Wide Streets!
Munich
18.6.11 - 20.6.11
20 °C
View
Wandering
on Monimouse's travel map.
Three days in Munich, with showers and rain every day.
There are lovely wide streets, with traffic keeping to marked lines, footpaths wide enough for 20 across, with barely by one or two pedestrians in sight... Its almost like home!
The rain makes me notice and appreciate that shops and office buildings have overhangs and shelter to huddle in.
The room is huge, and the whole floor we are on is sealed off and heated, so even the corridor is warm. No need to use the heater in our room, and the washing dries quickly.
My remnants of German have exploded, and I am almost fluent, with words I am sure I had totally forgotten coming out in complete sentences. Bob had school German as well, so life is much easier for both of us. However, the complexities of menus and wurst are slightly scary. The restaurants that probably have the most interesting and authentic food have the most indecipherable menus (and writing) and we often turn away from half a dozen before deciding to just sit down somewhere and chance our luck.
We arrived in time for a multi-hundred year celebration festival for Munich, and the town square has a covered stage with endless speeches and music. But no oompah bands or traditional German dancing,although I think every official in town is in period or traditional clothes.
We have seen the Glockenspiel clock in the town square, set in a building that rivals the sides of Notre Dame for blackened Gothic buttresses.
we did a tour of the Residentz, which is the local palace. Also toured a few museums and three churches. The Neues Pinothek had a fabulous treasury with many crowns and fabulous jewellery. We are very impatient with adio guides. You dial in a number, of the room or exhibit, then hold it to your ear to hear the tour blurb. So you see each room filled with people with glazed eyes, listening tot he rest of their 3 minutes per item. After the first dozen, then gradually people speed up, and listen to a more selected set of blurbs.
There are more kings and queens that we have never heard of, than we ever knew existed. Tracing the path of a crown, or a painting or statue from artist to great person to palace is not useful when you have never heard of any of them! We do better as philistines, working out our own reasons for being pleased with the various aspects and items.
Munich is very nice, but too much modern town for me to really be thrilled about staying here too long. So we go, on to Neuschwanstein.
Posted by Monimouse 21.6.11 22:11 Archived in Germany
Hey
Sounds like you're having heaps of fun!!
Just felt obliged to mention my excitement at your last line - in class we've been focussing on Neuschwanstein and the Allgau, any photos etc from there would be amazing :D
Keep having fun
Samantha xx
28.6.11 by Samantha