MY BOGGY BLOG: find your way through the murk

Of Munich, Castles and Mountain Peaks

On Monday we left for a mini-trip to southern Germany-- our plan was to be gone for 2 nights, but we ended up staying an extra night when things took longer than we expected.

It took about 2 hours to drive to Munich, or MÜnchen as the Germans say. My first impression was that it was a bigger city like Chicago without the skyscrapers, very busy and much older. We got lost driving into the city but thanks to B's super-duper phone and mapquest, we found our way to our hostel. This was our first time staying in a hostel, and it really wasn't half bad. We had our own room with 3 sets of bunkbeds. It was small and plain and clean. The bathroom (with the toilet and sink) was just a skosh bigger than an airplane toilet. There was another separate closet sized room for the shower. There were lockers to put our stuff in, and a small table and five utilitarian chairs, and one electrical outlet, in the toilet room. Our children said it looked like a homeless shelter they had volunteered in last year. They are obviously spoiled-- I was thinking it could be much worse!

We found out we were at least 6 long blocks from the train station, which seemed to be the best way to get around the city, so after a delicious lunch at a Vietnamese-Thai restaurant (which had items listed in Vietnamese with German descriptions), we began what would be the first of many long walks to traverse the city. When we got to where you could enter the underground, we were confronted with the dreaded ticket machine. All in German, of course, and very hard to figure out what kind of ticket we need and what it will cover. After pushing random buttons, we managed to find an English speaking passerby who said we could purchase the $20 family ticket and that would get us around for 3 days, trains and buses. Whew!

Our guide book indicated that several of the sights we wanted to see were closed on Mondays, so we headed for one we knew was open, The Residenz. This huge palace has been turned into a museum; it housed Bavarian rulers from 1385 to 1918. It had quite a diversity of rooms and exhibits-- some of the gold trimmed/mirror/chandelier type rooms we'd seen in other palaces, some very regal looking halls with giant painted murals of medieval stories, darkened rooms of original tapestries. One of the favorites for the Alberti family was what we called "the Hall of Albertis"-- a long hallway filled with dozens of large portraits, one after another and climbing the walls three or four deep, like my teenage bedroom with wall-to-wall posters of Andy Gibb. Except these "posters" were all framed in gold and had name plates, many of which held the name "So and So Alberti." We were amazed-- Alberti after Alberti, portraits of men and women, hundreds of years old. We'd never thought that Alberti could be German at all, but someone later told us that it is a Latin form of the name Albert, so that's why these people were called Alberti.

Now, my family rolls their eyes whenever I mention it, but one of the exciting things about being in Munich for me is that Betsy Ray, heroine of the Betsy-Tacy book series (by Maud Hart Lovelace, who modeled Betsy after herself as a girl growing up in Mankato, Minnesota, back at the turn of the century) stayed in Munich for 6 weeks about 1917, on her solo European voyage at age 22. Her trip is detailed in the book "Betsy and the Great World," and so I took notes from my book to see if we could see anything that Betsy/Maud had seen on her trip, almost 100 years ago. We visited the Frauenkirche (church of Our Lady) which she had mentioned, but it was rather underwhelming as a church. Many of the walls were white-washed and the stained glass windows were rather plain. My guess is that the church suffered in the bombing of WW2 and these were methods of patching it back up.

We walked around Marienplatz and Odeonsplatz, different parts of the city. We marveled over the old architecture of church spires and the Neues Rathaus, a long ornate blackened gray building with amazing gargoyles and statues all over it. (As a reminder, I refer to to DH's blog, where he'll have pics of all this, http://albatross.org). We took more trains, walked all over, and ended up at a beer garden in the Viktualienmarkt, a large plaza with market booths set up. Most of it had closed by then, but there were a few eateries still open and a large eating area with picnic tables set up, so we ate bratwursts and pretzels and fish sandwhiches and schnitzel and potato salad and drank beer and pop. It was lovely and sunny outside, and the crowd was very jovial. We felt like one of the bunch!

