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20 June 2017 - 23 June  2017

Munich

Three days in Munich is not long enough to see much, but we have been there before so decided on a quick trip. We were offered accommodation by Marcus and Barbara and their two children Lucii (who gave up her bedroom) and Tobias.  We were very spoilt with Marcus and Barbara meeting us at the airport. They live in a lovely house with Barbara's parents in the upstairs half. After we had settled in we went to the local lake Starnberger See, On a clear day we could have seen the Alps, unfortunately a storm was brewing so it was cloudy. Marcus and Lucii had a swim while we sat in the coffee shop drinking iced coffee very civilised. 

Marcus teaches sailing at this lake so knows it very well in all weathers. 

The storm came so we went back to the house. We collected the picnic dinner and when it stopped raining we all went to the Beer Garden for dinner. In Germany its BYO food and purchase beer. This is so that the breweries, which are allowed to sell the beer in the beer garden do not take away the custom from restaurants. In theory the restaurants sell the food. We had a lovely meal with a lot of typical Bavarian food,

Time to play tourist. We caught the train to Marienplatz. We found that we could go up the tower which we did the view from the top was great and there was a lift all the way!!! Winner. We of course had to go outside and watch the 11:00 glockenspiel or clarion. We had seen it before but it is fun to watch and think it has been going since 1600's in one form or another. From Marienplatz we did some shopping and purchased the  kitchen tool no Municher can live without, a radish cutter, it cuts the long white radish in a long curl to eat with salt. 

Next stop the Viktualien-markt for a beer as the weather was hot. We prosit-ed the locals and sat watching the world go by. I decided if we were drinking beer we should go to the Hofbrauhaus. So off we went meeting up with a group of lost American tourists on the way, we decided to lose them! We got to the Hofbrauhaus, but it was noisy and full of tourists. The only Germans looked like they were there on show for their moustaches . So after taking a photo we left. Further up the street was a beerhouse from another brewery ( there are 7 main breweries in Munich) so we made a beeline for it. Unfortunately between us and it was an Irish bar showing sports!! you guessed it NSW and QLD playing rugby. Ross went in and I sat outside.  

I was enjoying watching the people go by and then it rained. The young guy next to me moved under the large canopy and we got chatting. he was from Mosman of course. He has been living in London and owns a framing business. We got talking about everything sex and drugs and art and photography of course politics etc. I learnt rather to much about his sex life, he said I had a none judgement attitude. Ross joined us and we talked mainly about photography. We got some food, drank some more and eventually had to leave for dinner. I must email him and see how his threesome went, (did I say that!!!)

The big day we are off to see Axel and Annie. First, we thought we would see Nymphenburg Palace. It is huge much bigger than Charlottenburg, which I thought was really big. It turns out that it was the summer residence for Bavarian Elector Ferdinand Maria and his wife, Henriette Adelaide of Savoy, after the birth of the long-awaited heir to the throne, Max Emanuel, who was born in 1662 (after 10 years of marriage and a few daughters!). The palace holds apartments for all 10 children hence the need for a huge palace.

King Ludwig 11 of Bavaria was born here. He was the King who built Neuschwanstein Castle, (the Disney Castle), Linderhof Palace, Herrenchiemsee New Palace, The King's House on Schachen. He was declared unfit to rule due to his extravagant spending on castles and was soon after was found dead. How he was found extravagant and the builder of this castle not declared the same I do not know.

We toured the castle with the audio guide. Those things tell you so much we ran out of time. A short walk in the garden covering about 5% of it and a nice sit in the shade saw it time to go and see Victoria’s parents.

 

Axel and Annie entertained us like royalty. Annie had baked a lovely lemon sponge and Axel broke out the Prosecco. They are both marvellously well for people in their 80’s. We spent a few hours chatting about Australia and life in general. A lovely visit.

Interesting thing about Munich is it identifies strongly with Bavaria. Lots of the Bavarian check in sky blue and white. I do not even know what area Berlin is in.

The towns in Bavaria all have maypoles. These are replaced every 5 years or so and it is tradition that they are hand painted. The painting takes about 5 days and during that time other villages try to kidnap the maypole. The ransom is a fully catered barbeque for the village that stole the maypole. The last time Stockdorf replaced their maypole Barbara’s uncle saved it from kidnap. He was going to work very early in the morning and saw it being taken. He went up and put his hand on it saying “this maypole belongs to Stockdorf. Thereby rescuing it. Another tradition is the maypole has to be raised by hand so all the village turns out to help and probably have a few beers

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