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The Nymphenburg Palace
We left the
good weather on the other side of the Alps. Cloudy, drizzly, snowy, cool to
cold weather was the norm for our time in Bavaria. From the airport we took the
train downtown and checked into Hotel Opera (our splurge hotel for the trip).
Since we were not going to take a walking tour, we took the Hop on Hop off Bus.
We only paid for the city tour, but we somehow got the city and suburbs tour, so
we saw the Nymphenburg Palace, which served as the main summer residence of the
former rulers of Bavaria and we passed the site of the tragic XX Olympiad.
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| The Banquet Hall at the Residenz |
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Dinner at Hofbrauhaus
We got a
guided tour of the Nazi Documentation Center and stopped on the way back to
watch surfers play on a standing wave in the Eisbach river within the English
Gardens. We toured the Residenz, the former royal palace of the Wittelsbach
monarchs of Bavaria, until Pat’s knee gave out. Fortunately, our hotel was able
to keep Pat well supplied with ice for her knee. This was the only hotel so
accommodating. We went to the Hofbräuhaus for dinner and enjoyed the beer,
pretzel, shredded pancakes with applesauce and the oomph music. We went to the
center square to see the 9 PM performance of the glockenspiel, but it was very
short and disappointing. We returned to the Residenz to see the Treasury, where
the Royal’s jewels, gold smith’s works and other valuable collectables were on
display.
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| Live oompah music |
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| The Old Town Hall in Munich |
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| Dachau's Furnaces |
On our last
day in Munich, we picked up a rental car and a wheelchair for Pat. We visited
Dachau Concentration Camp, and I pushed Pat around the site and managed to pick
up a cold. This turned out to be the only time Pat used the wheelchair, due to
the difficulty of using it on cobblestones, slopes and the fact that disability
access is nonexistent in Europe. Next, we went to the walled, well preserved
medieval city of Rothenburg. We toured the very comprehensive Medieval Crime
Museum and I took the Night Watchman’s tour. During medieval times, Night
Watchmen were employed to walk the city at night, primarily on fire patrol but
also helped reduce crime and thief due to their surveillance. Now they provide
an interesting night tour of the town.
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| A Rothenburg specialty: Schneeballen - a coated ball of fried dough |
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| The Rothenburg Glockenspiel |
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| The Night Watchman |
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Rothenburg's Town Square
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| Hohenschwangau Castle |
From here we
drove south into the Alps. We had tickets paid in advance for the two big
castles there, Neuschwanstein (the Disney World castle) and Hohenschwangau, but
entry to the castles involved a lot of waiting outside, a long uphill walk or a
buggy ride. Due to the snow, the roads to the castles were closed. With Pat’s
bad knee and my cold, we passed on this self-inflicted torture. Carol suggested
Linderhof Palace (a small version of Versailles) so we went there and that was
much easier to visit and very pretty. From here we drove to Salzburg.
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| Neuschwanstein Castle |
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| Fussen's Lech River Gorge |
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| The road to Linderhof Palace |
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| Linderhof Palace |
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