On the Move - Germany, etc.

Anne & George arrived on Thursday 20 June and we had a lovely couple of days
with them. Our big adventure together was going to see _Rome & Jewels_ at
the Peacock Theatre, Sadler's Wells' West End venue. It is a very loose
adaptation of Shakespeare's _Romeo & Juliet_ in hip-hop style. Overall, the
effect was a lot like a ballet: what's happening on stage is interesting and
occasionally you figure out where in the plot they are now. One of the
different aspects was that there was no physical "Jewels," she is an idea
"conjured" by Rome--he talks to her and mimes interacting with her, but she
is invisible. The director's notes also said that he chose to spell it
"Jewels" in order to evoke the hip-hop community's fascination with jewelry.
So the woman becomes in some ways irrelevant, she is just the idea with
which the man justifies the violence in his life. I enjoyed a chance to see
the DJs spin--they had a video set-up such that we could really see what
they were doing. The dancing was incredible--such a combination of artistry
and athleticism. One interesting approach the director used was to slow
down some of the hip-hop elements, so that the audience can see the details
of the technique that are often lost in the speed of performance.

After the show we made our way through the rain to a new find in the area,
an Italian place called Orso. Everything there was very tasty--I especially
liked Jason's deep-fried zucchini flowers stuffed with cheese and prociutto
and they served me the best carpaccio I've had in ages. George and I were
very happy with our veal in mushroom cream sauce and Anne was sure her roast
pork with cracklin' skin was the winner. Only Jason wasn't entirely happy
with his braised rabbit, but he agreed we could go there again when we need
to be in that neighborhood.

Having been out late, it was difficult to drag ourselves out of bed in time
to make the first tube at 5:30am, but we did it. There was some confusion
at the airport, since our British Midlands flight was actually a Lufthansa
flight and therefore in a different terminal from the BMI desks. But we
made our flight in plenty of time and got to Cologne easily enough. The
Hotel Cerano was on a quiet street about four blocks from the cathedral. It
was very hot in Cologne that day and we were tired, but after checking in
and dropping off our bags we valiantly headed out to catch a few of the
major sites on our one day there. We started at the extremely gothic
cathedral, where we saw lovely floor mosaics and interesting chapels. One
thing that made us laugh a bit was the "Schmuckenmadonna." The word
"schmuck" apparently means "jewel" in German and this is a jewel-encrusted
statue of Mary that is reputed to have accomplished many miracles through
the ages. Just across the plaza from the cathedral is a museum of Roman and
early German artifacts from all over the Cologne area. It was an important
Roman town and they have many interesting remnants to prove it. One of my
favorite items was an actual "milestone" that marked one of the roads around
Cologne.

We grabbed a quick bite to eat and then walked down the shady riverside
promenade for a ways before cutting back into the streets. We walked past
our first German "Rathaus," or city hall, to Gross St. Martin, the other
prominent tower of the Cologne skyline. The church was largely destroyed
during WWII, but has been rebuilt according to the original plans. Sadly,
very little of the interior decoration remains, but the stained-glass
windows were very creatively restored. It looked like they had taken the
pieces of glass they could conserve and replaced what was lost with clear
glass. The overall effect was of a very serene space and it was a cool
refuge from the day.

We meant to go to the art museum, but ended up in the wrong place--our
almost total lack of German was a handicap. So instead we spent an hour or
so in the design museum, which had particularly good exhibits in the Art
Nouveau style that we both love. By the time we were done there, we were
both done in, so we walked back to the hotel, took cold showers and passed
out for a couple of hours.

Emerging into the sultry evening, we strolled through the pedestrianized
shopping area a couple of blocks away and found an Italian restaurant
serving dinner at sidewalk tables. We shared a salad of arugula with fried
speck (somewhere between bacon and prociutto) that was tasty and then both
had the grilled fillet of lamb with rosemary potatoes. We thought of an
evening stroll, but decided we were still tired and needed to be up and out
early in the morning.

