clog blog

After a six hour train trip we arrived in Munich on Tuesday where we spent three nights. On Wednesday we started exploring with a trip to the Munich Residenz where the Electors, or rulers, of Bavaria and the Bavarian Kings lived right up until 1918 until it became a museum open to the public. The Residenz is huge with many rooms and great halls. It was wonderful to walk around and imagine what it was like to live as a king of Bavaria. The whole palace is very opulent and decadently furnished, clearly no expense was spared. Two interesting rooms of the Residenz are the Antiquarium and the Portrait Gallery. The Antiquarium was built to house the royal antiquities which mostly seemed to be a collection of marble busts. Later a fire place was installed and the room was converted into a dining hall where the public could come watch the king dine on special occasions. The Portrait Gallery is a long room with a Wittelsbach family tree and portraits of all the family members. Apparently it gave weight to their claim to the throne.

The German National Treasury is also housed at the Residenz. Here you can see varies pieces of treasure including the crowns of Bavarian electors and kings and other jewels. There were also many religious pieces and relics of saints, very interesting. We also saw the Cuvilliés theatre which was designed in the Rococo style and is still in use today.

After the Residenz we made our way to Marienplatz where you will find the Rathaus (town hall) and Glockenspiel and enjoy views of the Frauenkirche. We wandered around and enjoyed the atmosphere of the city. Bron enjoyed coming back to Munich and seeing what had and hadn’t changed since she was last there; Marienplatz still looks much the same!

Thursday morning we headed back to Marienplatz for the 11 o’clock chiming of the Glockenspiel. Bells ring for 15 minutes while figures dance around. Not super amazing but pretty cool and something you have to do when you are in Munich! Thereafter, we made our way to Schloss Nymphenberg, one of the opulent palaces of King Ludwig I. Not as many rooms were open for viewing as the Residenz (90 rooms open to the public) but from the 10 we did see, it is obvious that the standard of living in this palace was also very luxurious. The garden is absolutely massive with waterways and many pleasure houses along the way. The palace was built as a summer residence and leisurely summer living seemed to be the order of the day.

With only two days for sightseeing that is all we managed to get in but we enjoyed being in the city and it was nice to see some palaces and not just art galleries and churches. Munich was still pretty cold but a bit warmer than Prague, anywhere is warmer than Prague in winter!! We really enjoyed the traditional Bavarian cuisine and tried out three different beer halls (or brauhaus). Our first night we tried Augustiner Keller followed by Hofbrauhaus on Wednesday and finally Weisses Brauhaus on Thursday. Each one is slightly different but the food and atmosphere at all of them was great. Hofbrauhaus is more touristy with few locals but they have a live oompah band which gets everyone jiving in their seat and is really fun. Having said that though, if you are a local you can lock away your own stein and then use it in the brauhaus when you visit. Augustiner and Weisses had more locals in them but no live music. Weisses offers old traditional Bavarian meals such as ‘skirt’, which is basically the diaphragm of an animal, for the adventurous! Justin had Weiss or wheat beer at each brauhaus and voted Weisses as the best. Something quite different to home is that people share tables in restaurants. So if it is a table that seats 8 you can quite easily be 4 different groups sharing. Also, people are allowed to bring their dogs into the beer halls provided they stay under the table.

Friday we were back on the train heading for Innsbruck for one night. As always we really enjoyed the train trip. This was the first time we saw any mountains, the landscape has been pretty flat so far, and they were covered in snow! Very impressive! We caught the regional train (3hrs) rather than a speed train (2hrs, not too much difference) and passed some lakes and beautiful old Bavarian towns. We passed Garmisch-Partenkirchen where the ski world cup is currently on and we saw our first ski slopes!

After arriving in Innsbruck we had a few hours to wander around before it got dark. We saw the Golden Roof in the Marktplatz which was commissioned by Emperor Maximilian I. Bron’s treat was visiting the Swarovski crystal shop! She was a bit disappointed that the main shop was under reconstruction and only a smaller collection was available in the info centre. Shopping there was still fun though =) It definitely feels warmer in Austria than Germany or Czech! Which is contradictory since this is where all the snow is, hm.

This morning we took a train from Innsbruck to Wörgl where we were met by the Contiki crew for our week of skiing! Today has been a relaxed day. We checked in, wandered around the town of Hopfgarten, got our ski’s and boots and did admin like laundry (yes, when you are travelling for 2 months you have to make time to do laundry!). Later on we will get the lo-down on our week here and then tomorrow we will hit the slopes for our first ski lesson and some skiing! Shell and Graham are due to arrive soon from a 24 hour bus trip from London. They are going to sleep well tonight!

We have booked the next leg of our trip. Next Saturday we head to Florence for 4 nights and then Rome for 4 nights. Nothing booked after that but the plan is to head to Switzerland, Spain, maybe Portugal, definitely Paris and then probably home to Rotterdam. Internet here is more expensive than the previous places we stayed at so we won’t be online as much this week. But we love hearing from everyone so please keep mailing us and leaving comments on the blog! We are up to 1000 hits now, yay!

Hope you are well and enjoying the summer sun! Have a good weekend!