Ein Tag Der Schlösser

Saturday we decided to drive further up north to see some other castles and towns of interest. First we drove to Neuburg to see the Neuburg Palace. The drive itself was fantastic. The German countryside was beautiful with its rolling hills. Fields are starting to turn from brown to a spring green all over too.

The Neuburg Palace was built from 1530-45 under Otto Henry, Elector Palatine. In 1665-70 the east wing with its two towers was added. The courtyard in the middle of the castle is covered with Sgraffito decorations (made by applying layers of contrasting tinted plaster to a damp surface), which were added there in 1562. We also found these statues of a man and woman there, though we don't know anything about them.

The museum inside the castle houses a bunch of armor, weapons, old military uniforms, artwork, tapestries, and a bunch of stuff for a small natural history section. The tapestries included a large collection of ecclesiastical textiles from the Ursuline Monastery of Neuburg that were embroidered by the Ursuline nuns during the 1700s.

I enjoyed seeing the artwork. There were pieces by Peter Paul Rubens, Anthonis van Dyck and Jan Brueghel among others. We thought this picture of a really fat man was kind of funny, so Nate took a picture with his ipod. Then we were informed that pictures weren't allowed of the artwork, so we didn't take any more.

After touring the inside of the castle, we went in search for a good place to view the castle from the outside.

There were some stretches of walkway along the river, and as we walked along them I spotted this odd sign attached to a watermill. I am not sure what it is for or what it means. It says, "and and and."

The view from the castle was best just around the bend of the river. The yellow tower to the far right of the picture is the tower of the Palatine Chapel, the first Protestant church in Bavaria. Apparently the interior of the church is painted with frescoes by the famous Salzburg church painter Hans Bocksberger the Elder, but unfortunately we didn't have time to go inside.

After eating lunch, we headed to Eichstätt to see the Willibaldsburg Castle. I am really glad we went here, because this castle was just cool to see. It was built around 1355. Around 1600 under the reign of Prince-Bishop Johann Conrad von Gemmingen, onion domes were placed over the two towers. Obviously, these are no longer there. However, Gemmingen did create a famous botanical garden that was replicated and reopened in 1998 with the same plants that were there originally. Unfortunately, there wasn't anything really to see there at this time of year.

While there, we checked out the super deep well inside the castle.

 And climbed the spiral stairs to the top of one of the towers. Here are some views from the top:

 

Willibaldsburg Caste Courtyard

There was also another natural history museum here. The Germans seem to really like housing their natural history museums inside castles. They did have some cool fish there that we spotted in aquariums that we looked at, but other than that we didn't explore the natural history stuff. After seeing the inside of the castle, we headed out around the perimeter.

You can see the photosynth picture of the entrance area we took here. 

Then we headed down the hill for a full view.

There were a number of trails around the castle and some other trails around the hills that I would have loved to explore more, but we didn't have time since we also wanted to visit Ingolstadte. Still, by the time we reached Ingolstadte, it was after 4:00, and thus all the historic places of interest were closed. We still wandered around the old town area though.

The Liebfrauenmünster is one of the largest Gothic brick buildings in Bavaria.

Liebfrauenmünster

The city walls and semicircular tower gates were built from 1362 to 1440. Of the original four towers, only the western one, the Kreuztor, remains.

The Kreuztor

 As we walked through the old town area, we came upon some sort of festival. There were a few booths there, including one selling amazingly scrumptious looking goodies. We decided to get ourselves a skewer of chocolate covered strawberries, and it was well worth it. The strawberries tasted so fresh and flavorful, and they were absolutely delicious covered in rich chocolate!

Meanwhile, Austin had a blast playing in a bounce house filled with balls.

Last we went by the Neues Schloss before searching out a place to eat dinner and heading home.