On Sunday we picked up our car at the main train station, conveniently
located next to the cathedral. Hopping in our silver Skoda hatchback, we
zipped down the Autobahn--love the no-speed-limit sections--to Koblenz and
turned west on the smaller road along the Mosel river. This is one of
Germany's biggest wine-producing regions and the vineyards grow up every
hillside at angles that made us wonder how they ever manage to harvest
them. We stopped briefly to take a picture of the castle overlooking
Cochem, but our first real break was in Zell, where we got some pizza and
tasted their famous "Schwarze Katz" wine. The story is that when some
wine-merchants came through the valley, trying to decide what wine to buy, a
black cat jumped on a wine-barrel and raised its hackles, spitting and
yowling, as if trying to save the best stuff for itself. The merchants
established a very lucrative relationship with the town and the cat became
their symbol. We tried the "trocken" (dry), "halbtrocken" (semi-dry) and
"lieblich" (sweet) varieties and decided to take a bottle of the dry home
with us.

Moving on from Zell, we stopped again briefly in Bernkastel-Kues to stroll
through the picturesque streets and get some ice cream before retreating to
our air conditioned car and continuing on to Trier. Despite our hotel
having a different name than we'd expected, we found it and checked in. Set
slightly outside of the main part of town, it is an older, American style
hotel--but without the benefits of air conditioning. We opened the windows
overlooking a gorgeous view across the Mosel and headed off again,
determined to see Luxemburg while we were so close.

In an hour we were in Luxemburg City, where we parked and strolled for an
hour. Having arrived so late in the day, the only thing that was open was
an interesting church, but we walked through the main square of the old
town, where a jazz band was entertaining the summer crowd, and went over to
look across what was once a river and is now a small stream through a
gorgeous park in the gorge east of the city. On the other side was a
building that looked like a castle or palace, but which our maps identified
as the headquarters of the national bank. Our curiosity satisfied and not
yet being hungry for dinner, we retrieved our car from the lot and headed
back to Germany.

There was a huge festival taking place in the pedestrianized old town of
Trier. In addition to hundreds of booths and stands--including several
impressive temporary bars--there were at least five different stages with
bands of various types performing for the crowds. The largest was set into
the main arch of the Porta Nigra, the remains of one of the gates in the
wall built by the Romans around what was then the northernmost outpost of
their empire. Trier thus lays claim to being the oldest city in Germany.
It is also the birthplace of Karl Marx. As we strolled around town, we came
across "Modehaus Marx," a decidedly bourgeois clothing store. We also saw
the basilica originally erected by Constantine, apparently extensively
restored and now attached to an alarmingly pink baroque church with lovely
gardens. Eventually we chose an Italian restaurant for dinner and had a
mediocre meal of veal saltimboca and gnocchi in meat sauce before heading
back to our hotel for the night.

Monday morning we were on the road reasonably early and made it back to
Koblenz on the Autobahn in good time. We had a bit of trouble finding
Ehrenbach castle, but eventually tracked it down on the eastern cliffs of
the Rhine. Ehrenbach castle itself wasn't terribly interesting, but the
views from its battlements were lovely and its strategic importance obvious,
as it overlooks the confluence of the Rhine and the Mosel. We could look
across and see the "Deutches Eck," or "German Corner," where the rivers
meet. It is decorated with a statue of Kaiser Wilhelm that was destroyed in
WWII, but has been replaced as a somewhat controversial symbol of German
unity. Leaving there, to the strains of Aida being rehearsed for a
performance that night, we crossed back to the western side of the Rhine and
went down that fabled road, enjoying stunning views around every bend.

Our only stop along the way was at St. Goar, where we visited Rheinfels
castle. Towering above the town, this was the fortress of one of the
robber-baron families who exacted tolls from the river traffic for
centuries. Little remains except ruins, but there's a mildly interesting
museum and they've built a hotel and restaurant into the outer walls. The
main keep is still mostly intact and the view from the top is breathtaking.
After scrambling about the walls, we were ready for lunch and found a place
on the pedestrianized shopping street of St. Goar that provided us with our
first bratwurst of the trip.