Unfortunately, our second day in Munich turned out to be our bad luck day. It started off hot and sunny, and we took a longer train ride out of the city to Dachau, the concentration camp memorial. It was a train ride, a bus ride, and then walking and walking across the enormous lot to get to any of the buildings there. The camp is just a flat lot, with most of the buildings removed, and now covered in white gravel. How big was the lot, I couldn't say how many football fields could fit in it. But it took forever of walking in the hot sun across the treeless lot. I imagined how hard it was for prisoners there to walk just from one end to another, emaciated and worked to death and weak. It was not a fun place to be.

There was one bunk house open, where you could see the triple high rows of bunks where hundreds of prisoners were squashed into. There was a very long building set up as a mueum, but it was mostly informational boards set up in many languages with pictures and historical facts and info about so many aspects of the time period and life in the camp. It was very interesting but also a tiresome way to see a museum. There were hardly any actual artifacts from the camp. So it was mainly photos and quotations and written information.

The crematoriums were also still standing. There were empty rooms, one after another, and the placards would say, "here is where prisoners were told to undress, here is where they were led to the showers, here is where the dead bodies were piled." The "showers" here were never used for mass extermination, it said. The crematoriums were still intact, a row of several long ovens where it was said 2 or 3 bodies would be cremated at a time. You could really see what a death factory this was, so matter of fact. Very chilling.

After Dachau, we went back by bus and train to Munich, where we thought we'd try to see the Englischer Gartens, which is one of the largest public parks on the continent. By the time we got out of the train station, our sunny day started to look gray, but we were counting on any rain to pass in a quick burst, like we'd see happen so many times in Germany. A little rain and a little sun. So we walked several long blocks and it started pouring just when we got to the gardens. We sat under a tree and stayed semi dry, watched bikers ride past, sat for a half hour and the rain never stopped. It didn't help that this section of the garden was unimpressive-- merely a grassy parkway with old trees, not much else. After we grew tired of waiting, we decided to walk back to the train in the rain, our feet already tired. It did let up and we only got partially soggy. We ended up back in the Marienplatz, found a restaurant to sit down and eat in. It was more of the German meat and potatoes menu that we had a hard time figuring out. Our waitress was a bossy matron in a German costum, fussing when we didn't give the menus back to her properly, and practically shouting "Nicht!" when G tried to order an appetizer of weiss-wurst (a white sausage only proper to have for breakfast). My duck came with some strange gelatinous balls that the menu seemed to have said were "potato noodles"-- imagine a bland ball that you could bounce on the floor!

After a little shopping along the busy street, we decided to try for the Alte Pinakothek, a museum of classical paintings that I thought was open until 10 pm. (This is one of the museums Betsy visited in Munich, rolling of eyes). We walked and walked to get there (so much walking in MÜnchen) only to find I'd read the time wrong-- it said 20:00 in the guide book, and that is 8 pm, not 10. It had just closed. Augh! So now we'd tried to see a garden and a museum after much effort and no reward. Ah well. Our way back to the train brought us right by another Betsy place-- the Pension Geiger, the student pension she had stayed in so long ago. It is a regular hotel now, and much changed from when she'd stayed there. Still, it was thrilling to find it on a street and peek inside.

After breakfast the next morning, we were off to:

SCHWANGAU-- MAD KING LUDWIG'S CASTLE

We drove south about 90 minutes to get to the little city of Schwangau, which is the tourist destination for seeing Schloss Neuschwanstein, one of the castles of Mad King Ludwig (poor guy, to be labeled that way forever, just because he was a little strange). As we drove the windy roads we approached the Bavarian Alps, and B couldn't help stopping a few times for photos-- the scenery was devine. Purplish-blue mountains laced with tendrils of smoky white clouds. The little town is at the foot of the Alps, and right above it in the steep mountainside, you can see the tall white spires of the castle-- I've heard that this is the castle Walt Disney modeled his after. Ludwig is also knows as the fairy tale king for his love of drama and story. He hired a theatre designer, not an architecture, to help him create this castle.

The line for tickets was 2 blocks long, and then the tour we ended up getting was for 2 1/2 hours after we bought them, so what we'd thought might be a quick tour ended up being a whole day event (we'd thought we'd see something else in the afternoon and be on our way home that night). So we adjusted our plans and called a hotel listed in our guidebook in another town we wanted to visit, and planned to stay there.

