Englischer Garten

I had a long run scheduled while visiting Daughter in Munich. Her apartment is just a couple of miles from the Englischer Garten. Since it's bigger than Central Park in New York, that seemed like my best long run option. I stuffed my jacket pockets with a package of mixed nuts, keys, a tiny city map, a 2 euros coin, a metro ticket, and a slip of paper with Daughter's address and phone number. After 20 minutes of running I was at the south entrance of the park where I stopped for a few minutes to watch the kayakers enjoying the cascades on the river. After 20 more minutes of running I started looking for a water fountain. I asked another runner where to find water. Apparently there are no drinking fountains in the whole park. I finally found a beer concession that had bottled water for sale. Fortunately it was just 2 euros. By that time I had been running for well over an hour. From there I headed into the north half of the park. I was determined to make it to the far end of the park, but ended up running in circles for over an hour before reaching it. No sense of direction, you might say, but in my defense, there are roughly 75 kilometers of paths in the park! When I finally headed south again I was out of water and nuts. I found the only bathrooms in the park that weren't locked and filled my empty water bottle. By the time I exited the park I had been running for almost 3 hours. I would have used my metro ticket to get home, but the closest stop was out of the was, so I walked back to the apartment; only having to stop to ask directions a time or two (things really do look different when you turn around).

I had planned on doing some shopping that afternoon, but took a long hot bath instead. I haven't run since.