germany: munich

I hadn't orignally planned to spend any time in Munich, but when bus schedules forced me to spend a day there, I didn't mind. I used to live a little over an hour away, so I'd visited before. Howeva, those were the days before smart phones, social media and the like.

My bus arrived on time, though I don't remember exactly what time it was. The bus station was right next to an S-bahn station, which basically guaranteed there would be a bakery somewhere around. I found the bakery quickly, picked up snacks, and kept walking. (This is Germany, I'd have been able to find a bakery pretty much anywhere in any city.)

An hour later I got to my hostel. I think I read the map wrong on this one, because I'd originally thought it was a lot closer to the area from which the bus would depart the next morning. Oh well. It was definitely too early for me to check in, but I was able to relax in the common area for a while. I probably dozed off for a bit as well, though the chairs weren't exactly comfortable.

I was able to use a bathroom to change, but I had to pay for a locker to store my bag, argh. I much prefer hostels with free luggage storage. Side note, this hostel also wanted you to rent sheets, which is also an annoying extra charge.

Just put sheets on everyone's bed, and add a euro to the price of the bed. People don't travel with their own sheets anymore, so I saw this as just a way of adding money to their prices. Plus this was not clearly stated when I booked my bed. Argh.

Eventually I started walking. Since I'd seen Munich before, and was pretty sure the city center hadn't changed too much, I aimed for a place I hadn't seen previously. In this case, the location of my hostel turned out to be a good thing, as my walk was only about 25 minutes long.

I walked to Schloss Nymphenburg, known in English as Nymphenburg Palace. As I got to the grounds of the palace I felt a great breeze, which felt really good. After basically baking in the sun in both Berlin and Prague I was really happy to feel wind. Schloss Nymphenburg is actually a complex of buildings, lived in by ................ The entire area was planned out before building, so everything is very specific and deliberate.

There are several bodies of water on the land, with geese in some of them. I generally love this kind of water, and clearly they'd figured out how to keep it moving so it didn't look yucky from lack of circulation.

The main palace is quite long and stretched out., not very wide at any point. The ticket area is on the first floor (Americans would call this the ground floor.) I chose to get the ticket that covered everything on the grounds, though there were cheaper options. I figured if I was coming out here I wanted to see the whole thing.

My first stop was the carriage museum. It took me a while to find the entrance, (which is nowhere near the main palace entrance, though it is technically in the same building.) which ended up being toward the end of the long main building.

The carriages on display are those that were used by the royal family in various circumstances. I never thought about it previously, but apparently you need a much fancier coach in a royal procession than you do in daily moving around. Some of those on display were covered in gold, or at least appeared that way to me. I'm still guessing they weren't all that comfortable.

Also on display were some of the sleds used by the royal family back in the day. I've always thought of sleds as winter toys, and some of these were definitely just that, but others were meant only to bring someone from point A to point B.

I went back to the main entry point, and found the staircase (not terribly big, and I couldn't see that it was very well marked, or maybe I just missed the signage,) leading upstairs to the main part of the palace.

This part of the museum definitely starts you off on the high note, as the first room you enter is the Great Room. It's beautiful. At least two stories tall, with windows on both sides that let in a lot of light. The walls and ceiling were painted, so it all comes across as grand and colourful. I reeeally wished I could've had a couple minutes alone in there to take better photos, but even then I'm not sure I could've captured the feeling of the room.

From there you could go off to each branch of the palace. One room led to another which led to another, etc... The people who lived here must've spent a lot of time going through various rooms to get somewhere else. There were halls in a way as well, but only in sections.

One of the rooms was green, and the sign said the bed was where King Ludwig (the crazy one,) was born. Another room was called the Hall of Beauties, and had paintings of so called beautiful women.

I don't think I agreed with them being beauties, but I guess beauty is subjective, and is in the eye of the beholder. There were plenty of other rooms as well, though none of them stuck out in my mind.
I exited the main palace into the gardens in back, which were even more extensive than those in front. I followed a smaller path to the building that interested me most in the entire complex, called Amalienburg. It was built as a hunting lodge, though after going through it I would never have guessed that. The entry room is pretty small, though the wall decoration was really nice.

Then you're in another small room, this one very yellow. And then, you're in the best room, the silver and mirror room. This sort of room does not 'belong' in a hunting lodge. Or maybe I don't have a royal mind for decorating. The entire room was decorated with silver or mirrors, excluding the windows of course. The light coming in the windows only added to the effect. The powers that be have roped off most of the room, visitors only get to walk a red carpet that goes straight through the room. There weren't many visitors, so it was easy for me to set up my tripod and take a photo.

There were two more rooms on the other side, one of which was the kitchen. The kitchen was decorated with Chinese tiles! It felt like it was more for show, but I'm assuming the kitchen was actually used, so who knows.

I continued walking along the path, going by a small 'village' (because of course a palace complex like this needed it's own village on the grounds,) which included a few homes and a water wheel.

The next building was called Badenburg, and was a bathing pavillion. What exactly that means, I don't know. I can't imagine the royal folks walking this far to a completely separate building to wash themselves.

The decoration in here was Chinese decorated wallpaper, which was really nice looking. Visitors don't get to go in every room, so the powers that be have been able to 'save' the wallpaper by putting it in a place visitors can't touch. There were quite a few windows in this building, so I don't know how the bathing part of things worked.

I followed the path around the end of the whole area, which involved a fountain with cascading water on several levels. A great place for a picnic if you just happened to live here. Bigger areas of water are on this side of the property.

More walking took me to my second favourite building, the Pagodenburg. It is shaped octagonally, with two stories. The bottom is completely decorated in Delft tile, so it comes across as blue and light. The second floor is all Chinoiserie (their word, not mine,) which really isn't my thing but still looked nice. The brochure told me this was a 'mainson de plaisance,' a house of pleasure. Hmmmmmm. I'm hoping that just means they came here to relax.

The last building I visited was built specifically to look like a ruin. (Why?) It was built as a religious retreat area, so there is an altar. It was built with stone, and to me just looked odd. But hey, who am I to judge the royals?

At this point I was sortof 'palaced out' so I'm glad I'd seen everything. I left the property, and walked into the center of Munich. It had been years since I'd been to the city center, so I was keen to see what I remembered. The walk wasn't short, but that was fine.

I walked past the hauptbahnhof, which doesn't look as big from the outside as I remember it being on the inside. I walked through Karlsplatz, and kept going on the pedestrian zone leading to the Marienplatz. I remembered a lot of the shops that were there, as well as finding a church I don't recall having seen previously.

The Marienplatz is usually one of the first place visitors to the city come, as it is where you'll find the Rathaus with the world famous Glockenspiel. I remember the Marienplatz as a fairly wide open area, but this time they were setting up for some kind of concert or festival, so it felt much more crowded and closed in. It was really crowded, definitely not a feeling I enjoy. 

By that point it was evening, and I was ready to go somewhere and sit. I found an entrance to an S-bahn station and hopped on a train. It took me to another station only a few minutes from my hostel. Yay for public transport! I retreived my pack from the storage locker, and checked in. My evening after that was nothing exciting, I just looked at my various social media accounts until it was time to go to bed.

The next morning I was up early, and was grateful I'd packed everything the night before. I hate the people who decide to go through everything, including rustling plastic bags early in the morning, I didn't want to be one of those people. I checked out, and hustled back to the S-bahn station. I hopped on a train that took me to the bus station, where I was about 10 minutes early for my bus.

I like Munich, though I don't remember it being this expensive previously. I'll always be happy to come back to anywhere in Germany.