Walking Tour of Munich

Posted on October 21, 2019 by Trudy

Day 57, Monday, October 21, 2019

Bob found a walking tour of Munich at bigboytravel.com that we use today. On our way to the start of this walking tour we find a sculpture by Mauro Staccioli. The Ring is 12 meters in diameter and weighs 14 tons. The Ring is right next to the entrance to the Old Botanical Garden where we have our lunch. We see lots of interesting people on our travels. The man below was ‘communing’ with a tree…he walked circles around it, with his hands out, making gestures towards the tree. Some police driving through the park stopped to talk to him but they let him be, guess they figured he was harmless. Nearby I spotted this lady dressed all in white. She looks like she belongs to a different place and time. There was a small gallery in the Botanical Gardens but they were changing exhibitions and not open. I liked both the door handle and the interesting poster, which reads, The Long Night of Munich Museums.
First stop on our tour, why don’t you come along with us? The Fountain Boy depicts a satyr spitting water at a young boy who shields his face. It originally caused a problem because there was no leaf over his private parts, but it is now a favourite Munich fountain.

Citizen’s Hall Church was heavily damaged during WWII but it has been rebuilt and looks exactly like it did in the 1700’s. The basement contains the tomb of Rupert Mayer, a famous Jesuit priest who stood up to the Nazis occupation and died in a concentration camp.. Our walk continues down a broad pedestrian street with large trees. St Michael’s Church. I liked the huge elaborate candle holders. The church contains The Royal Crypt which holds 40 tombs. The most famous of these is the tomb of “Mad” King Ludwig II. Ludwig was a big spender and built many lavish castles and palaces. We visited the Neuschwanstein Castle on our first trip to Europe almost 40 years ago. It is the castle that inspired Walt Disney’s Snow White castle. No photos are allowed in the crypt so I did a quick sketch of King Ludwig’s tomb. No one ever seems to mind if I draw.There are a few churches on this tour! Each of them has its own distinctive feature. Saint Anna’s Church has had a chapel on this site since 1440. I thought I saw people inside, behind the locked gates, but when I zoomed in with my camera, I realized it was a life size sculpture of the Last Supper.We pass this tree sculpture on the corner of a building on our way to The Asamhof Passage. Asamhof Passage is a little pedestrian street lined with restaurants, lots of flowers, and this poor fellow who needed my change more than I did! Asamkirche was built by the Asam brothers as a showpiece for their church building skills. It is only 30 feet wide but it is so packed with over-the-top-Rococo decoration that we don’t know where to look! The entire focus of the interior leads the eye to a bright golden window meant to feel like the eye of God staring down at us. This is the exterior of the church and the brother’s house next door, which had bedroom windows looking onto the high altar in the church.There are lots of modern shops below the traditional apartments. I think I look OK with wings! The town gate, built in 1318 has two towers and is the oldest of the three city gates still standing in Munich. A view down the street from the town gate. Walking back towards Marienplatz we walk through the Victuals Market (Viktualiemarkt). This is a tough place to be when you can’t eat gluten, dairy or eggs!There are lots of flower stalls. I particularly liked the little dog that seemed to belong to this one. This is the tallest May Pole we have ever seen! We can see the Glockenspiel Tower down a side street between two buildings.

The Frauenkirche has beautiful chandeliers illuminating its interior.

I’ve mentioned the beautiful window boxes before. This is a department store and just look at its gorgeous window boxes! The New Town Hall’s main attraction is the Glockenspiel. This chiming clock was added to the tower in 1907. At 11am, midday, and 5pm the Munich Glockenspiel recounts a royal wedding, a jousting tournament and a traditional dance with 32 life-sized animated figures in its 260 foot tower. The show lasts about ten minutes, followed by the ringing of church bells. Bob remembered the Beck Department store from our first visit to Munich almost 40 years ago! He said it was right next to the Glockenspiel and sure enough it was! Metro drawings from today. People kept getting off the metro before I was finished!

