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München: Palace entry
This is the front door of the Residenz, the 'town' castle of the former ruling family This is the 1st ‘episode’ of another of 'our' travels.
The collective ‘episodes’ describe our journey from our arrival in Munich (known locally as München), Germany (3rd week of June) through to our departure from Central Europe at Prague (in late July) 2010. This ‘episode’ describes our journey to München, and our departure into Bavaria in a hired car a week later.
As always, if you want to 'see' more detail in an accompanying picture, click it to enlarge. We've attached a few pics that give you a flavour of our journey, and some 'flow over' past the dialogue.
It´s all a bit surreal.
We departed home on Friday after enjoying a family meal on the Thursday (
to celebrate a birthday). The evenings had become cool at home so the gas fire had made the evening that much more enjoyable.
Friday evening was quite a contrast, just the two of us enjoying hawker streetfood in Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur. Unlike home, the very humid hot weather caused a sweat that only aircon could alter.
Saturday evening was another contrast. London was decidedly cold (10 C,
brrrr), but this
didn´t affect our enjoyment of a pint or two at the well patronised local pub.
Sunday didn't see the weather get any better, with drizzle greeting us in München. But, by dinner time, having rested to cope with jetlag, a visit to the local Brauhaus (brewhouse) had us enjoying Dunkles (dark beer), rostbratwursten (roasted beef bratwurst) and saurkraut.
YUM!.
München.
A week before leaving, we checked the recent Bavarian weather to learn that they were experiencing an unusually warm introduction to summer: temps in the high 20’s.
Great, we thought and so packed light.
What a mistake! After a delay of a couple of hours leaving London, we arrived around midday to 6 degrees.
Brrrrrr.
OK, just go buy some warmth!! - no can do, Sunday is a day of rest so no shops are open. It didn’t matter much, we just rested indoors to overcome the jetlag.
The first couple of days were quite cold. But by Wednesday, the sun shone and the temp increased. And, a week into our holiday, the weather had become really balmy; wonderful blue skies, a slightly fresh breeze and we felt blessed.
The regional context.
Before describing our travels, it seems better to convey the historical background of the region. Bavaria is much like anywhere in Europe; the feudalist control of large land areas by particular families. In recent centuries, Europe might be characterised as a hotchpotch of large land areas each under the control of a dominating family. The size (boundaries) of the land areas (and in some cases the existence of a ’controlled’ area) waxed and waned dependent on the ’strength’ (or otherwise) of the particular office holder.
Between 1180 and 1918 Bavaria was under the control of one family (the Wittelsbach‘s). Dependant on the ‘strength‘ and skill of the particular heir, the area of ‘Bavaria’ has embraced to varying degrees most of (current day) Germany, Austria, and parts of Poland, France and the Czech Republic. Today, ‘Bavaria’ embraces just eastern Germany. The relevance here is that the length of rule by the one family meant that central Bavaria has avoided being ransacked. This has resulted in an accumulation of cultural assets, and perhaps more importantly, an ’attitude’ amongst Bavarians that this history somehow makes them superior (or it did till WW2).
Bavaria
is a highly fertile region, and this partly explains the economic base enabling the Bavarian ‘empire’. Another ‘part’ is that the Bavarian family inculcated bureaucratic administration to manage the region. A third aspect is that Bavaria is Catholic and is credited as stopping the outward movement (east) of Protestantism. As such, the region has not only enjoyed a strong association with Rome, but been rewarded when political support was necessary.
After WW2 (especially) much of the accumulated wealth stored in gold, jewellery and art within the region has been lost. Yet, the wealth used to create and decorate palaces, monastries and churches remains and gives an insight into a ‘glorious‘ past. To this couple of New World travellers, the display of wealth is overwhelming. We might reach for the words
extravagant excess, but even this term massively understates the content we’ve viewed.
We read that the Bavarian people are conservative and proudly traditional. Our discussions with those Germans we’ve met suggests there are (largely) two German peoples, the Bavarians and the rest (lowlanders). Unlike other parts of the world we’ve experienced, Bavarian society appears very polite and we have yet to see the sorts of antisocial behaviour that
is now expressed in modern western society; graffiti is almost non-existent, people are very civil and generally trust others, car drivers don’t display road rage, and the youth don’t assert ’self’ by damaging property. We feel sure there will be some degree of anti-social behaviour, but to us it is far from obvious.
