Palaces day 2. The Residenz and Treasury

Wow.  The amount of wealth accumulated by several centuries of Bavarian rulers is quite breathtaking. On Tuesday (last week) Mom and Dad and I went to the Munich Residenz (Palace) museum and the Schatzkammer (Treasury) within the palace and saw enough riches to feed the world for a few days at least...

TREASURY
We started in the Treasury, where we were astounded by the unbelievable amounts of gold, precious gems, ivory, crystal, you name it, from many different eras.
My favorite is this ruby- and diamond-covered statuette (50 cm high) of St. George slaying the (emerald-encrusted) dragon.

I won't include many of the thousands of treasures displayed there, but here are a few highlights.  (If you go to the link above, for the Treasury, you can find more detailed descriptions of various pieces.)

The "crown of an English queen" from the late 14th century.  Apparently this is the oldest surviving crown of England (passed on to Bavaria as part of a dowery).

The necklace below is huge -- the chain would fit around your waist and the stones are at least an inch across.

Here is the crown of the "kings of Bavaria" and the other royal insignia commissioned in 1806 when Napoleon declared the then prince-elector Maximilian IV Joseph to be King Maximilian I.  (The history of Bavarian rulers is very complicated, but essentially the rulers went from being "dukes" in the middle-ages to "prince-electors" in the 16- and 1700's, to kings from 1806 to 1918.)  The smaller crown to the right, for the queen, is made of many different sizes of pearls.

Many more crowns and jewels...

Then several rooms of carved stone and crystal.  I'm amazed that these delicate vessels are carved out of a single piece of rock-crystal.

For me the most intriguing thing in the Treasury was this traveling set, designed for, and given to, Napoleon's second wife.  There are more than 120 items which fit cleverly in this relatively small (and very beautiful) case -- from a gilded dinner set for two and writing instruments to toiletries and dental tools.

THE RESIDENZ:

As if these ten rooms of opulence in the Treasury weren't enough, we then went into the palace itself.  

This huge palace, in the center of town, was first built as a moated castle in 1385, and has been greatly expanded over the years.  It was the residence and seat of government for the Wittelsbach dynasty (the family who ruled Bavaria) from 1180 to 1918(!)  

There is a brief but interesting history of the Residenz here.  Much of it was destroyed by bombs during WWII but it has been beautifully restored (actually restoration is ongoing).  Most of the artwork had been removed from the city during the war, and so we saw many original pieces of furniture, paintings, china, etc.

I love the Ancestral Gallery, in Rococo style, which has over 100 portraits (set into the paneling, and with gilded frames) of the members of the Wittelsbach family.  I think there over 1000 years worth of ancestors depicted here.

The palace is immense (the roof is 23,000 square meters, that's nearly a quarter million square feet):  it has two floors, innumerable rooms, and many courtyards, so I won't begin to show a representation, but again here a few pictures. 

Most impressive to me was the Antiquarium, which the largest (66 m long) and most elaborate Renaissance style room north of the Alps.  

Duke Albrecht had it built in the late 1500s to house his collection of antique sculptures.  I think you can find every Roman Caesar in here...

The "Green Gallery" is lovely, with many mirrors, and gilded paintings.  It is at one end of an elaborate length of the palace called the Reiche Zimmer (ornate rooms)

Looking down the hall through all the doorways (with a painting above each) connecting the Reiche rooms...

 My camera can't do justice to this hall of mirrors, but it was very cool to be in there!

Here is the other end of the hall of ornate rooms.  It's called the "cabinet of miniatures"(with tiny, detailed, paintings set into the gold and red-enamelled walls) and has a large mirror in the center to give the impression of the rooms stretching out to infinity.

In the royal apartments on the 2nd floor, a bed fit for a king,

more long hallways

with pictures of the family,

 and of course you'd need a few hundred gold plates to serve the family properly...

Outside is also elaborate, but currently under a lot of renovation.  One of the courtyards, called the Grotto Court, has an elaborate "grotto" built in the 1580's next to the Antiquarium hall.  The fountain in the center was under construction, but the whole facade is covered in shell decorations.

That was a very full but very worthwhile day.  If any of you want to come visit, I'd love an excuse to go again!

Palaces day 1. And the Glockenspiel!

We really filled the last three days that Mom and Dad were here with lots of spectacular Munich sights.  The weather forecast was only good for the Monday, so we planned mostly outdoor trips that first weekday.

Monday, Oct 8:  the grounds of Schloss Nymphenburg

It was a beautiful day to walk around the stunning grounds of the Nymphenburg Palace.  This  was built as a royal "summer residence" in the country starting in the 17th century.  We didn't visit inside, but the gardens, canals, fountains, and many statues make for a peaceful "park" in what is now west-central Munich (since the city has grown around the estate in the last centuries).