Continuing south and east, we swung around Mainz and crossed the river again
to Wiesbaden. Just west of the city is a monastery that was mentioned in
our guidebook as being the filming location for _The Name of the Rose_.
Intrigued, we found the place and were somewhat surprised to find it looked
nothing whatsoever like our memories of the movie. Instead of forbidding
grey stone, we found cheery whitewashed buildings. Touring the church and
dormitory, however, we found one familiar room, an enormous vaulted chamber
which served as the set of the scriptorium in the movie. There was also an
interesting German variation on the cloister, much less open to the elements
than its counterparts further south. The monastery also operates a winery,
so we sampled their wares, but got back on the road without taking any with
us.

The next stage on our journey took us through the charming wooded hills of
the Odenwald. We made one stop, at Michelstadt, to see their bizarre 15th
century Rathaus, set up off the ground on arches, and to peek into the
Gothic church behind it. Back on the road, we sped along the banks of the
lovely Main river, before finally reaching the Autobahn again and zooming
south to Rothenburg op der Tauber, a charming medieval walled town on the
banks of the Tauber river.

I had received confirmation of our reservation at the Hotel Gerberhaus, but
they had no record of us. Fortunately, they were able to find a room for us
a few blocks closer to the center of town, at the Gasthof Glocke.
Unfortunately, by the time we'd sorted out our accommodations, it was almost
10pm and everything in town was closed--except the McDonald's. Not gourmet
fare, but after a long day on the road we were just happy not to go to bed
hungry.

The next morning we followed the path outlined in the hotel's brochure,
which took us to the main square, with its two-section Rathaus in Gothic and
Renaissance styles. We climed the 60-meter tower to look out over the town.
It reminded us of San Gimignano, with all the towers over the various gates
in the medieval wall. Descending to the street, we saw the fountain of
St. George and visited an insanely enormous Christmas shop with millions of
different ornaments and decorations. From there we went on to the church of
St. Jacob, mainly famous for the elaborate carved wooded altarpiece created
to house the "Heilige Blut," or drop of Christ's blood, that made the church
a major pilgrimage site in its day. We found the Burggarten, on the site of
the former castle, looking out over the Tauber. Our last stop was the
Museum of Crime, which outlines legal procedures and--most
dramatically--punishments during the Middle Ages. Jason's favorites were
the elaborate "shame masks" forced upon the perpetrators of various
peace-disturbing infractions like gossipping, lying, and gambling.

Leaving Rothenburg o.d.T. (as it is marked on all the highway signs), we
found the "Romantische Strasse" or "Romantic Road." This led us south
through more picturesque towns, fields and woods, to the Ries Valley. The
valley is 20 km across and quite circular. It was believed to be the crater
of a long-gone volcano, but research earlier in this century proved that it
was created by a meteorite impact 15 million years ago. Apparently the
Apollo crews trained here as part of their moon-landing preparations.

On the southern rim of the crater, we found Harburg castle. The seat of the
Oettingen family, it was first mentioned in writing in 1150, although it
wasn't new at that point. Starving, we decided to take our chances at the
castle's cafe and were rewarded with a tasty bowl of tortellini in brodo and
some of the best bratwurst we had on the trip. After lunch, we were just in
time to make the 3pm tour of the castle. The tour before ours was a horde
of junior-high students and the tour after ours was a special event,
complete with a period-costumed troubadour, for a group of at least fifty
people. But there were only four people on our tour and since none of us
spoke German, the guide--a very friendly, cheerful woman in her 50's--simply
switched to English. We saw the castle's chapel, redone in the baroque
style in 1720, and the wall-walk. That had several interesting protective
features, including fender beams for the hook guns--early rifles with enough
recoil to throw shooters off the wall. Another set of slots looked suitable
for pouring oil or tar on would-be invaders below, but the guide explained
that those were expensive and dangerous, so they combined limestone with
water and poured the resulting acid down on their foes. The most ingenious
devices were wooden "eyeballs" set into holes in the wall. The central hole
was big enough for the barrel of a rifle and could be rotated to shoot in any
direction or to stopper the hole entirely, protecting the shooters from
return fire while they reloaded. After that set of intriguing stories, we
continued around the wall to two different towers used as prisons at various
times. One included two torture chambers, a "dark room" used for sensory
deprivation, and a "sweatroom" by which prisoners could be dehydrated and
tortured by heat. The last stop on the tour was a gorgeous, refurbished,
baroque ballroom.

