Bavaria Filmstadt, day 4 Munich/Switzerland, 2024

I’m eating dinner here while I write this.

This is Marienplatz. Think of it as the Times Square of Munich in that it is the primary tourist hub. Dinner in a touristy area is almost never a good idea if you want good food. But, a mediocre meal with a spectacular view was worth it in this case. Though a north wind started to blow and it got cold, so I ate quick and headed back to the hotel to finish writing.

I woke around 3:45am and couldn’t fall back to sleep so I watched a movie and just enjoyed the quiet morning.

I headed down for breakfast at 6:30am. I’d searched all over the day before for a restaurant with Weisswurst, a very Bavarian breakfast of white sausage and a pretzel. I would have just eaten at the hotel because:

Breakfast was delicious and filling. I would skip lunch today. There was no need.

Today I visited Bavaria Filmstadt, a big movie and TV studio, and the place they filmed the interior shots of Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

I had very low expectations for today. First, the tours are in German so I was likely to not understand much. Second, I’d read that the tour focused on popular German films and television shows, which I know little to nothing about. Third, other than the fact that the interior shots of the chocolate factory and Charlie Bucket’s home were shot there, there was no information I could find online about what sound stage they shot on or if it even was still standing. It was a pretty big crapshoot that I would get any Willie Wonka vibes at all. Worst case I’d be shown a bunch of stuff from movies and tv shows that wouldn’t resonate with me at all in a language I don’t understand. That could be fun…maybe…?

I had tickets for an 11am tour so I arrived around 10:30am. The guide, who quickly realized I didn’t speak German and pivoted seamlessly into English, said there was room for me in the 10:30am tour and let me in line. While I had her attention I told her I was a fan of the 1972 Wonka film and asked if she knew which soundstage it was shot on. She pointed to Soundstage 4/5 in the distance.

There it was. I snapped so many pictures of it as we were following the tour guide to the first stop of the tour that the Germans on the tour with me kept glancing at it, trying to spot what was so interesting about Soundstage 4/5. How do you say in German, “That’s where they shot some amazing scenes from one of my favorite childhood movies and I’m excited to be this close to it for some reason.”?

(In case you’re wondering, here’s how: Dort wurden einige tolle Szenen aus einem meiner Lieblingsfilme aus der Kindheit gedreht und ich freue mich aus irgendeinem Grund, so nah dran zu sein.)

I kept silent and followed the tour guide. The first stop was a “4D Ride” based on a German animated film or TV series based on Kipling’s The Jungle Book.

Mowgli and Bagheera are racing for some reason and we, the audience, are strapped into seats that move and bounce as the two race through the jungle and encounter other characters in the story. This ride was pretty lame though everyone seemed to be having fun so I did, too.

The tour took us through several interesting buildings where they have sets and props and pictures from various films and shows. I was so pleased to find a few bits of evidence from the Wonka film.

The tour guide eventually took us to the front of Soundstage 4/5 and talked (I assume?) about various films shot in this building. Das Boot was shot there in 1983 because it has the capacity to have lots of water in it, a need Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory has as well, with less submarines and more rivers of chocolate colored water.

I didn’t expect we’d go inside and we didn’t. I did run over and touch the building, because, you know, I’m not going to not touch the building…

I was thrilled with the little Willie Wonka breadcrumbs I’d gotten to experience here. They exceeded my expectations.

And the rest of the tour was pretty neat, too.

They were very proud of Das Boot. They had models and the submarine set that we got to climb through. Here’s a photo montage.

We were also taken on “The Munich Street” a film set built in 1986 that looks like…a Munich Street. A small film crew was using it with a bunch of kids shooting a commercial, maybe…? Here’s a clip of them shooting and some photos.

A few other interesting (to me) tidbits: The movie Cabaret with Liza Minelli was shot here as was the children’s movie The Never Ending Story.

Fun fact: I shot craps with Liza in Las Vegas many years ago. As one does.

Everything I’d read made it sound like the Filmstadt was pretty far outside on Munich so I took a taxi to get there rather than braving public transportation. It wasn’t nearly as far as I thought. To get home I decided to do public transit. It was super easy and took only around 45 minutes, one tram, and two subways. I grabbed a little pastry and espresso and headed back to the hotel where I crashed for a couple of hours.

When I woke up I hit my favorite Sunday morning Zoom meeting 8:30am there, 4/30pm here) and then chatted with Mike for a bit. Today is our 19th anniversary of our first date. I hid an Anniversary card for him before I left and when I was at the first airport lounge at the beginning of this trip I discovered he’d also hidden a card for me in my backpack. It said “don’t open until March 10th.”

I opened it first thing this morning. Turns out we got each other the same exact card which sweetly sums up our relationship. I have the best husband ever.

Tomorrow I’ll head to the Swiss Alps in the morning so I’ll spend a little time packing up and getting ready before calling it a night.

Thanks for following along.