Munich Weekend Part 1

In which I take a night train, see a palace, and get rather wet.

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This post as well as the subsequent posts marked "Munich Weekend" record my adventures during the Corpus Christi weekend. Corpus Christi is another June Catholic holiday which falls on a Thursday resulting in a four day weekend. (For real, we could have so many more days off if we weren't such sticklers about the separation of church and state). For those who don't know, Corpus Christi is a celebration of the sacrament of communion, started because a woman (now sainted) had visions of Christ telling her this needed to be a holiday. She thought she was crazy at first so she didn't tell anybody until about forty years later. Her priest told his bishop who told the pope, who was like OMG, why didn't I know about this, this is hereby a holiday. And now it's a holiday. It's sort of a "super-communion". At any rate, I got the day off so I went to Munich (or Munchen, depending on your level of German-ness) for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Due to the sheer length of these posts and the sloth-like procedure of photo uploading no pictures will be included. Alright, off we go.

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I had such a miserable time last time I traveled by night, what with all the switches and waiting and not sleeping, that this time I decided to fork over the extra dough for the sleeper train. You have many options when it comes to sleeper trains ranging from a seat with a footrest to a private cabin. I went with the reasonably priced "couchette" model, which basically means you and five other stingy people are in bunk beds in the world's smallest compartment. The bed was perfectly "Jackie-size"; that is to say, I could stretch out and be comfortable, but most people would not fit. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of falling asleep on a train and waking up in a new city.

Upon arriving in Munich, I wandered around the station for a while looking for the right street to my hostel. The hostel by the way is very nice. Quite possibly the nicest so far. Easy Palace City Hostel. Best part? Literally 100 ft from a metro station (which if I had known from the beginning would have made it easier to locate the hostel).

 I then set off for my day. My groupmates had told me that I needed to see the Deutsches Museum. At first I was thinking, Germany history? yawn, but it's actually a science and technology museum. Think Smithsonian, but more sciencey and minus all that life sciences nonsense (jk). It was nerdy heaven. Boats, airplanes, and astronautics, plus physics, lasers, and old scientific equipment. I've now seen one of the world's first vacuum chambers! (I know you don't care but stay with me). I was also the only in the room who knew what it was. This little british boy who couldn't have been more than 6 was like, "Daddy, what's that do?" and his father was like "I haven't got the foggiest idea" and I piped up with "It's a vacuum chamber; it sucks out all the air out of that glass part. If you put a marshmallow in there it'll shrivel up" (don't ask why I felt it necessary to include the information on the marshmallow). They were duly impressed and looked at me like "American weirdo". Anyway, the museum was great and it's so big you could easily spend several days there. My only disappointment was that the scientific chemistry section was closed for renovation. Phooey.

Next stop: Marienplatz. Famous Rathaus: check. Signature cathedral: check. Various important looking statues and buildings: check and check. I was starting to get rained on so I went in search of my favorite indoor activity: a giant palace. Munich just so happens to have one: the Munich Residenz. Be warned: this will take you hours. It is huge, and unlike a lot of royal abodes, you can see most of it. Travelers Tip: go in the afternoon. According to my audio guide, more rooms are open then for no apparent reason. I just lucked out. Due to intense damage in WWII (whoopsie) much of the palace is no longer completely original, but they've saved a lot of it and restored the rest to its former glory.

Bit of history for you. This is where the Bavarian royal court spent most of its time. The first King Maximillian did most of the expanding and building on to the palace, and it became known throughout Europe as a model of how the royal lived. Later King Ludwig I did more expanding. Our builder King Ludwig II probably spent a good bit of time here as well. Probably my favorite room was the banquet hall. Paintings all over the ceiling and the walls are lined with Roman/Grecian busts. The weirdest room (in any place I have ever visited to date) was the relics collection. Holy moly that is sooooo creepy. Normally, you go in a cathedral, there's a large sculpture/painting and an ornately decorated box with a sign saying shrine and relics of St. Someone Who Died. Oh no. These are sheltered versions of the old school relics. Ornate gold and glass and all that jazz is still there, but with these reliquaries you can see the relic. I'm talking femurs held in gold stands, mummified hands in glass boxes, a miniature glass chasse containing a mummified toddler and the bones of others (supposedly the victims of King Herod), and the skulls of John the Baptist (allegedly) and other saints sitting on velvet cushions. Creepy creepy creepy.

Several hours and almost a hundred decadent rooms later, I left the Residenz museum in a state of near nirvana. And promptly went over the moon when I walked into the Treasury. So Sparkly! My cup runneth over. My final stop in the Residenz complex was the Royal Theater/Opera house. It was pretty nice, but not as cool as the Palais Garnier in Paris. Thus really only a five minute stop for pictures.

By this point it was close to 4:30 and I was what you might call STARVING. I tried to find with no success before I hurried back to the Rathaus for the Glockenspiele (German for clock chiming). I had missed the earlier ones so I wanted to be super sure to be there for one at 5. I and some 50 other people stood in the rain staring up at figurines dancing on the Rathaus tower high above us while the bells chimed some nice folksy sounding music. I kept thinking I recognized the tune but was never able to put my finger on it. During the first song there's a wedding scene (Duke Wilhelm V according to wikipedia) with a joust and the second song has some people dancing (the internet says that some dudes went dancing through the streets of Munich so everybody would know the plague was over). Anyway the whole thing is pretty famous so naturally I had to see it and it was pretty entertaining. For dinner I had Bavarian white sausage. Not bad at all, but rather difficult to eat.

My last adventure of the day was going to the top of the St. Peter's church tower. Now there are several towers in the downtown Munich area willing to charge you a small fee to avail yourself of their city views. I chose this one because a) it was the cheapest and b) it was across the street from where I ate dinner. There is a catch: this one does not have an elevator. Just 306 steps to the top. Or so they tell me. I didn't count. It was worth the effort though. During my time up there, the church decided it was time to chime for evening mass. Being at the top of a bell tower while the bells gong somewhere beneath your feet is an exceptional feeling. I can't describe it except to say that your whole body is vibrating in tune with that bell tone. Eventually I'd had enough so I headed down and I was glad I started to leave before the bells stopped. On the stairway there were 3 little windows I had not noticed on the way up that looked into the bell room. This giant bell the size of an SUV (and weighing probably three times as much) was swinging back and forth as graceful as you please. I'll never forget how big it was or the ease with which it moved. Sometimes it's the unexpected little things that have the most profound effect.