Leaving Harburg, we continued down the Romantische Strasse, which actually
runs through a tunnel directly under the castle--under the chapel's
cemetary, to be precise. We made it to Augsburg and found our hotel despite
the name again being different from the one we'd been given. After checking
in, we went out to stroll through town. This was the night of Germany's
quarter-final victory in the World Cup, so there was much revelry, including
a huge mob making havoc on Maximillianstrasse, the main drag of the old
town. We edged our way around that, noticed the fairly boring facade of the
Fuggerhaus, and stopped into an interesting church at the end of the
street. The Fuggers were the wealthiest and most influential family in
Augsburg during its heyday as a banking capital in the 15th century. They
endowed a large complex of almshouses which are still inhabited by elderly
folk for "peppercorn rent" in exchange for their prayers for the souls of
the Fuggers. We found this complex, the "Fuggerei" and wandered through
what seemed to be a very pleasant senior community. Chalked on many of the
doors was "20+C+M+B+02," a mysterious symbol we would see again and again.

We passed by the cathedral, but it was closed for the evening. We were
amused to see a young girl in the adjacent park playing ball with a memorial
statue of some dead leader by bouncing her ball off its plinth.

Making our way back toward the hotel we passed a store having a sidewalk
sale and I found two light t-shirts at a bargain price. We hadn't found any
tempting dinner options on our walk, so we decided to try a Chinese place a
couple of blocks from the hotel. It was an adequate meal, but as greasy as
I remember German Chinese food from previous trips.

We were sorry not to be able to visit more of the places we'd found on our
walk, but we knew we had a big day of driving on Wednesday and wanted to get
an early start. On the road before 8am, we made it down to the Fuessen area
a little before ten. Here the Wittelsbach rulers of Bavaria built their
mountain getaways in the 19th century. With limited time, we passed up
Hohenschwangau--the 12th-century castle largely destroyed by Napoleon and
restored by Maximillian II--in favor of his son's fantasy castle,
Neuschwanstein. The model for the Disney castle, Neuschwanstein is an
outrageously beautiful building in a stunning setting. The bus up the hill
deposited us near the Marienbrucke, the bridge over the gorge above the
castle, which provides splendid views of the castle on its crag below. The
interior of the castle--the small section that was finished--is an elaborate
tribute to the operas of Richard Wagner. Ludwig II loved opera and theatre
and the look of the castle--inside and out--was the work of set designers.
Less than six months after he took up residence at the castle, Ludwig's
councillors tired of his penchant for building projects that drained
Bavaria's coffers--Neuschwanstein was the third of four Ludwig planned.
They seized him from the elaborately decorated bedroom here--the work of 14
woodcarvers over 4.5 years--and had him declared insane and deposed. Very
shortly afterward, he and his psychiatrist drowned under mysterious
circumstances, and the castle was opened to the public five weeks later.

Leaving the castle, we had a pleasant walk down the steep slopes to the
parking area. It was hot, but there was plenty of shade, a nice breeze,
and a convenient bratwurst stand along the way.

We set off again, climbing further up into the Alps as we crossed into
Austria and wound around and through the precipitous heights. The small,
red-roofed towns nestled in the high valleys between the peaks were
intensely charming and picturesque. We found the highway near Innsbruck and
turned north, passing back into Germany briefly on our way to Salzburg. At
the Hotel Carlton we were pleasantly surprised by a very nice room, with
lovely furnishings and a cozy sitting area. We dropped our bags there and
had a short nap before exploring the city. Starting with a stroll through
the Mirabell Gardens, we found our way to the Marktplatz, where the church
was still open. After a brief visit, we passed the Mozart Residence and
wandered out to the river. The bridge immediately ahead of us was closed
for a bike race and we watched the competitors whizzing across its span
before we turned to cross at the next bridge. We walked down Getreidegasse,
a busy pedestrian shopping street, past the Mozart Birthplace. Then we
passed through the Karajanplatz with its fancy horsepond built by one of the
prince archbishops who ruled Salzburg and walked by the Collegiate Church
built for the University around the turn of the 18th century. The
Franzsikanerkirche was open for a service, so we peeked in to see the
romanesque nave, elaborate round gothic chancel, and lavish baroque altar.