There is no doubt that Europe developed a creative artistic culture over the past centuries, and Bavaria is no different. The expression of the arts, whether it be physical (eg. jewellery) or aural (eg. music), appears very much alive and well.
Back to our travels.
As noted, we arrived to cold. The airport entry is quite different to what we’d come to expect. The aircraft don’t park beside the terminal building, rather in parking lots (like a car park). A bus meets the plane and takes pax to the ‘processing’ area. The ‘entry’ was efficient, and for us straight down to the train into München.
After a rest, we went ‘downtown’ to look around and search for a meal.
Wow! We were in central München and there was no high rise; the ’tallest’ building is about 5
München: low rise streetscape
This is a street out of the CBD area. It shows the typical 'low rise' apartments characteristic of München stories. We later learned that after the central Frauenkirche was built the town council ordered that no building shall be built to obscure the sight of the 100m high onion shaped steeple. The Frauenkirche (church, or cathedral) was built around 1470 and was the seat for the Archbishop of Bavaria.
And, trees. We love trees. Most München streets have big old trees - as do many of the front gardens of houses (in fact, 3 - 4 storey mansions). It is magnificent to walk along streets with tall old Plane, or Linden, of Chestnut trees in full leaf. To us, trees give a city a certain character, and makes the person feel at home. And, a treeless place with cars belting along just doesn't make for enjoyment. That said, there are few cars in the München city area (many push bikes though), and they travel really slowly. Accordingly, the place is pedestrian friendly.
Adding to the ambience, most of the residential buildings have flowerboxes under each window, presenting an abundant display of any variety of colourful flowers. Not only has München a most prolific park system with wonderful tall and spreading trees, all with paths, many have ’untouched’
München: a room inside the Residenz
Just one of the hundreds of rooms inside the Rezidenz. areas where the grasses and copsed trees grow freely. To add to the charming atmosphere, corners of streets have large planter boxes filled with a riot of colour that not only please the eye but also provide a wonderful contrast to the hard edged urban structures of concrete and bitumen. And, the perfumes! For us, the floral perfumes drifting on the breeze was an added bonus when walking through München.
As if all this wasn't enough, there are the bells. With so many churches in central München, each appearing to try and outdo each other with bell sets, at certain times of the day the bell peels dominate the München soundscape. Amusingly, the bell peel timing is controlled by the church, meaning that timing is not 'officiated by German bureaucracy; for example, at midday, one set starts a couple of minutes before, with others starting up progressively later until the last set starts some minutes after midday. The consequence is bell cacophany - but we loved it.
As we’ve learned, München began like most major towns in Bavaria - as a walled city (possibly taking the idea from the Romans who occupied the region {to the Danube} some
München: the upper chapel of the Bürgersaal church
This church built for the Marian (Catholic) congregation has two chapels, one above the other. This pic shows the upper chapel. 1700 years ago). The ’old’ München occupies the area within the walls, and today is almost totally pedestrianised. Having experienced a couple of city areas being totally pedestrianised, we can see why they readily attract tourists.
And, we are gob smacked by the lack of litter. While Australia may be much cleaner than (mainland) Asia, it is positively filthy compared to the cleanliness of Bavaria.
Some highlights.
We could describe each day's events - and bore you. Instead, we'll just highlight some of the wonders. Though before we do, we must note that arriving in München at summer solstace meant that dawn was around 4am, and sunset at around 9:30pm. And with brekkie at 7 and dinner at 8-ish, we had the pleasure of many daylight hours to enjoy 'holidaying'.
Being a staunch Catholic region, the Catholic churches are numerous, large and incredibly decorated inside. The sheer splendour of the interiors is breathtaking, especially when contrasted with the sheer simplicity of the some of the (few) Protestant churches explains - in a way - the basis of reformist movement.
