Salzburg

"About time" I hear you say. And you are right but forgive us as we have been very busy rehearsing and it amazing how tiring making music can be.

We had one jam packed day of touristing in Salzburg. (I don't know why this is blue and underlined - blogger is sometimes a little mysterious.)

In the morning we went up to the large fortress on the hill which was constructed over many centuries but certainly has a medieval feel. We walked up instead of the almost vertical railway (which we took back down). Besides being of interest in of itself. From the fortress there are great views of Salzburg below. Here is one of the few Kate AND Laurie photos. We learnt on the audio tour that Salzburg was named after the salt deposits nearby, that were fundamental in the success of the fortress (never successfully sieged - it was only once surrendered and that was to Napoleon) as salt (Salz) was the major preservative.

A comment on the audio tour. In order have tours in several languages simultaneously they had head sets which could be programmed to different languages and even a kids orientated version, and then forty people would go to the same rooms at the same time and hear their version. I am undecided in whether I think this is very smart and practical or saddened by the technologising of it all. People should perhaps just cope with the german (they are in Austria after all).

These photos are out of order so later you will see an organ which is in the fortress. It has no keyboard. Initially it could only play an F major chord and then later they added the barrel which allows premade tunes.

Below is a picture taken at the end of our day. We saw a free filming of La Traviato, filmed at the Salzburg festival in 2005. It was very good. Unfortunately very little of the italian was translated to german so the plot made little sense. Wikipedia helped us out there. That organ I promised you:
One of the places we saw was a lovely little cemetery. Laurie likes fonts as probably you are aware. The following photo was taken because of the font.
Wandering the streets is an important touristing activity, especially since we were a little sick of museums and the like. There are very strict rules in the Old Town for signs and shop fronts. Even McDonalds must uphold them. Overall Salzburg is a nice place but a little too touristy for its own good. It is hard to escape to souvenir and mozart kugel shops. That said we also experienced some gems - like the coffee house in the style of Viennese coffee houses that was frequented by Constanze (Mozarts wife) after his death when she lived in Salzburg with her second husband. It is still around and, I think, very much as it was then. Also the high hills on the edge of the city center are effectively free of development. We enjoyed walking through paths, seeing woods, cows and older houses. We did see some of the locations for sound of music. It didn't interest me much, I am glad we didn't do a tour.

Wednesday 2

We went to Schloss Nymphenburg - the summer palace of the house of Wittelsbach (rulers of Bavaria).

It was outside the city - or at least on the outskirts when it was first built but is now well inside - about a 10 minute tram ride from the central station.

The castle is filled with elaborately decorated rooms and the like. More important are the extensive grounds filled with winding paths and pretty little bridges. After taking the audio-guided tour of the 20 or so rooms open to the public inside the castle we wandered the grounds. It was very peaceful and atmospheric. Spotted around the grounds were 4 small "mini-castles" which are large house in size. These were used for entertaining I believe. One of them had a room filled with mirrors. There also was a fad for Chinese style decoration in many places. Interestingly although some of the wall furnishings were imported from the Orient, it was supplemented by dutch tiles made to look Chinese.

Now for some photos:



The ceiling in the main auditorium. Such magnificent ceilings have inspired Laurie and me to get some nice big poster and put it on our ceiling at home. Below is a picture of the castle from far down the main canal thing. Most of it is hidden behind the trees.
We have many photos of our wanderings through the woods. Below is one which we thought was particularly picturesque.
Finally this slightly silly one. Only one of the mini-castles had a kitchen. It had decorations in the Chinese style but for whatever reason the tiles were not perfectly laid. Quite postmodern really.

Monday and Tuesday 2

On Monday there were a few more students in class, taking it up to twelve, but otherwise it was fun to get back to learning German. We went again to Prinz Myshkin for lunch, a cool vegetarian restaurant across from the language school, and one of the few good eating places we have found here.

In the afternoon, we were going to go to the Alte Pinakothek (old art gallery) but Kate's shoulders hurt from our silly pillows at home. Germans have a bizarre notion of bedclothes. On our first day we slept with the bedsheets as given---if you could call them that. The bed had an ordinary fitted sheet, but on top it had no sheet, only two polyester quilts with corduroy/flannelette style quilt covers, and two huge square pillows, also with corduroy covers, which were extremely thin and pliable---not at all springy or supportive. The main problem on the first night was the heat of the quilts, which we solved by removing the polyester quilts and using the quilt covers, turned inside out, as bedsheets. I had planned to go to a shop and buy an ordinary sheet, but of the four or five shops I tried, all had this same strange combination of an 80x80cm pillowslip with a 200x130cm quilt cover, described as a set of bedsheets! So there was no advantage to us buying a new copy of the same silly sheet arrangement.