Sanssoucci Palace and Gardens, Potsdam, Germany

Posted on September 21, 2019 by Trudy

Day 27, Saturday September 21, 2019

We take the metro to Potsdam to visit the Sanssouci Palace and gardens, which was the summer residence of King Frederick the Great. This is a UNESCO World Heritage site. We did not pre-book tickets, the number of visitors to the palace are limited, but we only had to wait 90 minutes to see the palace. There was lots to see in the meantime. This great historical windmill stands at the entrance to the Palace Park. The grounds in front of the palace. We have our picnic lunch and then visit the Bildergalerie.The Bildergalerie was originally an orangerie but it was converted to an art gallery for Frederick’s private collection. The yellow marble used throughout is from old Roman ruins and is very rare and expensive. There are two long galleries…
connected by a round room with a vaulted gold ceiling. At the far end there is a room for small paintings. The last photo is taken looking out from this room. There are a lot of beautiful paintings but they were a bit hard to see because of the glare from the windows on the opposite wall. I am surprised that they allow the much sunlight to enter the gallery, but it did make the space bright and very attractive.We still had a bit of time before our palace visit so we walked down to the gardens. The layout here is reminiscent of Versailles in France, only on a smaller scale. All the terraces have these nooks with glass doors that can close when cold to protect the plants. Frederich loved to garden and grow fruit trees and grapes. We enter the palace and take this selfie in the first room. It contains artwork and is an entrance hallway, not very wide at all. The palace only contains twelve rooms. They are all connected by doors in a straight line that lead from one room to another. The room below is panelled in wood with inlaid botanical designs. They are very intricate.We walk through the rooms, each seeming to be a bit more elaborate than the next.
The green room above was Frederick’s study. He suffered from asthma, gout and other ailments and he often slept in the green chair below as it was too difficult to lie in a bed. He died in this chair when he was 74. Frederick loved nature and the palace was decorated with botanical themes. The palace was his refuge and he lived there from April to October. Sanssouci is from the French “sans soucci”, which means “without worry”. Frederick was married but lived separately from his wife. He only married because his father threatened him with imprisonment if he did not comply. His father was very strict and made his Frederick’s life miserable. He had a miserable childhood as his father thought him effeminate and tried to change him. Frederick was gay and surrounded himself with male friends and companions at Sanssouci. Women were not welcome there. The yellow room below has raised carved decorations, and a sleeping nook for the bed, as did all the bedrooms. Notice the spiders on the ceiling decoration.Frederick was unable to travel to Rome and Venice but his palace had many paintings of these cities, which he greatly admired. I think how lucky we have been to visit these cities. As we exit the palace there is a huge painting of Frederick the Great by Andy Warhol. It is quite a dramatic change from the other artwork we have seen here. We climb the interior of the windmill and step outside to check out the huge blades. This is still a working windmill. We are amazed at the size of the wooden wheels and cogs. We walk through the park with its gardens and fountains towards the Orangerie. Wow! We have never seen an orangerie this large. It is enormous! This photo shows one wing and the entrance behind me. There is another wing just as long on the other side of that entrance. This Orangerie was built by Frederich William IV in 1851-1864. It is 300 meters long. Looking inside one of the wings of this huge orangerie. This is where all the potted plants that would not survive winter temperatures are kept. Like the potted plants in the photo above,
Some of the plants are huge. These large potted palms definitely need a fork lift to be moved. No idea how they ever transplant them when needed? The pots are almost as tall as I am!We are surprised to find more furnished rooms and another art gallery in the Orangerie. The Raphael Hall has over 50 copies of Renaissance paintings. We saw the original of this painting in Italy at the Vatican.

Do you recognize the tondo by Raphael that we saw at the Gemäldegalerie earlier this week? Interesting how copying famous artworks was such a common accepted practice. Today I think it would be called forgery. Another room in the Orangerie Palace. And another selfie reflection in a very ornate mirror. Notice our big slippers! These are some of the stairs we climb to the top of the Orangerie. And more stairs… to get this view. There is the East wing of this enormous building. That dome way in the distance is another palace. The New Palace, built by King Frederick, is the largest and most impressive complex at Sansoucci, but it is way too far of a walk for us today and the park is closing soon. In front of the Orangerie. Every path here has a view at the end of it…something to entice you to walk and explore. We find the Chinese House which Frederick had built to enhance his flower and vegetable gardens and we can imagine elaborate picnics here in the summer. We make our way to the main gate just as Sanssouci is closing and catch the metro home. We had a beautiful warm day for our time here. A perfect day really.

Lokrum Island

Posted on October 17, 2017 by Trudy

Today has two posts as I am catching up on our last day in Croatia and our first full day in Italy.

Day 40, Saturday October 14, 2017

When we arrived in the old town of Dubrovnik we were greeted by a marching band.First stop is Fort Revelin, a fortress that was built in 1462 outside the city walls to help protect Dubrovnik. The ground floor is the Dubrovnik Archaeological Museum which isn’t very big, just a few smallish rooms, so it doesn’t take us long to see everything.On our way to the port I need to take a few more photos of Dubrovnik’s fantastic old buildings. There is just so much to see here.Here is a different view of the old town as we travel on the ferry to Lokrum Island, and yes, the water is really that blue!First stop on the island is the Benedictine Monastery complex, from the 15th Century where there is an authentic replica of the Iron Throne which was donated by the Game of Thrones. This photo makes me think of a quote on a card a friend gave me years ago. “Inside every woman is a queen, speak to the queen and she will answer!” There is a small museum here with some interesting videos about the filming of the series and a map of all the Croatian filming locations.

