Lederhosen, Castles, and Weiss Beer

We had a three day weekend in Munich due to Whit Monday (also called Monday of the Holy Spirit), a holiday 7 weeks after Easter Monday. We spent all day Saturday walking around Old Town. Everything was so close that we were able to see so many things very quickly (gates, old buildings, and squares).

There was Karls Gate and Isator Gate. These gates were part of the medieval city wall. They were renovated, but look like they did back in the 1300's with some additions, like a shopping mall on Isator. Quite cool to see them intact and have such a long history.

Karls Gate

Isator Gate

Marienplatz was a very big square and had many old buildings, statues, and fountains. Many of these buildings were built hundreds of years ago and had contrasting styles based on what era they were built. Funnily we thought New Town Hall (Neus Rathhaus - built in the late 1800's and early 1900's in the Gothic Style) looked much older than Old Town Hall (Altes Rathaus - built in the late 1390's in the Baroque and Neo-Gothic style) as seen in the photo's

New Town Hall

Old Town Hall

Then there is the Glockenspiel am Rathausturm which is part of the New Town Hall. We got to see the 11 o'clock show of life sized figure re-enact a happy marriage, jousting and dancing. It was quite fascinating and there was of course a huge crowd to watch.

Life Size Figures

The whole show.

Certainly in an Old Town there has to be Churches. I find it perplexing that there are so many churches so close to each other in these towns, mostly because they are so massive and very close to each other. We walked by several of them and even went up in the bell tower of St. Peter's Church (affectionately known as Old Peter by the locals), the oldest church in the area and built on a "hill". Penny and I were quite surprised when we figured out the building we were looking at was considered to be on a hill, because the incline wasn't really that big, something more like a little rise in the area maybe a meter higher than the ground in Marienplatz. Well worth going up the tower to get a view of Munich from above.

View from "Old Peter's" bell tower

View from "Old Peter's" bell tower

The Church of Our Lady, which was being renovated, had a nice little sitting area outside under some trees and a bit of running water facing the church. It has two towers which are highly visible in Munich as there is height restriction in the city center, but these are 99m tall, although one is completely covered with scaffolding and screens. Still a nice little area off the busy main street of Old town.

Enjoy the peaceful sitting area.

Frauenkirch - Church of Our Lady

Another church we happened to go into was Michael's Church. We didn't stay long, but took a photo of it as it had some paper birds hanging from a mess above the pews. To me it made it look like a school room, where a teacher had the students make birds and hung them for others to see. Different!

Look at the birds in the church!

As a side note, on Sunday we went to Neuschwanstein Castle (more on that later), but on the way there we saw a couple of other churches. One was in a little town on our way up. It had a very pretty interior like nothing we've seen before with a lot of pink colors and of course the normal religious paintings, but we thought it was beautiful.

Lovely Pink Interior

Religious Mural

Then we visited rococo style WeisKirche, which is a pilgrim church built in the late 1740's and early 1750's for the farmers in the surrounding area. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was built by Dominikus Zimmerman and helpers over 9 years. More interestingly, his brother Johann did all the painting by himself. An absolutely lovely church seemingly in the middle of nowhere!

Weiskircke

Nice painting on the ceiling

Now enough with the churches, back to Munich and our Saturday tour! We found a quite funny site in the middle of the English Garden -- there was a place set up for surfing in the Isar River. Yes, I said surfing! Along the sides of this river, and throughout this enormous park, were all kinds of people (and I do mean lots and lots of people!!) sun bathing like they were at the beach and would occasionally jump in the cold water to cool off.

Surfing in Munich!

Just like being at the beach!

One of our favorite parts of being in Bavaria is the Weiss beer. This is especially true for Penny as it is her favorite type of beer. We found several places to have some of "Munich's Golden Water". For lunch we stopped by the very touristy, but still entertaining and good, Hofbrauhaus to have a typical Bavarian lunch and beer. Many of the beers come in 1L glasses, so I got one. Penny got a Weiss, which usually comes in a 0.5 L glass.

Love the dark stuff!

Keep your own mug at Hofbrauhaus.

Gees, that is a big glass, Penny. You need two hands! (note - she is only having a taste of mine, hers was much smaller and easier to hold!)

