This month an estimated 500,000 tourists and sport lovers will descend upon Munich for the 20th Olympic Games. What they will find, reports TIME Correspondent Jesse Birnbaum, is an overgrown village that likes to think of itself as Germany's secret capital, a city of museums (25) and music (three symphony orchestras, a 48-week opera season), with memories of Richard Strauss and Wagner, Bavaria's mad King Ludwig IIĀand Adolf Hitler. Vignettes from Birnbaum's recent visit there:
STRADDLING the historic trade routes of Southern Europe, drinking in the influence of other cultures, Munich has always been...