Neues Schloss

Valentinestag in Deutchland

Planning for and carrying out our usual Valentine's Day this year was more difficult than since we didn't have all our usual resources at hand. For example, making cookies was more difficult than usual with just one small cookie sheet, very small mixing bowls, and very limited counter space. Luckily, they still turned out well, and were enjoyed by everyone we shared them with.

We wanted to do something by ourselves on Valentine's Day. We hadn't gone out without Austin since getting here, since finding a baby sitter suitable for him hasn't been easy or convenient. Luckily, we were able to find a single sister in our ward who speaks English who was willing and available to watch him that evening. We were very excited to go out to dinner without him. Unfortunately, the first four or five restaurants Nate called that day to try to reserved a place for us were full. This surprised us since we thought Valentine's Day wasn't as big here. Eventually Nate found an Italian place in Mering, the next town over from us.

Unfortunately, the restaurant we went to was very very slow. Our reservation was at 7:00, and we arrived slightly earlier than that. We didn't get out until about 9:00. The food was good, and the restaurant even gave me a rose after dinner, which was a nice touch. It was a good rose too that has stayed looking nice all week. We hadn't planned on spending that long on dinner though, and we didn't have time to do much else that evening. We dropped some cookies off to some other ward members who lived nearby and went back home.

Another thing that I didn't have readily available this year was cardstock or other colored paper. I usually try to make Nate a nice Valentines card, but without any good paper to use that was difficult. I tried to find some good paper, but that also turned out to be difficult. Most of the cardstock we saw for sale cost -,65 €. That is around three to four times as much as I normally pay per sheet in the U.S., without taking the conversion rate into consideration (with the conversion rate, it is closer to four to six times as much). Eventually after asking around I found some less expensive thick colored paper at a Müller store (which is what some ward members described to me as the German Walmart, only much smaller).

I used the paper to create a small Valentine for Austin. We also gave him a wind up car, which was a souvenir from the Verkehrszentrum. Both were a hit. The card has been sitting on our kitchen table, and Austin frequently gets it down to look at it, "read" it, and show me the heart on the front.

Before finding the paper though, I decided to try something different for Nate this year since the traditional card didn't look like it would work out.

My gift to Nate was a figure of a knight, along with some high quality chocolate. He had noticed the knight while we were in a gift shop at Hohenschwangau Castle and mentioned that he liked it. I immediately started formulating ideas about giving it to him for Valentine's Day. I decided to make an animated card using Flash of a knight (him) in shining armor. This was my first attempt at such a project, so there was a huge learning curve. It ended up taking me a couple weeks to do, but it was worth it when it turned out and Nate liked it.

The audio was actually added after I presented the video to him. Adding the audio to flash wasn't initially working for me, so Nate helped me figure it out after the fact. I guess it wasn't all bad since Nate seemed to enjoy playing with putting the audio in.

Nate gave me a card, a Cadbury Wunderbar (telling me "Du bist wunderbar!"), and a chocolate bar charm for my charm bracelet. He explained that after all, one of the things we have been really enjoying here is the chocolate.

So, our Valentine's Day turned out to be fun. It was especially fun to share cookies with people. Everyone liked them. The missionaries seemed to especially enjoy our cookies, which they said where great since they were actually sweet (the pastries and other desserts here are very good, but not as sweet as what you normally find in the U.S.).

Der Residenz München & Altstadt München

Saturday we went to see the Münich Residenz, which served as a home to the Wittelsbach dynasty until 1918. Different parts of the Residenz were built at different times from 1385 and onward. The place is huge, and there are three main different areas that visitors can get tickets to see the inside and history of the Residenz. There is the Schatzkammer (Treasury), which houses the "crown jewels" so to speak of the Wittelsbach dynasty, the Residenz Museum, in which visitors can tour many of the bedrooms, halls, and other rooms of the palace, and the Cuvilliés-Theater. The pass we bought for seeing Baveria covered all three, so we saw them all.

