Hadley and Cordy visit

It's great to be able to show Munich to visitors, and share some of our love for this place.  Hadley and Cordy arrived last Saturday (3/9) and we spent a fun and busy few days showing them some of our favorite places.

On the tower of Alte Peter, for the best view of the city.

As well as seeing all the many sites, we ate a lot of Bavarian food with them, and drank a fair bit of beer (hmm, not so much Hadley as us, actually...)   With respect to Bavarian food, I think Hadley commented at one point when she was (finally) enjoying a salad that it felt like she'd only been eating meat, pretzels, and pastries.  Ah well, only for a few days :-)   Both of them were pretty impressed with the bakeries, and all the food at the outdoor Viktualienmarkt though.

[BTW, many of the following photos are Hadley's.  She downloaded them to my computer for "safekeeping"...  hopefully she is OK with some being included in posts here.  Hers are marked HH in the caption.]

Pasteries in the bakery across the street from us.  Pic by HH.

One of the olive stands in Viktualienmarkt.  Pic by HH.

The girls in front of the Feldherrnhalle. HH.

An evening walk past the Friedensengel.   KT. 

We spent much of the time just walking around town.  On Sunday we even saw some sun peek through the clouds when we hit the Königsplatz, not far from our apartment.  (I will do a separate post on this square sometime soon... there's a lot to it.)

In front of the Glyptothek, on the Königsplatz.   KT.

The Propyläen, built in the mid-1800's in the ancient greek style,  on the Königspltatz.   KT.

Hadley in front of the Antikensammlungen Museum,
also on Königsplatz.  KT.

A rainy Monday afternoon seemed a good time to visit the Residenz (earlier post here) with Hadley, while the kids were in school (including Cordy, in Julia's class).

Part of the "cabinet of mirrors and porcelain", one
of the ornate rooms.   HH.

View into the "cabinet of miniatures" (see the
small paintings on the wall, embedded in the red
enamel "japanning".)  The mirror reflects the
hallway through all the ornate rooms.  HH.

The most impressive parts are the hallway of highly decorated rooms known as the Reiche Zimmer (ornate rooms) and the Antiquarium.

Thomas admiring the Antiquarium, filled with antique
Roman and Greek busts.  HH.

After the riches of the palace, we went for some liquid wealth/health at the Nockherberg -- the traditional strong beer festival.  Munich has celebrated the brewing of especially hearty beer since 1751 when lay people discovered the joys of Starkbier from the local monasteries.  This strong beer was meant to help keep the fasting monks alive during Lent when they didn't eat, but did drink beer.  (I'm not kidding.)   Starkbier is nutritious, rich, and about 7.5% alcohol.  At the contemporary strong-beer festival, the only unit for beer purchase is, of course, a Mass (one liter).  Even with sharing two beers between the three of us, we were in fine shape to cook dinner when we got home...

On Tuesday, Hadley, Cordy and I did a lot of walking, mostly in the palace and grounds of Schloss Nymphenburg.  (My post from the summer is here.)  There were a lot fewer people around compared to summer, and having the grounds almost to ourselves was kind of cool.

Wednesday, supposed to be their last day here, we hit the fabulous Deutsches Museum, with its many science and tech exhibits, and an underground maze of info about mining.   The best part, however, was a small exhibit with facial detection software...

Fun.  And Hadley and I are obviously very "happy".  (But do I really look 60 +/- 11 years old!?)

OK, I like this one better.  (A youthful 37 +/- 12 years...)

Thanks to a snowstorm (mostly in Paris) we got an extra day with Cordy and Hadley (although that became slightly chaotic since Thomas and I were to leave early afternoon Thursday for a Humboldt meeting in Bamberg (next post), and my mother-in-law was coming to look after the kids, and their new flight didn't leave 'til 10 that evening... but it worked out fine.) 

Having visitors gives us a great excuse to see and show off all the wonderful Munich sites again.  I'd love to have more of you come zu Besuch! 

The kids enjoyed looking out the back of a tram.