(For younger readers, or those not familiar with classic Broadway musicals, the title of this post is a reference to a famous Rodgers and Hammerstein song.)
The year is flying by, and we are now in the month of June. The photo that I selected for my custom-made calendar is one that I took some years ago when I made a trip to Switzerland, Austria and Germany. One of the cities that I visited was Munich (or München in German) the capital of Bavaria, Germany's largest state.
The city hall of Munich contains in its central spire a famous "glockenspiel", a mechanical clock with moving figures that represent two scenes from Munich's history. The top section commemorates the marriage of Duke Wilhelm V of Bavaria and Renata of Lorraine in 1568. Below it, there are figures representing the Coopers' Dance. According to legend, the city's barrel makers (coopers) danced through the street at the end of the plague in 1517. There are performances of he "glockenspiel" several times a day, and they attract large crowds of tourists and residents.
The city hall (the "Neues Rathhaus" or New Town Hall) was built in neo-Gothic style in 1874. The building suffered minimal damage during the Allied bombardment in 1944, and the structure was repaired. The "glockenspiel" dates from 1908 and underwent restoration in 2007.