We walked around for an hour or so, and discovered one of the royal "lodges" -- or small palaces -- on the grounds:  the Magdalenenklause is, interestingly, built to look like a ruin.  Elector Max Emanuel had the romantic idea of constructing a hermitage on the grounds for contemplation and escape, and ordered it built in 1725, but it looks many centuries older than that, with purposeful cracks and missing mortar.  There are apparently three other small palaces to discover, if you cover the whole (nearly 500 acre) grounds, but we wanted to go back into downtown while the weather still held.

Actually, at we wanted to be at Marienplatz, the heart of old downtown, by noon.  That is one of the times when the famous Rathaus-Glockenspiel (town-hall carillon) chimes.  We arrived with 15 minutes to spare and sat in an outdoor cafe seating area with the perfect view (and the triply expansive coffee, but well worth the price for the location).

Then we walked a few steps to the famous downtown Victualienmarkt ("Victuals Market") where we had a quick lunch -- more Bratwurst sampling, and some delicious zwiebelkuchen (onion torte) -- before moving on...

To the grounds of the Munich Residenz: (the "in town" palace, or residence).  Like the Nymphenburg palace gardens, the layout is very symmetrical, although a lot smaller!  There is a lovely central pavilion (with cellist that afternoon), and a fountain in each of the four corners of this Hofgarten (court garden).

We just stayed outside and visited the gardens that afternoon.  There will be more about the amazing Residenz itself next post!

Playing host and tourist too... Alte Peter and the Alps

I'll briefly log here some of the great things we did while Mom and Dad were here (from Oct 4 - 11) since it gave us yet more chances to enjoy Munich and Bavaria.   For this post, I'll just begin with the first couple days of their visit.

After the quick Oktoberfest tour (previous post) we met the kids and Thomas who had all gotten out of school/work early on the Friday.  Since it was a gorgeous day, we climbed up the 302 narrow steps of Alte Peter (the tower of the oldest church in the city) to get the classic 360 view of the Munich skyline.

It's hard to take a picture of the Alte Peter church itself (St. Peter's Church) since it's surrounded by many other buildings, but here's the inside.

     

That evening we hit a classic bierhalle-restaurant for some good Bavarian roast pork, potatoes, sauerkraut, and beer.  Good fuel for the next day's hiking!

                                                                         Since the weekend weather was only looking good for Saturday, we got up early to fit in a full day in the Alps -- again to our favorite region of Garmisch-Patenkirchen.  We took Mom and Dad on the same wonderful hike we'd done in August - not the Alpspitze, but the less strenuous and absolutely gorgeous  Partnachklamm hike...

The weather was perfect.  After taking the cable-car up and hiking through a mix of forest and meadow, we had a hot lunch at the little farm "Hutte" near the top of the mountain.

The gorge "Patnachklamm"is essentially how you get off the mountain and back down to town.

Perfect day hike.

We got back to the train station just after 4 p.m.  Now a choice:  the town of Mittenwald lies half an hour by train south from Garmisch, and we had all hoped to go if we got back from the hike early enough.  Mittenwald is apparently a quaint little town in the Alps that has been famous for violin, viola and celllo making since the 17th century.  Mom's violin, that Benjamin now plays, was made there (!) at least 60 years ago and Mom really wanted to go see the town.  Unfortunately, the next train would not get us there until 6 p.m., and any sort of wandering around and finding dinner would mean not getting back to Munich (2 hours on the train) until quite late.  Benjamin really wanted to go back home, so I volunteered to go with him, and Thomas and Julia took Mom and Dad on down.  Sounds like the town was beautiful, and Mom was delighted to have seen it.  I'll have to make a day trip of it myself soon (and maybe see about getting Julia a viola there?)

Sunday in Munich was rainy, which gave us all a good excuse to relax and do very little... well the kids actually did homework, and I had a 4-hour Bach Choir rehearsal, but Mom and Dad had some well-deserve down-time after a very full day in the Alps.

More touristy time in Munich to come...

Mom and Dad visit... Oktoberfest!

This past week, Mom and Dad came for a visit.  On their first day here, after a loop around town in a sightseeing bus, of course we had to hit (the last weekday of) Oktoberfest!

Mostly my parents were looking to eat a good Bratwurst, but first we had to check out a few of the breweries' pavilions ("tents") before they closed "due to overfilling".  Already at 11 a.m. on this sunny Friday the tents were crowded.
The first one we saw, the "Crossbowman tent" from the Paulaner brewery, had a few (fake) dead animal heads on the wall...

Then the famous Ochsenbraterei (Ox roaster) tent, where they roast whole ox on a spit, while serving many a liter of the Spaten brewery beer.

Ochsenbraterei info

We shared a roast-ox bun as part of our joint lunch.  Yum!  (Sorry, Mom, I have to include this picture!)