Most of the church interiors are decorated in either the Rococo
München: interior Asamkirche
The Baroque interior of the Church of St Johann-Nepomuk. It was built/funded by 2 brothers, the Asams, and has become known as the Asamkirche. or Baroque style, and the intensity of decoration overwhelms the (less ornate, but still highly decorated) Gothic designed churches.
The royalty also made its mark with two immense palaces. The town palace - called the Residenz - sits in the centre of town, and now surrounded by a state theatre, an opera house and more. The retailing in this district is occupied by the top eschalon shops - Cartier, Armani, etc. You don't see Volkswagons here, Maserati, Bentley, etc. The other palace (the Summer palace) is some 10km away, and sits amongst a huge park. It would take a half day to walk from one side to the other.
Those reading this who have yet to see northern hemisphere royal/imperial treasures (
yes, it exists in Asia too) will have no way of understanding the degree of opulence here. What amazed us most is the lavish wealth on display in the (Catholic) churches (
and they say most has been carted to the Vatican!!!).
Despite the relatively small area of the München CBD (or walled city area), we were able to see only parts. We were surprised at the time needed to view the contents of the churches,
museums, palaces, and other historical buildings. From our guide book, we’d have needed many more days than we allocated. But, for us, it’s not so much what we did/didn’t see, but that we were overawed with that we saw.
What struck us most is the contrast between the ’New’ and ’Old’ worlds. Though the ’New’ world lacks history, the lament we felt is that the culture of the ‘Old‘ world brings with it a certain responsibility - or respect - for tradition. We read that in the late 1980’s the München authorities wanted to build a modernist building within the city walls. The community protested long and hard. The München did not dare to progress until a semblance of agreement was reached (in late 1990’s). The view of the locals was not against the modernist building, rather, that the design clashed with nearby iconic parks/buildings, and sought to remove a 17th century ruin of a wall. While the ‘New’ world ‘authorities’ can facilitate profitable land development, they appear to fail to coalesce design & community into the overall end product / structure.
Whenever we have been OS, we’ve bought a sim card to call home. We did so
Dachau - the perimeter
On the inside of this fence was an electrified fence, and on the other side of that a deep moat. The 'fence' claimed many lives, not so much in attempts to escape (which all knew was not possible) but because some saw the 'fence' as a quicker way to die than the unbearable forced labour on starvation rations. in Germany only to find the charges to OZ outrageously expensive (A$50 for {at best} 35 minutes). We also tried to get a mobile broadband toggle, but the price for 1 month is 95Euro (= A$135).
Exploring further afield.
Being relatively close, we decided to visit the Dachau memorial (via train). Most know the horrid history of Dachau as a concentration camp, but it was much much more (and more terrible). We didn’t know that it began in 1933 as a place the Hitler regime used to incarcerate and interrogate all the many thousands of political opponents (for ’re-education’; via fear). Everyone active or sympathetic to political parties other than the Nazi Party were brought here. The fact that the place is a memorial museum reflects efforts by some who were interred here. That there is a memorial museum of German state sanctioned atrocities in Germany and located in Germany warrants reflection. Australia has several state sanctioned atrocities, yet we doubt our 'authorities' would sanction a memorial to the fact.
Notwithstanding that some 200,000 people were incarcerated here, and some 30,000 died in horrible circumstances, we found the memorial was far too
cerebral. Unlike other war memorials we’ve visited, the emotional aspect was missing. Put simply, the memorial was all head and no heart.
München has an all day ’family’ travel ticket that’s quite reasonably priced, so having enjoyed the public transport, we decided to explore further afield. The cheapest ‘rail’ option is an all day ‘family’ pass for the whole of Bavaria (if one could actually travel to all the possible destinations). We bought one and headed for Regensburg. Regensburg is on the Danube River (which for us was an attraction on its own), and we’d read that the city had missed the WW2 bombing so retained many Middle Ages buildings. We’d also read it was ’off’ the tourist trail; on that we were wrongly informed. Nevertheless, with a lovely warm day, some wonderful old architecture (including old Roman ruins - the Romans ever only ‘administered’ to the Danube), and the most amazing public park with really old trees (ex castle grounds), we really appreciated our decision to go. An added bonus was that the train travelled through some wonderful landscape of rolling hills (and much pocket handkerchief sized farmlands).
