^th century. There are also some priceless Gothic paintings around.

When we arrived at the St. Mary's Square, our tour guide wanted us to guess which is the Old Town Hall and which is the New Town Hall (Neues Rathaus). We were all deceived by the look of the buildings, as the older looking building is actually the New Town Hall and vice versa. At the centre of St. Mary's Square is the column of St. Mary (Mariensäule) with the figure of St. Mary in gold.

Near the New Town Hall is also the Fish Fountain (Fischbrunnen) which was destroyed during World War II. The one that we saw was rebuilt in 1954.

When our walking tour was about to end, the weather was not with us again and it started to rain cats and dogs. We had to take shelter along the street while waiting for the heavy rain and strong wind to subside.

Our tour finally ended at the National Theatre Munich (Nationaltheater München) and we boarded the tour bus heading to our next destination.