Welcome to November

I turn the page on the calendar, and the photo that I used for November is one that I took when I visited Munich, Germany, some years ago.

Mary's Square, or Marienplatz, has been the city's since 1158.  In the center of the plaza is Mary's Column which is topped by a golden statue of the Virgen Mary.  It was erected in 1638 to celebrate the end of occupation by the Swedish army during the Thirty Years' War.

In the background is the Old Town Hall which dates back to 1310.  It was heavily damaged during World War II and was reconstructed in the 1970s.

Welcome to October

I am now in Ohio, but I prepared this post ahead of time.  The photo for October on my calendar is of the palace garden in Munich, Germany.

Before Germany became unified, Bavaria was a separate kingdom with its capital at Munich.  The Bavarian rulers lived in a royal palace known as the "Residenz".  Behind it is the "Hofgarten" or Court Garden which is now a public park  It was laid out in 1613 by Maximilian I.    In the center of the park is a pavilion known as the Temple of Diana.  In the background is the chancellery of the state of Bavaria.

June Is Busting Out All Over

(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.   

Welcome to March

As I always do on the first of each month, I write about the photograph that I chose for my calendar for that month.  This year's calendar features pictures from my travels in Germany, and March's photo was taken in the former royal palace in Munich.

The palace, which is known as the "Residenz", was the palace of the Wittelsbach kings of Bavaria.  Begun in 1385, the palace was expanded, renovated and redecorated over a period of more than four centuries, so it displays a variety of architectural styles... Renaissance , Baroque, Rococo, and Neo-Classic.  It is the largest city palace in Germany, and 130 rooms are open to the public.  The Rococo Ancestral Gallery dates from the 18th century and contains portraits of the Wittelsbach family.

The palace was severely damaged by bombing during World War II.  After the war, restoration of the building was begun, with most of the work completed by the 1980s.  

It's October

It's time to turn the page on the calendar which I created using photos from my travels.  This year's theme is parks and gardens from around the world.  It is fitting that October's picture is from Munich, Germany, the home of the Oktoberfest, the world's largest beer festival.  Here we have Munich's Hofgarten.

I visited the Hofgarten (the Court Garden) on a trip that I took to Switzerland, Austria and Germany in the summer of 2019.   This 17th century park is located behind the "Residenz", the former royal palace from the days when Bavaria was a separate kingdom.

Although the festivities of the Oktoberfest are held in a different part of the city, I am sure that at this time of year the park is not as uncrowded and tranquil as it appears in this photo.  The event attracts around six million visitors each year, and all of the city's attractions are probably thronged with tourists.  By the way, Oktoberfest actually begins in September, and will last until Monday, October 3rd.  

Munich Music

I thought that I was done writing about my visit to Munich, but then I realized that I had some videos that I wanted to share with you.  In most big cities around the world you will find street performers, but it seemed as if there were more musicians playing on the streets in Munich than anywhere I had been before.  Many of the them were probably immigrants.  There were a number of them who were playing unusual Eastern European instruments.  And there was even one performer all the way from South America.

So here is a sampling of the music of the streets of Munich...

My Last Day in Munich

A week ago today my trip was coming to an end.  It was my last day in Munich.  It was a gray, chilly day.  Originally I had thought about visiting the Olympic Park, but this was the type of day that was best spent in a museum.  However, most museums are closed on Mondays.  Looking through my guidebook I saw that the Deutsches Museum was open daily.  It is supposedly the world's largest museum of science and technology, not exactly my cup of tea, but I figured that I might as well check it out.

I put on my rain jacket, grabbed my umbrella, and walked across town to the Isar River.

The museum is located on an island in the middle of the river.  I had to stand in line for about 20 minutes for a ticket.  This was the first time on the trip that I had a long line to enter an attraction.  

There was much that was of little interest to me.  I passed by rooms filled with power tools and machinery.

The aviation exhibit included an early airplane of the Wright Brothers.

They also had an example of the kind of plane flown by Baron von Richthofen ("the Red Baron") during World War I.

I thought the exhibit on mining in the basement might be interesting, but the endless stretch  of tunnels proved to be wearisome.

Recreation of a salt mine

Heading to the upper floors, I found some exhibits that were more interesting for me.

There was a glassblower at work, which is something that I have always found fascinating.

His beautiful work was for sale.  I did buy one very small item that I figured would make the journey home without breaking.  (Obviously not the glassware pictured below.)

The kid in me enjoyed the displays of technical toys.

An early German version of our "Erector Set".

Early Leggo sets

Cool antique building blocks

I was a geography teacher for a while, as well as a Spanish teacher, so the cartography section was interesting to me.

A reproduction of a world map from 1239 places Jerusalem at the center of the world.

This is a reproduction of the oldest known globe of the earth.

The original was made in 1492 in Nuremburg, Germany.

There were several screens with live weather satellite images.

Yes, Munich was definitely cloud-covered.

And Hurricane Dorian was battering the Bahamas.

After several hours at the Deutsches Museum, it was time to return to my hotel and pack my bags.

Farewell to Munich

Lest We Forget

Germany is not all schnitzel and "oom-pah" music.  There is the dark side, the horrific era of Nazism and the Holocaust.  Now, more than ever, with the turn toward the right wing in many countries, and hate groups crawling out from under their rocks, it is important not to forget the lessons from the not-so-distant past.  So, a week ago today, a took a short train ride from Munich to Dachau, the site of the first Nazi concentration camp.

It is located ten miles from Munich, and was established shortly after Hitler took power in Germany.  It operated from 1933 until it was liberated by the Allies in 1945.  It was first used as a camp for German political prisoners... Communists and Socialists who opposed the Nazi regime.  After 1938 Jews were brought to the camp.  After World War II began, and German troops occupied other nations, Poles, Czechs, Russians and other nationalities were interned.  Homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, Romani (gypsies) and other "anti-social" groups were also imprisoned.  It is estimated that during the twelve years of its existence more than 200,000 prisoners passed through Dachau.  It was primarily a forced labor camp rather than an extermination camp.  Nevertheless at least 30,000 prisoners died here from malnutrition, disease, suicide, gruesome medical experiments, and summary executions of prisoners for even the most trivial violations of camp rules.  As the Allies pushed in across the areas of Nazi conquest, prisoners from other camps were brought to Dachau until the overcrowding and hygiene conditions were unimaginable.  Typhus and malnutrition were rampant.  When the Allies liberated the camp there were around 200 deaths per day.

Today the former camp is a memorial to the victims of Nazism.

The gate house through which prisoners entered the camp

The iron gate bears the infamous slogan, "Work makes you free".

That slogan later appeared at other camps, including Auschwitz.

Most of the guard towers around the camp are still standing.

The entire camp was surround by a moat, an electrified barbed-wire fence, and a concrete wall.  Any prisoner venturing into the "no-man's" land in front of the moat was immediately shot.

There were thirty two barracks.  They were torn down, but are marked by their foundations.

Replicas of two barracks have been built.

The recreation of the interior cannot begin to portray the horror of the place when it was crammed far beyond capacity with prisoners.

The maintenance building, one of the few original structures remaining, now houses a moving museum that details the rise of Nazism and the history of the camp.

The large open area between the building and the barracks was were the prisoners were forced to stand each day, sometimes for hours on end, while role call was held.

 The crematorium was where the ashes of the dead were incinerated.

Late in the war, a gas chamber was built.  It was tested out once, but never used again.  No one knows why.

The ashes of the dead were thrown into a mass grave.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."-

philosopher George Santayana

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.