Having seen much and being early afternoon, we decided
to hop on another train (they run regularly in Germany) and head for Nuremberg (or Nürmberg in Germany). What a delightful city. Given the bad press following WW2, we really didn’t know what to expect. Again another pedestrianised, walled city (still with the original walls) filled with wonderful old buildings, a vibrant retailing sector, a massive castle overlooking the city, and much music being played in the streets and plaza’s. We ‘toured’, and had a delightful Bavarian dinner before catching a fast train back to München.
Wheels and beyond.
A week after arriving in München, we picked up a hire car to go look see. We’d ‘ordered’ a mini sized car (like our Fiesta), but was given the next size up; a Volkswagon Polo (
we‘re not complaining!).
Being Saturday morning - and what great weather - we headed for ‘
the hills’. Sadly, the autobahn was a parking lot; who said there’s no speed limit on German autobahns!!!! In fact there is a speed limit of 120k, but few adhere.
We wanted to head east to the ‘Alps’, but what should have been a 1 hour drive turned into 4 hours.
Oh, well, at least we could admire the Oak trees and daisy’s as we waited in the traffic!!
After a while we tried back roads, which were somewhat faster (eg. average 30kph). Getting hungry, we stopped at a deli and bought some bread rolls, blue cream cheese, salami and Johannesbeerschorle (red current spritzer). Back to the road to find a highway rest-stop. Down the road a bit and with lowing cows, butterflies, and in the shade of a large Linden tree, we devoured the wonderful fare.
We headed through the magnificiently picturesque southern Upper Bavaria (east) on our way to Oberammegau. Every ten years for the past 460 years, the people of Oberammegau have been producing a passion play, and 2010 was it for the decade. We’d been trying without success to get tickets (the ills of German bureaucray -
there is an order you must follow!!!), so took a chance to try in person. We were successful 😊 As we walked in to the directors office (this took some manoeurvering) there were just then 2 cancellations for the next day (our preferred). While the price was higher than we’d have selected had we been able to choose, price
Beer garden at Bad Kohlgrub
The word Bad means springs, so Bad Kohlgrub means the Kohlgrub town with mineral springs now mattered zilch.
We also booked accommodation at nearby Bad Kohlberg. What a magnificent ‘find’. The gusthaus was some 10 minutes walk from the village centre, and came with delightful views, a dazzling array of annual flowers on display and the most glorious peace. On Sunday am, we were awoken to a most wonderful ‘episode’ of bellringing. After the bells ceased, the silence was broken only by the chirrping of birds. The sun shone brilliantly and the mellow breeze carried just a hint of coolth.
Ahhhhh, BLISS.
By 10:30, with church services finished (we could tell by the bellringing), we could hear a Bavarian brass band in full swing. Needing a walk to break the slothfullness, we ventured to investigate. What we found was a small amphitheatre in a park with - by an amazing coincidence!!! - a pub overlooking the park. We are constantly amazed that in contrast to Oz where social functions are separated, in Germany they are linked; here was a classic example. We found a table in the beer garden under a big spreading Chestnut tree, ordered Dunkels (dark beer) and Johannesbeerschorle, and a ‘small’ plate of nibblies. What we got a regular sized
plate overflowing with the most wonderful array of dark breads, cheeses and meats.
Ahhhhh, BLISS.
Following our ‘entertainment’ and sustenance, it was time to head for Oberammegau and the passion play - a 5 hour event (2:30 - 5 & 8 to 10:30). After the wonderful experience, we now know why we were told at the Director’s office that tickets go on sale 3 years in advance and most performances are sold out some 2 years before! For those wanting to know the context & history, goto:
http://www.passionplay-oberammergau.com/
Rather than continue describing our travels, we’ll end this to start another ’episode’.
Cheers
- - - -
😊
ps
This journey is presented as a 5 part series (saga?).
You can move to the next 'episode' by scrolling back to the top and 'clicking' on NEXT.
Alternatively, link to ...
http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/blog-511745.html 😊
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