Continuing through the maze of streets and passageways, we looked at the
cathedral and at St. Peter's abbey church, both of which were closed. Next
to the latter was St. Peter's Stiftskeller, which claims to be the oldest
restaurant in Europe. It was mentioned in a letter from 803, when it was
the abbot's guesthouse and provided dinner to a traveler. We decided to
give it a try and were well rewarded with a very good meal. Jason had the
cream of parmesan soup with arugula, a wonderful thinly sliced steak stuffed
with mushrooms in a sherry cream sauce, and a delightful plate of
whiskey-marinated peaches for dessert. I started with the "variation on
carpaccio," which included a small scoop of cold garlic mashed potatoes,
continued with the traditional Hungarian goulash--stewed beef and a wiener
in a sauce heavy with paprika--with an enormous dumpling, and finished off
with the wonderful apple strudel. After dinner we continued our ramble,
taking in the Kapitalplatz, where we enjoyed seeing people playing a game of
chess on the large board in the pavement there, and wandering around the
back of the cathedral to the Residenzplatz and on into Mozartplatz, where an
unworthy busker was playing at the feet of the statue.

We found an internet cafe there--the first we'd come across in our
travels--so we dove in to check our email. We are in the process of looking
for a house in the Boston area, with Beckie spearheading the legwork back
there, so there was much news to get through. It was dark by the time we
left--so far north at this time of year it's not full dark until nearly
eleven--so we simply strolled back to the hotel. With our room on the
ground floor and the need to keep the windows open, it was fairly noisy, but
we got to sleep pretty easily.

On Thursday we retraced our steps somewhat and after a quick stop at the
post office to mail some cards we visited the Mozart Residence at the
Tanzmeisterhaus in Marktplatz, where Mozart lived with his parents and
sister, 1773-1787. The exhibits there are interesting, but the audioguide
is flaky and the rooms were warm and crowded, so we moved through pretty
quickly. We also visited Mozart's Birthplace, the third-floor apartment
where he was born in 1756. That was less crowded and had such interesting
items as Mozart's first violin. From there we went to the Residenz, the
seat of the price archbishops until the 19th century, and toured the
staterooms, lavishly decorated in baroque style, including highly decorated
enameled stoves for heating the high-ceilinged rooms. Upstairs is a small
art gallery, with a special exhibit on the tulip and a permanent collection
with a few good pieces and many unremarkable works.

From there we went across the platz to the cathedral, with its intricate
stucco work all outlined in black. We wandered through, looking at the
various artworks in the nave and dome, and went down to the crypt, to see
the Romanesque crucifix from the 13th century. We wound through the
cemetery next to St. Peter's abbey church, noticing a number of unusual
metal grave-markers and lovely flower beds planted over some of the graves.
We paid our one euro each to climb up into the "catacombs" in the adjacent
cliff, but felt like it was too much work for not enough interest. Finally,
we stopped into the church itself, which is a lovely, frothy baroque
creation. After that it was another visit to the internet cafe to check
email and grab pannini for lunch and then we picked up our car from the
hotel and sped toward Munich.

Well, we tried to speed, but were thwarted by a line of traffic several
miles long created by a merge down to one-lane for about 100 yards. After
that frustration was hurdled we made good time into the city and found the
Hotel Daniel. Through an Expedia screw-up they had *five* rooms reserved
for us, but were very gracious about only charging us for the one we used.
We took a short nap and then went in search of dinner. We walked through
the pedestrianized section of the old town, past the enormous and
fantastically gothic Rathaus, and found the Galleria restaurant on
Sparkassestrasse, which had sounded good in the guidebook.

This was easily the best meal of our trip. While they have a standard menu,
their specialty is a tasting menu of five or six courses, depending on
whether you want main dishes of meat or fish or both. We both chose "meat"
and the hostess asked if there were anything we didn't eat. That and
choosing wine were the only decisions we had to make. We started off with
glasses of prosecco--Italian sparkling wine--followed by a bottle of 1998
Monsordo Ceretto, a syrah from Alba. It was very good, with a buttery
aftertaste that we'd never before encountered in a red wine.

