The Aerie
Greetings from Munich, where we're in our second day. Today's pictures are from our first day, yesterday the 7th: haven't gotten around to the more limited selection of photos today.
Yesterday was terrific. The weather was fine and the only hiccough was trying to find the hostel where we are staying: we missed the exit immediately upon reachng Munich and would have had to drive all the way around the city if we stayed on the beltway (the "Ring" as it's called here). Instead we cut across the center of the city, where our hosts' GPS unit betrayed us, misleading us to Elisinestrasse instead of Elisabethstrasse. Fortunately Mapblast on my cell phone came to our rescue, reliably taking us across central Munich to our destination just northwest of the city.
The rest of the day was just fine, however.
We wandered over to Josephsplatz before stumbling across the subway system, in the form of an elevator standing incongruously in the corner of a park. I descendened cautiously, telling my son "If I'm not back in ten minutes, send the reinforcements." Instead lo an behold beneath our feet was the subway system. Soon we had changed trains at the central station and arrived at the Odeonplatz, beside the Residenz (both really famous Munich-type places which I had never heard of before yesterday because I have no culture).
We toured the Residenz, then strolled to the Frauenkirche, where we tortured our children with Yet Another Old Church. This one had special meaning for my wife, because in her favorite book series, "Betsy, Tacy and Tib" (don't ask), the protagonist, Betsy, spends six weeks in Munich before World War I, and visits the Frauenkirche. Fortunately for the kids, the Wars were not kind to the Frauenkirche. Much of its otherwise fascinating interior had been reconstructed out of simple whitewashed concrete, so the tour was brief. We were all interested to see the two-story tall grandfather clock behind the altar. It was the Grandfather of all grandfather clocks!
Wandering on we visited the Marianzplatz, the center of old Munich and home to the famous Glockenschpiel, then mad eour way to the Viktualmarkt just as it was closing down. We bought the last five sandwiches at a "Nordsee" chain store, then discovered an open booth selling bratwurst and schnitzel. Soon we were merrily sampling each others plates, going back for more, the whole family laughing and havnig a great time. Somewhere in the middle of this meal I felt as happy as I have ever been.
We began our journey home only to be interrupted by a fantastic sunset across the Marianzplatz, which demanded photographic attention. I'm afraid the end of this series of shots is a little repetitive as I didn't have the battery power on my laptop to do a thorough job of sorting through these final photos.
Finally we staggered in, footsore and weary, to pass out in our hostel, but not before I processed and commented most of the photos in my camera.
Today, in contrast, was pleasant but almost totally hapless. We managed with some trouble to reach Dachau by about 11 a.m., and the weather was blazing hot. Oddly, Dachau was not a very comfortable place (imagine that!), and the blazing shade-less grounds soon sapped our energy, as did the very nature of the place itself. By the time we left around 2:30 we were completely drained from the heat and glare.
Our next destination was the Englishergarten, the largest and oldest public park in Europe. Train and train and train and we disembarked on a different planet. While we were tubing it, the weather had been replaced with something imported from a Portland autumn. Grey clouds spat chilly rain on a fitful wind as we trudged towards the Englischergarten, and when we arrived: downpour. We sat beneath a thick, leaning tree supported by two great metal posts (a tree which in America would have been cut down at the first sign of non-verticality for fear of insurance lawsuits) and shivered in 60-degree winds, dreaming fondly now of blazing Dachau just 90 minutes prior. Finally our patience ran out, and we slogged through the sleet back to the train station, our view of the largest park in Europe restricted to the single grassy field before our tree.
Back at Marianzplatz our dinner was somewhat less hapless, but plagued by European smokers and the obligatory screaming infant in a high chair diagonally across from our table. Still the food (I had the Schweinschunkenmeaten, or deep-fried leg of pig) was good and the place was warm. Our waitress was ALL GERMAN. I'm sure she spoke English, but damn if she was going to bother with us. When my daughter tried to order breakfast sausage (weissbraten) at dinner I thought the woman was going to reach over and slap her with the order pad.
We shopped a little after dinner but it was still chilly and sprinkly, so we finally headed home. However my wife wanted to make one last stop: the Alte Pinakothek museum, another Betsy-Tacy destination. It was two stops prior to ours on the train home, and she assured us it was open until 10 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so tromp-tromp-tromp we made our way there, arriving at exactly 8:00 p.m... when the museum closed. Poor girl, she'd mixed up the European "20:00 o'clock" with "10:00 o'clock". I've made the same mistake in the past.
Finally we noticed that the Pension Geiger - where the author Maud Hart Lovelace and her protagonist Betsy stayed in Munich, was only two blocks from the Pinakothek - so we had to stop by. Theresa would have been satisfied to merely take a photograph at the door, but no, I had to push it. So up we went, past the yoga center, to the second floor "reception desk" (which would be the third floor in America) that turned out not to be an open desk as I had supposed but the owner's' apartment. There I bothered the little old couple who ran the place, but we couldn't make each other understood - I wanted to find out if they knew anything about this author from 100 years ago who stayed there: they, quite reasonably, thought I wanted a room. The linguistic gap could not be abridged, but we did leave with a lovely business card. Hopefully we didn't confuse the owners too badly.
A visit to Dachau cut short by heat, a visit to the Gartens by cold and rain, dinner troubled by smoke, a museum closed by time, and a guest-house tangled in language, we wrapped up our hapless day by walking the last three blocks home in a driving cold rain. And you know what?
I'm still happy.