The cloister of the Benedictine Monastery.We find a bench in the gardens for our lunch but need to share our food with the local peacocks and bunnies. I have never seen young peacocks before, and now here they are eating out of my hand! They do like rice cakes. I don’t know how all the rabbits found their way here but there are lots of them everywhere,A walk along the shore takes us to these strange rock formations which are a favourite place for sun bathing and swimming.We walk across this natural stone bridge, rather carefully as it wasn’t terribly wide.The well of Charlotte, an oval stone pool, was once used for bathing and perhaps for watering exotic plants but it is now all dried up. It looked like a site for secret ceremonies, accompanied by strange creatures.The Dead Sea, is a little salt water filled lake linked to the open sea.On our way to Fort Royal which is on the highest point of the island we pass some of these flowering yuccas and …
a tree that needed a hug.This photo of the Path of Paradise, or the Celestial Way, doesn’t really show how steep it is, but it is a very long uphill path to Fort Royale, also known as the Tower of Maximilian. Those are people way down at the bottom and we are still only about two thirds of the way to the top.The view from the top is worth the climb. Those rocks people sunbathe on are way down on the part of the island that sticks out into the sea.That is Dubrovnik in the distance and…Here is a close up of the old walled town and the walls we walked on…and here is the tower. I was surprised that we are able to go inside, and we both had a laugh when we saw the toilets which are on the top of the tower.Does anyone know what these fruits are? They are about the size of a large cherry.There are peacocks everywhere on the island. They were imported from the Canary Islands about 150 years ago.The Botanical gardens were the location of the City of Qarth in the Game of Thrones but many of the plantings were damaged last winter by cold weather and high winds and it looks pretty sad now. Only the bigger sturdier plants seemed to have survived. It was actually a very disappointing botanical garden.Soon it is time to return to Dubrovnik. No one is allowed to spend the night on the island because it was cursed by Benedictine monks who were forced to leave the island by a French Army General. They spent their last night there walking three times around the island with candles carried upside down so that the molten wax left a trail. As they walked they chanted “Whosoever claims Lokrum for his own personal pleasure shall be damned!” At dawn they left and the curse did its work. Every new owner of the island suffered misfortune of some kind including death, murder, bankruptcy, earthquakes, and shipwrecks. As we return to Dubrovnik we see lots of boats heading out of the harbour.Here we are walking towards the entrance to the walled city…and we pass through the gate with its massive doors one last time. Although we spent a week here we could easily have spent even more time in this enchanting city.

Exploring Zagreb

Posted on September 15, 2017 by Trudy

Day 11 Friday September 15, 2017

It is cloudy and it rained during the night but there is no wind this morning so we head out to explore. First stop was the Dolac Market, a huge outdoor market where vendors sell fruits, vegetables, meat and fish every day of the week. There are red umbrellas over the stands and it is all very picturesque. We buy vegetables to make soup tonight and some fruit. We get our leeks and carrots from this baba, and the rest from several other vendors.Just a short walk from the Dulac Market is the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Nice that one of the towers is under construction but the scaffolding is wrapped in a photographic copy of the building underneath. This is so much more attractive than the generic construction tarps used at home.

The inside of the cathedral is magnificent. Construction started in the 11th century and additions and alterations were made over the next seven centuries.

Here are some photos of the church interior

Note the gold stars on the ceiling above the organ.

The faithful came to pray at this crypt, often just walking up and placing hands on the crypt while they prayed.

This shows a spire before and after restoration and the clock on the wall stopped at 7 hours 3 minutes and 3 seconds on the 9th of November, 1880 because of an earthquake that caused damage to the cathedral. The renovations today are a result of this earthquake as the repairs made after the earthquake did not fair well and have badly eroded. This photo shows some of the newly reconstructed columns and the old ones that are still waiting reconstruction
There were defensive walls built around the Cathedral in the 15th Century and there are little cottages built up against the wall.On the way back to our apartment we come across these fellows. No idea why what they were doing or why they were dressed as caveman but they posed for photos for the tourists.
This big square has more market stalls and it is surrounded by majestic buildings. There is just so much to see here. This machine was pressing olive oil. The green coilsl coming out were the waste and it was as hard as wood!
Here is another building shrouded in a construction covering. I really like them. We go back to our apartment for lunch and a little rest and then head back out for the afternoon.
There are a lot of parks in Zagreb and even though it is fall there are still lots of flowers in bloom. This is the Art Pavilion, originally constructed as the Croatian Pavilion for an Exhibition in Budapest in 1896. It was disassembled and then reconstructed here.We check out the Hotel Esplanade near the railway station, which was built for passengers of the Orient Express. We couldn’t afford to eat here but I did use the bathroom, which was very luxurious.
The Botanical Gardens. are next. The show greenhouse is under construction and reconstruction so we can’t visit it, but the rest of the gardens are very lovely. We enjoy our time walking along the garden paths checking out the flowers and trees. These are lotus flower seed heads…and these Santa Cruz water lily pads grow up to two meters across! On the way home we see these cars parked half on the road and half on the street!