Our meal started with a small bowl of basil-infused broth with a ravioli
stuffed with roasted tomato. That was followed by a small portion of
monkfish served with chick-pea mash and parsley puree. Next came two small
pasta courses: twisted handmade pasta with octopus and roasted tomatoes and
spaghetti Amatriciana (with bacon and parmesan). Our main course was a
thick filet of veal, served in a wine demi-glace with very sweet new
potatoes and steamed vegetables. For dessert they served us a particularly
fine creme brulee with a small salad of strawberries, kiwi and those little
yellow fruit (the hostess said they're called something like "fizuli" in
Italian, but she doesn't know an English name for them), along with a glass
of moscato d'Asti, a sparkling dessert wine. It was too hot for us to order
coffee, but our check came with a plate of tiny little sweets, each
different and wonderful. Everything was delicious and the octopus was some
of the best I've ever had. The staff were very friendly and we found that
the hostess' boyfriend is the chef and her younger brother is the other
waiter. They are all from Venice and have their seafood flown in from there
every other day. What a delightful evening!

On Friday morning we returned our car at the main train station and then
walked up to the Alte Pinakothek, which houses a major collection of
European (mainly German, some Italian and Dutch, a few Spanish and English)
works. We particularly enjoyed the paintings by Durer and they had some
particularly good Raphaels, a couple of wonderful Titian portraits, a
substantial collection of Van Dycks and an interesting series of the
Stations of the Cross by Rembrandt, along with a tiny self-portrait. When
we were finished there we took the tram back to our hotel, grabbed
Polische-wurst (what we would call kielbase) from a stand in the subway
station and headed back to the Rathaus to meet our guide for the afternoon.

This was our day to go to the site of the Dachau concentration camp. Our
guide, Charlie, was excellent and very personally interested in his subject.
He managed to strike a good balance between recitation of the facts and
evocative anecdotes and details of the horror that took place there. There
were only two other people on our tour--recent Cornell grads--so we were
able to move quickly and get a lot of information in a short period of time.
Charlie led us through the train-and-bus route to Dachau, walked us through
the museum and then left us time to explore it on our own before the next
English showing of the film. The film includes photographs and films from
the camp during its operation and liberation and is simultaneously
dispassionate and horrifying. After the film Charlie guided us to the
"bunker" of cells for prisoners not held in the barracks for various
reasons, out to the gate with its gruesomely ironic slogan "Work Makes One
Free," and to the gas chamber and crematorium just outside the main camp.
The gas chamber there was never used, for reasons unknown, and Dachau was
not one of the "extermination camps," like Auschwitz. However, it was the
first camp and the model of organization and operation developed there
became the model for all the other camps. While there was no effort at mass
extinction here, there was plenty of suffering, torture, and
death--malnutrition, overwork, overcrowding, disease and the sadistic rules,
games, punishments, and executions meted out by the SS guards. The deaths
recorded in the camp records total just under 32,000 during its twelve years
of operation, but many more were not recorded and some estimate the actual
total to be closer to 200,000. As we walked over the grounds, I realized
that I was surprised at some level that there was no smell, that the charnel
stench of the place could ever have faded. Charlie returned again and again
to the twin themes of organization and secrecy, in which records were kept
and rules promulgated in extraordinary detail about the most vicious
activities, the obsessive compulsive rituals of a collective insanity.
Dachau is horrifying, terrifying, sickening, sobering, and sad beyond all
telling.

It had been a cool, grey day earlier, but by the time we returned to Munich,
the sun had come out and it was lovely. Charlie suggested that we should
really go to a beer garden and recommended the one at the Chinese Tower in
the Englischegarten. We strolled through the Italianate gardens of the
Residenz and then through the shady paths that reminded us both of Regents
Park, earning the title of "English gardens." We found the Chinese Tower
and ordered ourselves some beer and a grill platter for two that included a
chicken breast, a slice of roast suckling pig, a steak, potatoes, and
vegetables for each of us. After devouring that, we walked through the
increasingly chilly evening to the U-Bahn and took that back to the main
train station, where I went off to find an internet cafe while Jason went on
to the hotel to try to make their wireless networking system work with his
laptop.

