Surfing in the centre of Munich? Sounds improbable as the nearest surf beach is on the French Atlantic coast some 1500kms distant but it's for real. I saw it for myself last week. They surf the Eisbach, a very fast flowing tributary of the River Isar, at a point just beyond a road bridge at an entrance to the Englischer Garten, the main park in Munich.
It's not a wave as in the ocean - it's a water "bank" produced by an underwater step in the channel. Apparently surfers have been surfing the "break" since the 1970s although it was not legal until 2010. Now they surf it all the year round and also at night.
Last wednesday morning they were lining up to surf it and being good Germans they were forming orderly lines on both banks and as it is strictly one surfer at a time.
The surfers have to jump straight onto the wave and when they fall off or jump off they have to swim strongly for the bank downstream as the current is both strong and very fast flowing.
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