Our workaround worked tolerably well until Sunday night, after which Kate had a terrible neck ache from the unsupportiveness of the pillows. This as well as the rain caused us to postpone the art gallery by a day. Instead, we ambled around for a bit and on the way home went via Kik Textil-Diskont, a clothes shop near our apartment. And when I say discount, I mean discount! I got new long jeans for 5 euros and a woollen jumper for 6 euros, which was good as I had been getting pretty cold in the rain. More importantly, Kate got a springy pillow for 2 euros, which has solved the neck problem, and I got a set of watch batteries for 1 euro, which was good as the 5 euro watch Kate had bought me from the Turkish district had stopped working. I thought I had broken the watch in trying to replace the battery but Kate managed to fix it. Success!

Here is the beer garden we visited on Sunday night (I seem to have muddled my place in the photo stream). Pretty, no? It had a statue of somebody von Paula, the founder of the Paulaner Braeuerei some time in the seventeenth century.


Here is Kate the elite watch repairer, fixing the watch I had broken with a pair of tweezers.


On Tuesday we finally made it to the Alte Pinakothek, which was worth it for the collection of Rubens paintings alone. Here is "The Last Judgement" (or some such), a six metre tall painting which has pride of place in the gallery's central room (which was built especially for it).


They had some wonderful paintings by Raphael, Leonardo, Rubens and Rembrandt, but after that it went down a bit, and also I tired a bit of all the religion; perhaps a religious education would have made some of the pictures more interesting to me. Still definitely worth a visit if you're in Munich, and it's mercifully not like the Met where you feel you can only properly see 1% of the museum at once. Oh, there was a (temporary) exhibit by some modern German dude downstairs, which we walked into and beheld about three entirely black paintings. We were about to leave anyway but the nice man at the door informed us we needed to buy an extra ticket on top of the museum entry fee in order to see these black paintings. I felt a little sorry for him, as it was not at all signposted that you needed to buy an extra ticket, and I expect of the people who stumbled into the temporary exhibition very few would have realised or intended to buy the extra ticket, especially once they saw the first few paintings. We went home early to try to make up for some poor sleeps earlier; also the joys of home cooked food only increase in a city such as Munich.

Saturday 1

On Saturday we visited the memorial site of the infamous concentration camp at Dachau, a small town on the outskirts of Munich. We went along with a tour group of about 20 people, which was a good idea as it helped to understand the significance of the things we were seeing.

Here is the entry gate which shows the Nazi regime's empty claim that hard work at the camps would be rewarded. Apparently the limited nature of the tours given by the Nazis to the Red Cross meant that this camp was recognised as an accepted "labour camp" by them until the early 1940s, even though it was set up in the 1930s and the brutality of the camp had been clear from the start.

Here is a sculpture made for the site of the new memorial to commemorate the victims. There are also individual memorials for each nationality and religion.


Here is a statue outside the site of the Dachau gas chamber, which was built later on in the war. The man's posture symbolises freedom and defiance, and the inscription translates roughly as "To honour the dead --- to warn the living".


On the way home from the train station we walked via the Beethovenplatz, which was quite disappointing to me; the most Beethoven-related feature there was not a plaque or a statue but rather the following cheesy real estate advertisement:

Thursday 1

Above is the discount bakery. It is high time it appeared in this blog. It is near the language school. Everyday pretty much we will buy something here - so cheap and so tasty. German bread is so far superior to American bread it doesn't make sense to compare. Sometimes for breakfast we get a roll each from here and share a bircher muesli and filter coffee from the Starbucks where we can use the internet. Yes, you read correctly, bircher muesli from Starbucks.

We decided to go the the Deutches Museum. It is a museum of science and industry (well mainly industry). Unfortunately Laurie's left thong broke. The bit that goes between your toes and some of the foam near it broke off. I was going to say it wasn't that surprising as they were cheap things from CVS (a pharmacy in Hyde park) but Laurie just informed me they were a whole $8!

Anyway, we had picked the right museum to visit that day. I was inspired, if I say so myself, and suggested we keep them on with a rubber band. I remembered that Eraser (also known as a rubber) was Radiergummi in German so I guess Radier was rubber and asked the shopassistant if he had any Radierband. He looked a little confused and asked if I wanted a Gummiband. Oh well, I was close - the logic was right. He pulled out a big box filled with rubber bands of all different shapes and sizes and fussed about finding the best one. At most places we would be lucky if they had any. Below is Laurie. If you look carefully you can see the rubber band.


