Churches, Palaces, and Beer in Munich (Day 29 - GToE)

I can honestly say that hostel living can be annoying. For instance, let's take this morning: two of my roommates got up at 5am and proceeded to make a ridiculous amount of noise between showering, blowing dry their hair, and other morning rituals. It's just sheer rudeness that these girls don't take other people into account. If I know I have to be up and out early on a given day, then I take my shower the night before, I pack up my suitcases and already have my clothes ready to change into with only the tiniest amount of noise to disturb the other residents. But the under-30 set are so self-centered that they just don't give a rat's arse

First a review of last night's viewing of Mozart's Requiem. It was spectacular. The chorus was magnificent, the soloists had the most amazing voices, and the orchestra was perfection. It was a lovely night. I even managed to snap a couple of photos of the chorus and orchestra. If I were having a funeral, I'd ask for the Requiem to be played, but since I'm not, I guess it's a moot point.

Anyway, today was a crappy, rainy, cold day. I've lucked out up until today. I've had a lot of overcast days but not many rainy days and up until today, the weather has been pretty mild. Oh well, all good things must end. Today, I toured Munich's central city. It's interesting that 80% of Munich was destroyed by Allied bombing in World War II (including nearly everything I saw today) but when it came to rebuild the city, the powers that be decided to reconstruct much of Munich so that it looked nearly the same as before the war. Truly incredible.

I started the day in Marielplatz (Mary's Square). This is the location of Munich's famous glockenspiel. A glockenspiel (or in English, carillon) is "a musical instrument that is typically housed in the bell tower (belfry) of a church or municipal building. The instrument consists of at least 23 cast bronze, cup-shaped bells, which are serially played to produce a melody, or sounded together to play a chord" (Wikipedia). Munich's glockenspiel consists of 43 bells  and also re-enacts two stories from the 16th century, utilizing 32 life-sized figures. The top half of the Glockenspiel tells the story of the marriage of the local Duke Wilhelm V to Renata of Lorraine. In honour of the happy couple there is a joust with life-sized knights on horseback representing Bavaria (in white and blue) and Lothringen (in red and white). The Bavarian knight wins every time, of course. This is then followed by the bottom half and second story: Schäfflertanz (the coopers' dance). According to myth, 1517 was a year of plague in Munich. The coopers are said to have danced through the streets to "bring fresh vitality to fearful dispositions." The coopers remained loyal to the duke, and their dance came to symbolize perseverance and loyalty to authority through difficult times. At the very end, a rooster is supposed to crow three times, although for some reason it did not do it today. The show lasted approximately 7 minutes today, which is about 5-8 minutes shorter than usual. While I find the glockenspiel not really worth the time spent watching it, I did record it for you to see (video below). The figures start moving around 1:50.

Some other sites that I toured and/or saw today were: St. Peter's Church, the outdoor produce/meat market, the Jewish Synagogue, Asam Church, St. Michael's Church (which also has the crypt with King Ludwig II's tomb), Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady), a bizarre Michael Jackson memorial, the famous Dallmayr Delicatessen, the equally famous beer hall - Hofbrauhaus, and the Residenz Museum, Residenz Treasury and Cuvillies Theater, which were all part of the winter palace of the Wittelsbach family.

The Residenz is humongous! I'm not even kidding. There is something to be said about limiting the amount of rooms that people can tour when viewing these palaces. The Residenz offers visitors 90 rooms to view, which is overwhelming to say the least. There is only so much luxury and information that a person can take in a given time. After viewing the Residenz Museum, I then walked through the Residenz Treasury, which is the museum of the Wittelsbachs jewels. Cuvillies Theater is the last part of the Residenz tour and is the former court theater for the Residenz. I loved the Cuvillies Theater. I can't imagine having my very own theater. It's very sweet inside.

It was a busy day filled with so many sights to be seen. After viewing the Residenz which took about 2.5 hours to get through everything, I made my last stop the Hofbrauhaus, where I had a much deserved late lunch/early dinner and a couple pints of their finest beer. Ah, it's good to be on vacation. Check out my Day 28 photos on my GToE photo site.

Tomorrow: a visit to Dachau.