Off the Beaten Track

Most visitors to Munich take a day excursion outside of the city to Neuschwanstein, the fairy tale castle built by "Mad" King Ludwig of Bavaria in the late 1800's.   

(image taken from the web)

As beautiful as the castle is, the more that I read about it, the less appealing the excursion sounded to me.  It is a two hour train ride and then a bus ride to the castle.  Tickets should be purchased ahead of time because you are assigned a time slot.  You are required to take a guided tour through the castle.  With the hordes of tourists that descend upon Neuschwanstein, the tour groups are usually made up of about 60 people.  You are herded through a few rooms of the castle on a 30 minute tour, and no photography is allowed inside.  It sounded like too much of a hassle.

Before leaving on the trip I was looking for someplace else that would be a worthwhile excursion from Munich.  The city of Augsburg, just a 30 minute train ride from Munich, is one of the oldest cities in Germany, and has a number of places of interest.  So last Saturday morning, I walked over to the train station, and hopped on a train to Augsburg.

  
Augsburg is a pleasant city of over 300,000 people.  It was founded in 15 B.C. as a Roman outpost.  Throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance it was one of the most important trading and banking centers of Europe.  It was at the forefront of the Protestant Reformation. (Augsburg was largely Protestant while nearby Munich was staunchly Catholic.)  The Peace of Augsburg in 1555 guaranteed religious freedom in the city.

There were tourists in the city, but almost all of them were Germans.  The level of tourism was manageable; I never felt as if I were engulfed in a crowd of visitors.  

The number one attraction is its city hall which was built in the 1600's.  It is considered one of the most important examples of secular Renaissance architecture north of the Alps.

It is certainly an attractive building, but it is the interior that makes it worth a visit.  Upstairs the city fathers created a lavish assembly room called the "Golden Hall".  

The ceiling, which is nearly 6000 square feet in size, is covered in mural paintings and gold gilt.

Number two on the list of places to see in Augsburg is an usual place called the "Fuggerei".  The Fuggers were one of the wealthiest merchant and banking families in Europe.  In fact, they were the bankers to the Holy Roman Emperors and the Popes.

The family patriarch Jakob Fugger constructed an enclosed settlement in 1516 for craftsmen and laborers who, through no fault of their own, had fallen on hard times.  The rent for one of the row houses in the "Fuggerei" was one guilder per year.  The only requirements were that the family be Catholic and pray three times a day for the Fugger family.  It is still administered by members of the Fugger family, and it is the world's oldest social housing complex still in use.  The residents, the majority of them today are senior citizens, still pay the equivalent of one guilder per year... about 88 cents.

Although people still live here, tourists may visit the "Fuggerei" and several of the rowhouses contain museum exhibits.

One of the houses is furnished the way it might have been back in the 1500's.

Another is furnished as a typical residence of today.  Of course everything has been updated with modern conveniences.  Not a bad place for 88 cents per year in rent!

The chapel of the "Fuggerei".  I wonder if the residents today are still required to pray three times a day for the Fuggers?

On the main street of Augsburg, the former palace of the Fugger family still stands.  It would seem that the Fuggers are still bankers because part of the ground floor contains the offices of the "Fugger Privatbank".

There are also numerous old churches that are worth visiting.

The Gothic Cathedral contains a number of medieval stained glass windows that survived the bombings in World War II.

I mentioned that Augsburg was on the border between Protestant Germany and Catholic Germany.  That duality is exemplified by the Church of Saints Ulrich and Afra.  One part of the church is Lutheran, the other is Catholic.

To top it off, I had a tasty lunch in the Ratskeller Restaurant in the basement of the city hall.  My schnitzel was a cutlet marinated in mustard and horseradish, breaded with pretzel crumbs, and fried in butter.

I had a thoroughly enjoyable day in Augsburg, and I do not regret missing the tourist pandemonium of Neuschwanstein Castle.  Ironically just a few days later I read an article encouraging travelers to shy away from the over-visited tourist sites and go to lesser known places.  

At the Hofbräuhaus

The biggest tourist attraction in Munich is the famous beer hall, the "Hofbräuhaus".  The place was established in 1583 as a brewery for the Bavarian royal family, the Wittelsbachs.  (The name in German means House of the Court Brew.)  In the 1800s, the brewery moved to the outskirts of Munich, the building became solely a beerhall / restaurant, and you didn't have to be royalty or a VIP to enter.

