Friday 1 December 2006

We take Underground (U-bahn) to Marienplatz and start to walk down the Neuhauserstraße. We have coffee near the Frauenkirche,  the cathedral of Munich. We take a look at cathedral with its high nave and stained glass windows. Striking features are the two 99 metre high towers topped with halfround onionshaped domes, that dominate the skyline. We continue down the street and visit the Michael church, built during the counter reformation. In 1583 duke Wilhelm V the Pious initiated the construction, which was completed in 1597. The church is the first renaissance church North of the Alps and has the second largest barrel ceiling in the world with a span of 20 metres. The theme of the fighting St Michael battling for the faith is visible throughout the church. It has a nice Choir and the crypt holds the graves of many a Bavarian duke or king from the Wittelsbach dynasty.  On Karsplatz (also named Stachus) near the  Karl gate there is an ice rink, where there is normally a fountain. The Karl gate is a city gate originally dating back to 1391, but which has been remodeled in the late 19th century in a neo-gothic style. Here we take the U-bahn again, this time to the museum district around Königsplatz. We start at the Propyläen, a neoclassic construction built in the honour the recognition of Otto, son of king Ludwig I, as the king of Greece in 1832. We walk along the likewise neoclassical Staatliche Antikensammlung (State Antiquity collection; 1845) and the Glyptotek (1830; antiquity statues) via the  Brienerstraße to the Karolinenplatz with the obelisk. Here we take a left into Barerstraße in the direction of the Alte Pinakothek and Neue Pinakothek. The Alte from 1836 has lots of old art (middle ages through 19th century) while the Neue from 1981 covers the period 1800-1920. We visit the Pinakotek der Moderne. The building from 2002 offers a modern collection and special exhibitions. This time it has a retrospective of the light artist  Dan Flavin. Beside that there is a lot of applied art en design. After the museum visit we take the U-bahn to the Schwabing district where we have lunch in an Italian restaurant.

Later in the afternoon we take the regional S-bahn to Dachau. There we visit the KZ-gedenkstätte, or the memorial to the concentration camp of Dachau. The main building and some of the barracks are what is left of this concentration camp that saw over 200.000 inmates who underwent forced labour, torture, medical experiments, famine and many of whom succumbed to the attrocities. The camp started out in 1933 as facility for members of the opposition groups, who were taken into "preventive custody". The poor village of Dachau welcomed the camp which offered jobs, both in the camp as outside at supplying companies. Although it was not a destruction camp - the gas chambers were never put to use - the conditions for the prisoners (social Democrats, communists, gypsies, gays, Russians, Poles, Jews and many others) were horrible. Even after the liberation by the US army in April 1945 people still died from the effects of the maltreatment.  There is an exhibition on the history of the camp in the main building. It also gives the context of the rise of the Nazi's and the Second World War that followed. It shows a nasty picture of the only camp that served throughout the Nazi era from 1933 until 1945. After the war the camp was used as a refugee camp for displaced persons from Eastern Europe. This prevented the locals from coming to terms with the real significance of the camp. Not before 1964 the last of its inhabitants moved on and part of the camp became a memorial and musueum. The memorial was redeveloped between 1997 and 2003 and the exhibition got a new lay out. The website offers a virtual guided tour.

Back in town we arrive at Marienplatz, where the Christkinlmarkt (Christmas market) is about to be officially opened. It very busy. That's why we go directly to the  Hofbräuhaus to indulge in the typical Bavarian tradition of the Biergarten (Beer Garden) or Bierkeller (Beer Cellar). The Hofbräuhaus is the most famous of the lot, especially among tourists. It can hold over a 1,000 people at any one time. Drinking beer is the main draw. It comes by the litre (1,76 UK Pints or 2,11 US Pints), only the Weißbier (White Beer) comes in glasses half that size. The place gets lots of tourist, but also many Bavarians, especially on Fridays, when many tables are reserved for so called Stammtische or drinking clubs. The members (all male) come all dressed up their traditional leather costumes and feathered hats to celebrate their weekly beer binge. After 6pm a Bavarian band starts contributing to the fun. It is a noisy, and a bit tacky form of amusement, but interesting nonetheless and quite bearable for an hour or so. 

  We retreat to the hotel for a bit before we go for dinner at Selig in the gay triangle near the Sendling Gate.  After that we explore the gay scene a bit further.  

Saturday 2 December 2006

We start with coffee near the hotel and then go downtown for some shopping. The Marienplatz and the Neuhauserstraße are filled to capacity. At 11am  Town Hall glockenspiel starts to play. A beautiful spectacle that we had not have the opportunity to watch until now. It shows the wedding of duke Wilhelm V to Renata von Lotharingen in 1568, including the tournament that took place on Marienplatz on that occasion. The lower part of the glockenspiel shows the Schäfferltanz (cooper dance). The glockenspiel is the world's fifth largest and first sounded in 1908. It is extremely busy on the square, where the admirers of the glockenspiel, the visitors of the Christmas market and the Saturday shoppers fight for space. We do some shopping in various shops and department stores before sit down at café Stacherias on Karlsplatz. 

After a while we take the U-bahn to Sendlinger Tor and have some lunch at Kraftakt. We take the tram back to the hotel to fetch our baggage. By now it is time to take the S-bahn to the airport. We take S-8 and get there within 40 minutes. We have again checked in through Internet. The printing of the boarding pass goes much smoother now, now we got the hang of the thing and know what watch out for. We also check the suitcases automatically. At 5pm we take off in a smallish aircraft and a handful of passengers for Amsterdam. We get there by 6.15pm and take the 6.43 train service back to Rotterdam.