We started off Saturday morning with the relatively long walk to the
Deutches Museum, located on an island in the Isar river. This is the most
enormous, comprehensive museum of science and technology I have ever
experienced. There is an entire reconstruction of a coal mine, a replica of
a Spanish cave with prehistoric paintings like the one in Lascaux, sections
on electric power, aeronautics, astronautics, astronomy, geology, geography,
technical toys, paper, ceramics, glass, boats of various sizes and types,
railways, carriages, bicycles, automobiles, bridges, hydroengineering, oil &
natural gas exploration/mining/refining, etc., etc., etc. It went on
forever. After several hours there, we had some lunch in their
restaurant--"inoffensive" chicken curry for Jason and wiener-wurst with
goulash soup for me--before heading back into town for another guided tour.

We met our guide at the Rathaus and she explained that she would do the tour
if there were four people. No one else arrived and she asked what we would
do. We said we would go ahead and visit the palaces included in the tour on
our own and she decided that since she wasn't doing anything else, she might
as well get paid, so she gave us the tour anyway. Elena is originally from
the Dominican Republic, where she met her German boyfriend while she was
still in high school. She came to Munich with him five years ago, studied
marketing for a while, dropped out, and is now planning to return to the
university in the fall to study translation. Her English wasn't perfect,
but it was okay. The biggest problem was that she is not the regular
guide--or even the back-up--for this tour, but normally does the city tour,
so she didn't really know very much about the palaces. She had done some
research in the two days since she'd been assigned to this tour and it was
definitely worthwhile to have someone else figuring out which trams to take
and dealing with tickets and looking up details in the guidebooks.

First we visited the Residenz, the city home of the Wittelsbach family who
ruled Bavaria from the 12th century until WWI. Much of the palace was
destroyed in WWII, but has been rebuilt in strict accordance with surviving
pictures and memories and is an impressive place. Much of what we saw was
high baroque rooms dripping with gilt stucco-work. The Hall of Ancestors,
where the Wittelsbachs traced their descent back to Charlemagne and beyond,
was one of the most successful versions of the baroque hall we've seen,
managing to achieve a harmony and balance that too many similar rooms topple
with ornament.

Next we took two trams out to Nymphenburg, the Wittelsbachs' summer mansion
in the western suburbs of Munich. It's a lovely, Italianate Villa, with
gorgeous grounds. The most striking feature of the main villa is the
"Schoenheitsgalerie," a collection of portraits of 36 beauties of the day,
painted for the viewing pleasure of Ludwig I. The grounds include several
whimsical hunting lodges and pavilions, including a pink rococco one built
for Maria Amalia and her beloved dogs, who had their own room with kennels
built into the walls. Our last stop was in the stables, where many of the
ornate carriages and sleighs are on display, along with a series of
portraits of particularly beloved mounts and their elaborate tack. It was
clear that Ludwig II's flights of fantasy were not limited to his
castles--one of his sleighs, decorated with nymphs, made Jason think of the
Snow Queen. Leaving there, we caught the train back into the city, checked
our email and headed back to the hotel to pack and nap.

We weren't quite sure what we wanted for dinner, but as we wandered through
the old town, we saw one restaurant specializing in fondue and that seemed
appealing. We shared an hors d'oeuvres plate of house-marinated salmon with
wonderful fresh horseradish, some ham, and a couple of different types of
pate, followed by an enormous cheese fondue with bread and vegetables to dip
in it. It wasn't quite as good as the one we had in Zurich, but it made a
good meal and the dark, cozy atmosphere of the restaurant was pleasant.

