10/8/11 Munich

So this time I didn't get to sleep in for a tour...I had to be at the USO at 3 am...yes, 3 am. No leisurely 4 am this time...no, no, we had some driving to do; or should I say the bus drivers had some driving to do...I on the other hand had a pillow with my name on it. The great thing about having a car (among the many great things) is that when you have these tours that start before the rooster even wants to consider waking up, you can take along a blanket and a pillow and press snooze in the bus. And I did just that. I slept nearly the entire way to Munich.

Admittedly, at that time of the "morning" there is nothing to see. The villages are small and tend to be nestled into the country side so its not like you really even see much of their lights at that time. So the pillow seemed to be the best idea. Another great thing about having a car: when I started out this morning, low and behold there was still some rain going on. Thank goodness I didn't have to walk across to the other side of the base in the rain...especially when it was cold too..maybe 40 degrees. (after getting back last night at least I can be thankful that it hadn't snowed like it did in Colorado).


At about 6:30 am we stopped for breakfast. Yes, once again at a gas station, rest area, truck stop place, but this one had a hotel too. It actually wasnt a bad place, in reality, none of them have been bad. Yes, the food a the first tour wasn't all that and a bag of chips, but the food is ok. And I have learned to just get a croissant and juice and then worry about something real to eat once we get to our destination. The cool thing about this breakfast stop was that 1. it had a really neat fountain (which is hard to tell in the picture since it was still 0 dark 30 out) and 2. I found the dog station. You see (which I am sure I have said before, the Germans love their dogs...they go everywhere with them...restaurants, stores, amusement places, etc). Personally, I love that they are so welcoming of dogs (other than when you are trying to rent a house).

It's hard to see since it was still so dark out but on the right side there is  a sprayer (it reminds me of a fire hose in a rock) and it sprays water in an arc over to the rocks on the left side...and in the middle there are smaller water arcs. Not really impressive on its own, but very cool to have something like this at a gas stop.

The dog spigot...complete with water bowl.

Once the breakfast break was over, it was time to get back on the bus for the rest of our travel time...another hour or so, then we would be in Munich, the capitol of Bavaria.


OK, I have to admit it, when I hear the true name for Munich (which is the Americanized version of the true name) I think of the Wizard of Oz. The true German name for the city is Munchen..and I always think of the Munchkins. In truth, the area was established by monks from the Tegernsee Abbey and they called it "Munichen" (the name derives from the German word for monks). So as one of the tour guides says, it was named after the little monks who settled in the area. Little monks; munchkins; I am seeing a pattern here!


At any rate that was in the 10th or 11th century (I cant remember now what she said for sure on that one as it was a lovely older German lady named Erica who was giving us our bus tour...thank goodness since when we got to Munich it was raining..and she tended to jump from thing to thing and some didn't seem to quite match up. She was however quite funny in some things she said.)


Before we picked up our "bus tour" guide we had to drive through parts of Munich. This was nothing like the other villages I have been through...not even like Kaiserslautern (which is big in comparison to the villages in the area). Munich is the 3rd largest city in Germany, with over a million inhabitants (23% of which are ex-patriots from various countries). Unlike some of the small villages, when Munich was nearly destroyed in World War I & II the rebuilding was no fully in the old style. Newer architecture was used often. So the city is kind of a strange mixture of really old, old, and new. Sadly it was raining pretty well when we first go into the city so there are few pictures...we did go by the Nymphenburg Palace but didn't get out thanks to the rain.

Obviously the lady by the window wasn't excited by the city...she was still snoozing. But in the background is Nymphenburg Palace.  But on a later pass by the Palace...

Still not a lovely clear bright Fall day, but the best I can show right now.

Interesting thing about this palace...the center was the original building.It was built in honor of the birth of the son to Ferdinand Mary. The palace was the summer residence for the Wittelsbach (royal) family. The original palace took 10 years to build (1666 - 1676). Each successor to Ferdinand Mary built their own extension to the palace. The pictures above only show part of the palace...it is huge! I look forward to going back some time and actually getting to tour the palace (we didn't have that in our scheduled time) The palace also has a huge garden


These are pictures from the rest of our "bus" tour of Munich with Erica.

The Resedenz Museum. Ok, its not impressive since they are renovating it, but how cool that the covering for the renovation has been designed so that it looks like the building...and if you click on it and see it up closer you might see toward the left end on the second floor they made it look like two people are looking out the windows.

The opera house.

This is the sight of the famous Beer Hall Putsch on 9/11/1923

Ah, civilization

The American Consulate

the Isar river

the netting is actually power lines for the streetcars.

the picture is not for the McDonalds...its for the painting and design on the building

This is the area where Hitler was arrested following the beer hall putsch. He was then imprisoned for a few years and wrote Mein Kampf

After the bus tour we took a little walking tour to include the town hall with the Glockenspiel, the world famous Hofbrauhaus and more.

Notice anything unique about this clock?

Look at the numbers....ok, there is a story behind this clock, the Museum of oddities is right behind it...so it's kind of a joke...and got people to say that Bavarian clocks run backward.

This is the New Town Hall with the Glockenspiel

Lions are the animal of Bavaria

The Glockenspiel goes on for 15 minutes playing songs and the figures moving until finally the golden rooster comes out. The marionettes play out the wedding fest of King Wilhelm V. To tell the truth, I didn't stay for the whole thing...I got bored so I started off on other areas of the city.

Odd woman who was dancing around in the square prior to the Glockenspiel  doing its thing. 

What is left of the Olympic stadium... OK, there is more, but I didn't get a chance to get a better picture.

On a little side note, even though I didn't take pictures of any of them...there are many buildings in Munich that were built according to Hitler's design.To tell the truth, I thought they were kind of boring looking. But the reason I bring them up, of the 11 buildings that Hitler built in Munich none were destroyed, despite 90% of Munich being destroyed during bombings.

Now for the all important Munich thing...which I missed by a day. Not to worry, I will go next year. This year, well, excuses excuses, but basically, I didn't know of anyone that was going, I didn't have a car that I would want to drive that far, and really, why would I want to go to Oktoberfest alone??? Seems such a happy fun event, and not one to go to alone. So there is always next year! 


But a little history on Oktoberfest: Crown Prince Ludwig, later to become King Ludwig I, was married to Princess Therese of Saxony-Hildburghausen on 12 October 1810.  The citizens of Munich were invited to attend the festivities held on the fields in front of the city gates to celebrate the happy royal event. The fields were renamed Theresienwiese ("Theres'a Fields") to honor the Crown Princess, although the locals have since abbreviated the name simply to "Wiesn". Horse races in the presence of the royal family marked the close of the event that was celebrated as a festival for the whole of Bavaria. The decision to repeat the horse races in subsequent years gave rise to the tradition of Oktoberfest.


So you might ask, Why is Oktoberfest in September? (Oktoberfest starts in the third weekend in September and ends the first sunday of October.) It seems that through the years, people were finding that often they had snow falling into their beer steins...the weather is a little unpredictable in October...so, the festival was shifted back a few weeks.


After a few hours in Munich, it was on to Dachau...