Our Moose In A Box: Allianz Arena Tour

On Friday, the first day with Katie's family in Germany, Katie's brother wanted to hit the ground running with seeing the sights in Munich. Tim and I met up at the Allianz Arena to take a tour of Bayern Munich's home field. As previously mentioned we are going to be seeing Bayern Munich play a game in Berlin at the end of the week, so this felt like a good lead in for our trip.

Even on the walk from the public transit station, the arena itself looked quite impressive. We learned on the tour that the outer structure is covered with thousands of sectional pieces of this diamond shaped balloon like material that is partially transparent. Each section can be lit up with different colored lights, allowing the arena to take on the look of the home team colors. When Bayern Munich is playing there it is lit up red. For the other team that often uses the arena for home games, it is lit up blue.

Outside of the Allianz Arena

Our tour guide was quite entertaining. He had lots to share about the team, the arena, and other football happenings. In each area we were viewing he'd often give short little silly examples describing events that might happen during the game. "And if your team of choice scored, you'd yell... *waits for response but no one answers* ... the answer is GOAL! Come on now, everyone try like you would at game on 3... 1, 2, 3... *Everyone yells GOAL*. But if the other team scores, well, your section might be kind of silent. That happens sometimes, it's how the game goes."

Our tour guide pointing things out about the arena on the first stop of our tour.

Tim taking in the end line view of the pitch.

The grass on the field was also interesting to learn about. It's this new fancy system that is partially fake and partially real. They use strands of durable fake grass to help keep up the integrity of the field. And then real grass is grown between the fake strands for a real grass feel. They have to water and mow the field just like you would a normal field. It needs sunlight too. But with lack of natural sunlight during certain seasons due to the height of arena, they have to use UV lights to help it grow properly.

Full view of the pitch and its fancy grass

Tim in the stands near the half line.

At one point on the tour Tim asked the very good question of how much a beer cost at a game. The answer was 4,50 Euro for a pretty decent size. Not too bad. But our tour guide did share that you are not guaranteed to get alcoholic beer there. If the event organizers think a crowd is either getting too rowdy or they know they will be too rowdy based on the opposing team's reputation, they will water down the drinks or just substitute the beer with a non-alcoholic version.

Also because of Tim's question, our tour guide thought Tim might be Australian. Once he found out we were American he began giving us a hard time about America's flavorless beer, aka the many beers like Bud Lite. We tried defending ourselves stating that our craft beer is quite good, which he must agree with since he said he liked some beer he got to try in Oregon. In hindsight we should have also given him a hard time about watered down German beer passing for regular beer on German palates. Doesn't speak well for their beer either.

For some reason I thought it'd be entertaining to get a picture of Tim under a sandwich sign.

Orange indicates the press area

We were told again and again how many uses other than soccer the arena has. This is a bar area that can also be reserved for private events or conferences.

Post game conference area where coaches give statements about the game

Bayern Munich's locker room

Medical/Therapy area attached to the locker room

Large whirlpool

After an anti-climatic march down the stairs set to dramatic music where we thought we might get to go out next to the field. Instead at the bottom we got an explanation on how the door works. Oh well.