After dinner we walked the rest of the way back to the Deutches Museum where
we took in the IMAX 3D Cirque du Soleil movie. It was structured as a
journey through life and included performances of Taiko drumming, water
ballet, the "cube guy," an incredibly strong man and woman doing a
slow-motion evolution of poses, and a team of acrobats, as well as the
fantastic clowns and creatures typical of the Cirque. The whole thing was
filmed in various exotic locations--underwater, in a lush forest, amid the
red wind-carved rocks of the southwest, and in a neo-classical temple. The
whole thing was shorter than we had expected--only about half an hour--but
that meant we could get back to the hotel around midnight and not be too
tired on our last day.

We checked out on Sunday morning and left our luggage with the hotel while
we took the tram back out to the museum district to visit the Neue
Pinakothek, which houses a very fine collection of 18th- and 19th-century
works, from German Romantics to French Impressionists. Our favorite piece
was one by Franz von Stuck, a new name for us. We were disappointed that
the Pinakothek der Moderne is closed until September, but one of the sales
clerks in the Neue Pinakothek recommended that we try the Lenbachhaus. This
turned out to be an Italianate villa not far from the other museums. There
was a strange exhibit of works by Lisa Unger and a collection of epic
photographs by Thomas Ruff, as well as an uninspiring set of 19th century
landscapes and domestic scenes. One of the highlights is the Kandinsky
collection, which includes many of the artist's own works, as well many by
other members of the Blauer Reiter group of Expressionist painters. We were
especially enamored of the work of Franz Marc and bought a print of a
wonderful "Tiger" that is reminiscent of the work of the Italian Futurists
we enjoy. The other interesting section is the "historical rooms," filled
with paintings by Franz von Lenbach, the last owner of the house, whose
widow convinced the city to buy it and his collection. The villa was
substantially damaged during WWII and only a small suite of rooms have been
restored to something like their original appearance.

Jason had been interested in seeing one of the several toy museums we'd
passed on our journey, so we dashed back to the Marienplatz and visited the
Spielzeug Museum housed in the tower of the old town hall. They have quite
a collection of toys, including retired dolls, vintage model cars and
hundreds of teddy bears of different sizes, shapes, functions and
descriptions.

We felt silly not to have gotten inside the Frauenkirche, whose onion-domed
towers are one of the most noticeable landmarks of Munich, so we ducked in
there for a quick look around before dashing back to the hotel, grabbing a
bite of food along the way. We thought we'd left plenty of time, but we
were delayed in a search for the right change for the train ticket machines
and the ride out to the airport was longer than we'd expected, so we ran up
to the check-in desk only 35 minutes before our flight was scheduled to
depart. The clerk checked us in and assured us the bags would be on the
flight and we ran for our gate. Of course, then we were held up by a family
in front of us at passport control, who paused right in front of the window
after they'd been checked through, to take a cellphone call. Then the
passport official's phone rang and he talked while processing our passports
with some delay. Then the guy ahead of us in the security line was slowly
emptying all his pockets in front of the x-ray machine and the guard
wouldn't let Jason go ahead of him. When Jason was allowed to put his pack
on the conveyor belt, the guard made him take out his laptop and put that
through separately. Then the metal detector went off as I went through and
I had to wait while the only female guard wanded the woman who'd been
talking on the cellphone at the passport desk. Then she had to wand me up,
down and sideways--and get no bleeps whatsoever. Finally we ran up to our
gate, were passed through and were the last people onto the bus out to our
plane. As we got on, breathing heavily, with adrenaline racing, I sat down
and said to Jason "There! Now we're not late anymore." We were very
relieved, as we boarded, to actually see our bags going onto the plane.

Our flight was smooth and there were lovely views of the countryside across
Germany and Belgium and we approached London City Airport straight up the
Thames. The M25 was backed up as far as the eye could see to the south,
making us very glad this wasn't the day we were trying to drive back from
Dover. We arrived, passed through immigration uneventfully, and walked into
the baggage hall just in time to grab our bags off the belt. We took a
shuttle bus to Canary Wharf, changed to the tube and were home about 75
minutes after landing, which makes it about 45 minutes closer than
Heathrow. Anne & George were off having dinner with Barbara, which gave us
a chance to catch our breaths, read our email, and begin to settle back into
the demands of being home. They had bought us a gorgeous bunch of flowers
to welcome us back and seem to have had a great time while we were gone.