We awoke to the alarm at 7:45 a.m. and the sound of traffic on wet streets. It was a light rain, and looked like it might not last for the entire day. We got ready, loaded up the backpack with the day’s supplies, and headed out just before 9:30 a.m.
Our first stop was the grocery store across the street for some “emergency” rations, in case we (Gary) got so involved in sightseeing that we (Aileen) were going too long between meals. We bought 2 apples, a bag of dried cranberries, a 0.5 liter bottle of Vanilla Coke (still available in Germany!), and a box of sugar cookies. It was then up one block and around the corner to Back Werk (Bakery Works) for zwei milchkaffes und zwei Johannesbeere kuchen for breakfast.
The rain had abated by this time, so as we were properly nourished and caffeinated, we started walking toward the Royal Section of Munich, as die Residenz (The Royal Palace) was our main destination. As we walked along Marienplatz (Mary’s Plaza), we decided to stop at Michaelskirche (St. Michael’s Church).
Construction of this still actively used Jesuit church was begun in 1576. While still under construction in 1583, its main tower collapsed. The patron funding the church’s construction took this as a sign that the church wasn’t big enough (the Lord works in mysterious ways, I guess), so he eliminated the tower and enlarged the church. As a result, the barrel vaulted ceiling is second in size only to St, Peter’s in Rome. King Ludwig II (castle builder extraordinaire, as we hope to see tomorrow) is buried in a vault beneath the church.
When we exited the church, a strong wind had come up, and the city was drying out quickly. Our walk then took us past die Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady). Construction of this church began in 1468, and was completed in 1488 – a record pace at the time. It has twin “onion dome” cupolas atop its towers that are more reminiscent of Greek Orthodox churches, although you’ll have to take my word on this as we forgot to take a picture of the exterior.
But from this interior picture, you can see how much narrower the ceiling vaulting is compared to Michaelskirche. The church sustained heavy damage during bombing raids in 1944-45, but still contains a number of marvelous stained glass windows:
I’m not certain if these windows survived the bombings, if they were removed for safekeeping and reinstalled after the war, or if they are replicas of the original windows – but they are still quite magnificent. The same uncertainty surrounds the church’s massive pipe organ:
We finally completed our walk to die Residenz und die Schatzkammer (Treasury). The original Palace was built in 1363, but as the Bavarian monarch grew, so did the Palace. Much of the complex was destroyed by fires in 1674 and 1750, but it was generally rebuilt more opulently than before. As a result, the Palace had more than 22,000 sq. meters under roof when the monarchy fell in 1918. World War II was not kind to the Royal Palace either; by the end of the war, less that 50 sq. meters were undamaged.
The subsequent reconstruction took decades, but was certainly completed by craftsmen, as the following picture of the Antiquarium shows:
The Antiquarium houses Duke Albrecht the Fifth’s collection of statuary and busts from before the 1500’s.
Our passes also included seeing die Schatzkammer (the Treasury), which is the collection of valuables gathered by the royal families over the years. It seems that since you had to be important to own valuable things, the more valuable things you owned, the more important you must be – a sort of circular logic that worked to keep various groups from attacking one another. The following is a crucifix from 1598 that supposedly includes relics from the crucifixion of Christ: a fragment of the cross, a piece of the wine-soaked sponge, and others:
By the end of the Treasury tour, we had been walking for about six hours, so we sat in one of the courtyards and at our snacks. We also noticed that the sugar cookies we had purchased that morning are sort of sugar cookies “lite”; they just don’t have as much sugar loaded into them as they do back in the U.S. This is probably a contributing factor to why you just don’t see as many overweight Europeans as you do overweight Americans back home.
We had to make our reservations for our Neuschwanstein castle tour before 5:00 p.m., so we walked back to our hotel. We requested a 12:00 noon tour time, and within a few minutes had our reservation confirmed for a 12:25 tour. I hope we make it on time; everyone says to allow two hours travel time. We still didn’t have any luck calling home via Skype (receive OK, transmit dead), so we walked back downtown to the Augustiner beer garden for dinner.
I asked the waiter for “Ein speisekarte im Englishe, bitte?” (a menu in English, please), and he responded in perfect English: “Would you like one in English, American, or Canadian?” It turns out he was a Canadian who moved to New York for 22 years before emigrating to Munich. He spoke fluent English, German, Turkish, Spanish, and Italian. When we ordered, we had beef goulash (me), half a fried chicken (Aileen), and two dark beers (us). We shared a table with an older, native Munich architect who has relatives who emigrated to Buffalo, New York in 1848; he seemed happy to be able to practice his English.
Back to the hotel, and I fell asleep while Aileen checked her E-mail – so it was lights out for both of us at 9:45 p.m. Tomorrow, we pick up our rental car and head for the Schloss Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein castles. It should be interesting – stay tuned!
Distance traveled: 4 miles (rail), 8 miles (foot), 12 miles for the day, 4,643 miles so far this trip.
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