The Deutches Museum was very interesting. They had a large section on ships that Dad would have loved. I almost felt guilty being there and him not. They also have there the first submarine built by the Germans. It was used as the test one and for training during the first world war. Apparently the allies had originally required it to be destroyed but Oskar von Millar, the curator, convinced them it could be on show has been on display sine the 1920s. It was effectively destroyed anyway as it is cut open so you can see inside.

As always we try to find photos of the silly and unusual. Below is a device for saving people in shipwrecks or generally overboard. A very different pair of trousers.



After the museum we went home for pasta and general relaxing. It stormed. I read some maths. Here is a photo of the view of the railway and a vacant block from our apartment.

Tuesday 1: An introduction to beer

Laurie's first post. Hooray!

On Tuesday we set out straight after class and had lunch at a little cafe under Altpeter (the old St Peter's church in Munich). Nearby was a shop we thought sold souvenirs but which turned out only to have devotional figurines of various sorts, including very large crosses and statuettes (alongside the customary huge beer mugs with lids). The cafe was good though, having vegetarian and even vegan options (a rarity in dairy-loving Munich so far). Here is Kate enjoying her bunte Salatplatte.

We proceeded to the Beer and Oktoberfest Museum, a funny four-storey building in a little alley way which contains exhibits of the history of beer making and drinking. After finding our way up little twisty staircases they had various objects from early beer makers in Munich, including this surprising six-pointed star exhibit. Apparently the six pointed star was seen (by the very non-Jewish early Munich beer brewers) as a magical symbol whose special powers would prevent the beer from being spoiled while it was brewed. There are also stars on the beer mugs.
They also had a video explaining the history of beer from the early Sumerians to now (complete with entertaining historical reenactments of early civilisations), narrated by an avuncular German man very good at rolling his r's who explained admirably the strange process of creating malt (put wheat on large floor, wet it, sweep it into piles, let it germinate and then dry it out).

I lied a bit because after class, instead of going straight to the cafe, we stayed a little at the language school to get bikes. We paid 50 Euros for two bikes for a week, which was probably a reasonably good deal, but the bikes themselves are the cruddiest piles of metal ever to hit the Munich streets---no gears, wheels slightly off center, foot stands that don't hold the bike up, and tiny handle bars. On the plus side, it's good exercise having to pedal all the way up a hill without gears, and no one is likely to steal these bikes. Here we are at the Isartor, one of the three main gates of the old city remaining (dating back to the 1300's):

Finally we went to a beer garden next to the Viktualienmarkt (huge open air market) and had our first taste of Munich helles Bier (surprisingly good for someone who doesn't like beer):

Monday 1

So on Monday we left Starbucks and went to the Residenz. Copying straight from wikipedia:
The Munich Residenz (German for "residence") is the former royal palace of the Bavarian monarchs in the center of the city of Munich, Germany. The Residenz is the largest city palace in Germany and is today open to visitors for its architecture and room decorations, and displays from the former royal collections.

Lots of rooms of great magnificence including a chapel and portrait gallery of ancestors. Amazingly the windows were all closed and it was very stuffy - particularly on the second floor. I bet Maximillian would not have suffered it.

Gilded rooms are fine but more interesting were the treasures now stored there. Below is a statue of St george and the dragon. It is gold - not that you would know with all the precious stuff covering it - bit of a waste really. They must have had way to much money.


There is also one of the largest collections of relics anywhere. Nothing like having a bone of a saint to intercede between you and God. Also below contains, I swear its true, part of the cross and the crown of thorns.

One last photo

We can only do so many pictures in one post. There are more photos that didn't make the blog cut.

I mentioned a few posts ago my zombie like status on the first day. I decided I didnt want large amounts of cheese (or meat obviously - being vegetarian) in whatever was my dinner. This is not that that hard in Munich as there are many eateries from various cuisines. So far we have spied Doner kebab shops, many Italian places, and Indian, Chinese restaurants and even an Afghani restaurant.

I wanted falafel! After searching in a major touristy section we stumbled across a nice Doner kebab shop. The owner was sweet with little English. We ate at a nearby fountain.

Photos from the first day

Busking the way it should be... how the hell did they get the grand in?

Amazing car we saw in our traipses. We have walked so much. Public transport is for the lazy - our apartment is not more than half an hour from the school which is in the southern part of the city center. We now have quite crappy bikes to allow even more movement.



It is a good thing we packed light as we walked around till we found our apartment On the way we passed the Sendlinger Tor (gate). Here I am with the map of the city trying to guess where should go now we were leaving the area it maps (recalling distant memories of google maps and where the apartment was in relation to other stuff).
All these pictures are in reverse order - this is Sendlinger Tor from the city side.
A pretty courtyard found by going through arcades. We stumbled upon it. It is close to the language school so I am sure we will come back some day for beer and lunch. Note the two cabin luggage bags - besides my handbag this was all we packed!