We shopped and had lunch and waited around for our tour, then caught a bus up the steep mountain to the castle. From where the bus dropped you off, there was a steep walk down to the castle. Our English tour started at 4:10 and lasted 35 minutes. Only a fraction of the castle was finished-- Ludwig died mysteriously before it was done, deeply in debt. This castle had a different feel to it than the other ornate palaces we have seen so far on the trip. The colors in the rooms were rich and deep, with an emphasis on the wall paintings-- scenes from the opera stories of Wagner. It wasn't all the gold and curlicues and fancy-leggd furniture. There was a much more solid but still jaw-dropping detail to the rooms. Swans in the decor were everywhere (L's fave animal). And there were lots of steps to climb. Every window had an awesome view of the Alps or surrounding green countryside or a lake. So it was a long day with a lot of annoying tourists from many lands (we are starting to appreicate the true politeness of Minnesotans), but it was worth it.

We left Schwangau about 7:00, and it was off to our hotel in Garmisch-Partenkirchen.

THE ZUGSPITZE

We stayed the night in the Hotel Schell in Garmisch-Partenkirchen (G-P). We went to this town because we wanted to ride the cog wheel train there up the mountain and take a cable car (yes, dangling on a thin wire) up to the Zugspitye alpine peak. Well, everyone else in my family wanted to do this and me, afraid of heights, nervously agreed to go along. After an hour's drive again through many windy roads along the Alps, we arrived and couldn't have been more pleased with our rooms. We ended up with an attic suite in this traditional looking German hotel (white building with dark brown wood framing it). There ended up being 4 rooms with beds in them, and the owners had tried to do some fun things with the decor. Our bedroom had a mountain scene projecting out of the wall, snowy mountains against a golden sunny background. Another room had a huge gold framed mirror and brick columns in the wall that made the kids call it the castle room. Another room under a sloping wall had a huge floor to ceiling wave sculpted onto it, blue and 3-D. There was also a whole kitchenette where you could cook and sit and eat. Very charming! If you want to see a bit of it, there are a few pics on their website: http://www.hotel-schell.de/html/traum-hotel.html

Shortly after arrival, we went out to find supper. We ended up at a cute Italian restaurant that served all sorts of pasta and pizza (I was so tired of sausage!), and across the street was a park. In the little gazebo, a German band was playing-- about 20 people dressed in lederhosen, playing polkas and such, a brass band.

By the next morning it was Thursday, August 10, B's birthday. After breakfast, we bought tickets for the train and cable car that would take us up to the Zugspitze peak of the alps. First there was a slow train to a town nearby, then there was another slow train to the Eibsee-Sellbahn, where you could choose to take a cogwheel train up the mountain, or get on a cable car to to to the peak. It was B's birthday, and he wanted the cable car, which turned out to be much faster anyway. You board the cable car at the foot of the mountain, about 30 people in a car. The worst part was waiting for our cable car and watching the one before us go up the steep slope of the cables. It looks so intimidating for a person with a fear of heights, just this little wire holding you up! But actually, riding the car up wasn't bad at all. Somehow, I just didn't have that "dangling over a cliff" feeling. Instead you saw tree tops and gorgeous views of the mountains all around, and after awhile, you rose into a cloud and arrived at the peak.

B and I both felt some of the effects of the altitude, with it being harder to breathe and feeling tired after any movement. But the kids were fine and teased us about being old. It was a great novelty to be on the observation decks outside, though it was too cloudy for a view. The air was cold (0 C or 32 degrees F), but it was nothing for a sturdy Minnesotan. "This is March weather," said B. We did take photos of him with the snow-- he's never been in the snow on his August birthday before!

Another cable car down the mountain, then the slow trains and lots of waiting for each one before we got back to our car. Now we had the supposedly 3 hour drive home, but it took more like 5 when we ran into rain and hail as we passed by Munich. The autobahn may be very fast when it is clear, but when the weather is bad, it is a parking lot. That was no fun, but it was good to finally get back to our home base here. Our home away from home! Now a few days to relax and do laundry before next week's adventures.

Posted by sapphire at August 11, 2006 05:16 AM