After a full day of walking around, we stopped at the Chinese Tower beer garden in the English Garden to have rest and break. These beer gardens are HUGE- they can seat up to 7000 people!! After a beer there we decided to go back to town for dinner, which was a nice 30 minute walk back. We decided to try Schneider Weisse for dinner as has 11 of its own Weiss beers on tap and some good schnitzel. I can tell you that it was so good that we ended up going back on Monday before leaving to sample some of the other ones we missed Saturday night.

Schneider Weiss Brauhaus

Their menu of Weiss beers. Yummy!

Of course there were other beers drank during the weekend, but I have to get to other parts of our trip because we really do more than just drink on these trips, I promise.

Sunday was a trip to Neuschwanstein Castle. As I mentioned earlier, we stopped by a small town on our way. Yes, in Bavaria they actually still wear Lederhosen and Dirndl. It isn't just for show in the restaurants. A few photos of people on their way to church in their dress clothes.

Musicians in the Hofbrauhaus

Church day in farm community.

Church day in farm community.

Church day in farm community.

I have to say without a doubt the highlight of the day goes to seeing the castle though. We had several different views of the castle (which inspired Disney's Sleeping Beauty Castle) on the way up and walking up to it from a bridge built specifically for viewing this amazing building. It was built by order of King Ludwig II. The castle did not get finished due to the death of the king, and has been turned into a tourist trap as groups of 50+ get herded through the finished rooms every 5 minutes for an hour tour. Still worth it as this place was so cool!

Countryside Bavaria

King Ludwig's childhood castle - his dad's

Neuschwanstein Castle

What a view.

Looking out from the balcony onto the childhood home.

From the path leaving the castle.

Penny and I are not poster people, but had a hard time not buying posters from each season with a view of the castle. It is so beautiful in the countryside and in the mountains. This place made us really miss living in Colorado by the Rocky Mountains.

After seeing the castle we went to a small farm and ate some meats and cheeses made in the surrounding village, then got dropped off at a beer garden. Not only are beer gardens a big part of the German culture, but they serve these massive pretzels (and many other foods) as well. They are as big as a medium pizza.

Look at that pretzel!

Busy beer garden.

Busy beer garden.

Monday started with a trip to Nymphenburg Palace. This palace was built as a summer palace back in the 1600's. The grounds (garden) itself is 200 hectares in size. The place was huge and had all kinds of paths to take in the palace view, lakes, and green space as you wanted to. Penny and I just walked around the grounds and had lunch before making our way to Munich Olympic Park.

The Nymphenburg Palace, not even the whole thing!

Palace and fountain

Nice pond with the swans

Statue of the Devil in the gardens.

View back towards palace

Fountain at far end of the gardens

Olympic Park was quite big and seemed to have many of the venues close by, so we got a look at most of them and it still seems to be used today.

Swimming pool

Olympic rings and stadium

Memorial for 11 Israeli's killed in Munich massacre

Memorial for 11 Israeli's killed in Munich massacre

Our trip was extended (but not in a good way) as our late night train from Duisburg back to Enschede was running late. It was so late that we would have missed our connection later that evening (and in fact, we don't even know if ever left). Thus the train company put us up in a hotel for the evening. We could get up at our leisure to catch a train at 8:25 or 9:25 to get us home. However, the rain storm that delayed our night train lasted most of the night and knocked down trees and flooded tracks all across the country. No trains were going anywhere in the morning - the board was blank. After several attempts waiting in line to get more info and 5 hours in the train station Penny asked when would it be time to give up and just get a hotel for the night and try again the next day. She was told they would pay for a taxi to get us to Munster 120km away to get a train to go straight back to Enschede. Not sure how much that little trip cost, but we ended up getting home Tuesday night instead of having to wait another day. Very few trains were leaving from Munster when we got there, but it was better than staying in Duisburg longer. Something both Penny and I noticed in the train station is the lack of anger by the people who were being delayed. There was a lot of disappointment, but hardly any visible anger as people had to wait for hours with little to no information about when the trains would start running again.  Lucky for us it was at the end of our little trip.  This little delay also made us appreciate just how lucky we have been. We have been using the trains a LOT in the last 4.5 months, and this is really the only sort of set-back/delay that we have had.  Hopefully it is the last one too.......