Then on to the tent of Munich's favorite brewery, Augustiner.  This beer has been brewed, starting with the Augustine monks, for nearly 700 years, and according to our tour-bus guide, it is so well loved here that they do not need to advertise.   (He has lived here all his life, and has never seen an Augustiner ad. And they don't export.)

I've had Augustine beer several times already, and it is good, but I couldn't bring myself to sit and have a liter of beer at noon -- plus I don't think Mom and Dad would have wanted to deal with the noise!

So we went outside and found a couple good Bratwurst sandwiches, which made Mom and Dad happy.  Then, for dessert of course, a bag of sweet roasted almonds.

Oktoberfest is over now.  Can't say as I'm sorry.  The streets and subways are not as crazily crowded and messy as they were during the 16-day drunkfest.  It was fun to see it a few times though.

Now on to more Munich and Bavarian sights with Mom and Dad.  That's one of the great things about having visitors -- I have a good excuse to do all the fun touristy things too!

"Auf der Wiesn" (at Oktoberfest)

Oktoberfest!
Well, Bavarians don't say "Oktoberfest"...  they simply talk about the Wiesn (the "meadow") where it occurs.  It's actually named Theresienwiese and is much less a "meadow" than a huge (4.5 million sq. ft.) paved fairground in the middle of the city.

It doesn't cost anything to enter the grounds and walk around, so last Tuesday (9/25) I went in the early afternoon just to check it out.  The crowds weren't too crazy yet.

A lot of it looks just like any big fairground, with rides and games and lots (and lots, and lots) of food.  [We'll get to the beer in a minute.]  

The food here, however, is somewhat different than any fair I've been to before:  Not only are the traditional soft pretzels everywhere, but you can get roast ox for example, or pig knuckles (schweinshax'n, see below...) which is a Bavarian specialty.  (I've had it once - it actually tastes pretty good.)

A lot of people really do wear traditional clothing; Dirndl's and Lederhosen.  What's kind of funny though, is that in the last ten years or so is has become very popular to dress like this for the Wiesn, even if you're not German!  Apparently some tourist travel companies now even include a dirndl or lederhosen in the tour package.  (They certainly have been heavily marketed in Munich ever since we got here...dirndl's and lederhosen in most every store front!)  I find it a little odd to see a Japanese girl or a black man in traditional Bavarian Trachten, but fun too.   

The beer is the thing, of course. Each of the big six Munich breweries has a "tent" (monstrous pavilion) here, seating at least 10,000 people at once.  I think some of them have more than one tent actually, and there are may smaller breweries too, so the whole seating capacity of Oktoberfest is probably close to 100,000 people.  But, if you don't have a reservation there is no way you can get into any tent after about 2 p.m., and apparently the tents have all been booked weeks in advance.  

I took a few pictures of some of the tents - but without an arial view it's hard to get a sense of the size of these things... 

 

 Since it was only 2 p.m. on a Tuesday, I got inside the Löwenbräu pavilion, just to see what it's like:

Not as ornately decorated as some of the pavilions are, I gather, but still pretty impressive.  There was an "oom-pa-pa" band playing up on that stage, and the atmosphere was festive and noisy, but at this point in the day, relatively calm.  It gets quite different,  I gather, as the day progresses...

A lot of people were outside the pavilion also, since it was so nice out. 

I hate to admit that I haven't yet had a beer at the Wiesn... sure I could have on my own that Tuesday (when the kids were in school and Thomas at work) but that's not my thing.  Also, it's expensive, 10 Euro ($13) for a liter, the minimum you can buy!

So Sunday afternoon we decided to go as a family... along with another million or two people.  We were hoping the cloudy weather would keep the crowds down, but the weekends are apparently always packed.   We were there for about two hours; Benjamin and Thomas rode the (less scary of the two) roller-coasters, 

then we all went on the swing carousel. 

 Oh, and we bought Julia a Lebkuchenherz (ginger bread heart) which is very traditional -- you give one to your loved ones and they wear it around their necks during Oktoberfest.  (Usually they're decorated with a sappy valentine-like message in frosting.... Thomas bought Julia one that said "my princess".)

Even at 4 p.m. that day we saw a few obviously drunk people both in and around the park.  Actually, the whole city goes into party mode these two weeks, and it feels a bit like a big frat party on the subways and trains sometimes...  There are security people guarding the subways to make sure people don't fall onto the tracks, and to helps stuff them into the trains!

Speaking of stuffing people into trains, it is very crowded in the city during Oktoberfest.  Evidently between 6 and 7 million(!) visitors come every year, over these 16 days.  Assuming they all stay at least two days, then the population of this city of 1.3 million is doubled!  Picking Benjamin up from his school downtown these days has been interesting... all the subways and trains are packed.  

So I have a couple more days' chance to get back there if I want and have lunch (and maybe a beer) before it ends this coming weekend.  Mom and Dad come tomorrow -- we'll see if they want to brave the crowds!