The royal emblem of the Hofbräuhaus

Even though I figured that the place was a tourist trap, I went in for lunch.  (Of course, there is a mandatory gift shop at the entrance, and, yes, I bought a Hofbräuhaus tee-shirt as a gift for Alejandro's dad.)  You enter through the main beerhall.  The vaulted ceiling is decorated with folk art.  There are long tables that are shared by the patrons.  Some tables are reserved, either for tour groups or for local regulars.  The regulars even have their own beer steins set aside for them on racks.  It was still early in the afternoon, and the "oom-pah" band was not yet playing.

In the courtyard there is an outdoor dining area.

I opted to go upstairs to a terrace where there were tables available.

It wasn't really expecting much in the way of fine dining from such a touristy place, but I was pleasantly surprised.  I ordered a relatively light entrée, potato patties filled with a swirl of mushroom remoulade and serve atop ratatouille.  It was very tasty.

My dessert, on the other hand, was anything but light.  I ordered a traditional dish called "Kaiserschmarm", which means the Emperor's Mess.  It was supposedly the favorite dessert of Emperor Franz Josef of Austria.

It consists of shredded pieces of thick, sweet pancakes, dusted with powdered sugar and served with apple sauce.  As you see if was as big as my main course.  It was very good, but definitely very heavy.

As I left the restaurant, the band had begun to play downstairs in the beer hall.

                         

It may be a tourist trap, but it was a pleasant, worthwhile tourist trap.

Seeing the Sights in Munich

Although I am back home in Ohio, I still have a lot to share with you about my time in Munich.

I left off with my first full day in Munich, which had been cloudy and drizzly.  I had spent most of the day visiting indoor places.  But the following day, last Friday, was gloriously sunny and perfect for exploring the city.

I started by heading back to the "Rathaus", the city hall.

As I already mentioned, this structure appears medieval, but in fact it was built in the late 1800s in an extravagant, neo-Gothic style.

The city's coat of arms appears above the entrance to the city hall.

Notice the monk in the center of the emblem.  Munich's name in German is actually "München" which means "monks".  The first settlement in the area was a Benedictine monastery in the 11th century.  The lion above the monk is a reference to Henry the Lion, the Duke of Saxony, who built a bridge across the Isar River next to the monastery.

The spire of the city hall provides the best panoramic view of the city.  Fortunately there is an elevator which takes you to the top.

Munich's Old Town is in the foreground.  In the distance, on the horizon you can make out the Olympic Tower, a communications tower and observation deck that marks Olympic Park where the 1972 summer Olympics were held.

The view to the west is dominated by the twin towers of Munich's 15th century Cathedral.

The Cathedral was my next stop.  The original design called for Gothic spires, but lack of money left the towers unfinished until 1525 when they were topped with more economical domes.

The Gothic interior is quite austere when compared to the many baroque churches that I had seen.  The Cathedral suffered heavy damage in World War II, and much of its artwork was destroyed.

A few of the original stained glass windows survived the war.

Retracing my steps I passed by the city hall again and came to the "Old City Hall".

If the "Old City Hall" looks newer that the "new one", it is because this building was destroyed during World War II bombings and was completely rebuilt.

Nearby is the oldest church in Munich, St. Peter's.  It probably stands on the site of the old monastery whose monks founded the city.  

The present church dates back to 1368, but the interior was redone in baroque style with the typical white and gold color scheme found in Bavaria.

In the shadow of St. Peter's tower is the "Victualienmarkt", the outdoor food market.  Here are booths selling fruits, vegetables, baked goods, cheeses, and sausages. 

Beeren - Berries

Himbeeren - Raspberries

Brombeeren - Blackberries

Obst Standl - Fruit stand

Those big things next to the fellow are mushrooms!  I have never seen such gigantic mushrooms in my life!

A Maypole in the center of the market is typical of Bavarian towns.

Next stop on my sightseeing list was the tiny Asam Church. Although now it is a place of worship, this building was originally the showroom (for lack of a better word) of two architects, the Asam brothers.  They filled the space with every baroque decoration in their catalogue, and clients could come here and pick out what they wanted for their building project.  It is baroque taken to "the nth degree".

Typical architecture in the Old Town...

I had visited the "Residenz", the palace of the Wittelsbach dynasty, the previous day.  Behind the palace is the "Hofgarten", the Palace Garden.

A short walk beyond the "Hofgarten" is the "Englischer Garten" (the English Garden).  It stretches for three miles from the center of the city, and is one of the largest urban parks in the world.

On a late Friday afternoon, thousands of locals were beginning their weekend by enjoying the sunshine in the park.

At one point along the stream going through the park artificial rapids have been built where people can go surfing.

I walked through a portion of the park until I reached the Chinese Tower and the adjacent Beer Garden.

While people enjoyed their beer, up in the tower a German band was playing "oom-pah" music, an appropriate ending to my day of sightseeing.