We visited the Schatzkammer first. This turned out to be our favorite area. It was full of beautifully fashioned valuables. There were all sorts of jewel encrusted items from crowns and swords to combs and vessels. There were amazing works of art created entirely from precious and semi-precious stones, gold, silver, and other such costly material.

One such piece was the statuette of St. George slaying the dragon made in around 1590 from gold, enamel, silver-gilt, diamonds, rubies, emeralds, opals, agate, chalcedony, pearls, rock crystal, and other precious stone. It was made to adorn the box housing a relic of St. George. The visor of the knight can be raised and lowered, and the face of the knight, which was carved from boxwood, resembles that of Duke Wilhelm V, who was the one commissioning the piece.

Below is the most valuable table in the collection. The image in the middle is all cut out of precious stones and pieced together to create a scene after the fashion of a painting.

Crown of an English queen - the "Bohemian" or "Palatine" crown ~ 1370-80

The locket below has tiny intricately carved religious scenes inside. Such lockets were originally made so that those possessing them could use them for worship while traveling. Over time though, they became valued collectors items for the wealthy.

This cross is made from rock crystal (rock that is clear and looks like crystal).

This queen's crown was really beautiful. The picture just doesn't do it justice. It was made using diamonds & rubies:

After seeing the Schatzkammer, we headed over to the Residenz Museum.

The hall below is call the Antiquarium, and it is the oldest room of the Residenz. It got its name because it was built from 1568 to 1571 to house Duke Albrecht V's collection of antique sculptures. It is also said to be the most lavish Renaissance interior north of the Alps. The wall paintings were done at the time that the hall was remodeled as a banqueting hall from 1581 to 1600. The paintings around the windows depict 102 views of towns, markets and palaces in what was the Duchy of Bavaria at the time, while the ceiling paintings show allegories of Fame and Virtue.

Below is the Hofkapelle (Court Chapel), which was completed in 1630. The main painting was created by Hans Werl in 1600.

Below is the Reiche Kapelle (Ornate Chapel), which was dedicated in 1607 for the private worship of Duke Maximilian I and his wife. The Duke also kept his collection of precious relics here in the chapel.

Many rooms had paintings on the ceilings, although many also were missing their ceiling paintings since they were destroyed in WWII. A lot of rooms also had large tapestries hanging on their walls, such as this room, which I think was one of the Vierschimmelsaal (Grey Rooms) where the emperor took his meals while staying at the Residenz.

A number of rooms had little ledges built into the stucco and carved wall decorations, upon which sat a variety of vases. While this created an interesting decorative effect that we thought was cool, I am not at all jealous of those in charge of cleaning an dusting all those vases and ledges.

Below is the Miniaturenkabinett (Cabinet of Miniatures), the last of the Reiche Zimmer (Ornate rooms). It is filled with exceptionally ornate gilded carvings (most of which had to be re-constructed after they were destroyed during WWII), and the wall is covered with miniature Dutch, German, and French paintings. We found the chandelier particularly interesting, as it is composed entirely of little figures.

This hall was full of portraits of members of the royal family:

The Residenz was huge and took a very long time to walk through. It just seemed to keep going and going! After seeing the Residenz Museum we visited the Cuvilliés-Theater, which was built under the direction of Elector Maximilian Joseph III from 1751-55 in Bavarian Rococo style. The theater was originally reserved exclusively for members of the court.

To see the 360 picture of the theater Nate took (like the one of the Grey Room), you can go here.

The courtyard area just outside the theater made everything inside echo like crazy, which Austin particularly enjoyed.

The monument in the middle of the Max-Joseph-Platz seen below is of Maximilian I Joseph. It was put up after his death since he opposed it, believing that it didn't show him in enough majesty. The pillared building on the left is the National Theater/National Opera building.

After seeing the Residenz, it was pretty late. We had some snacks, but we were all hungry. I was surprised Austin was holding up as well as he was. After considering our parking situation,we decided to drive to a different area and then find something to eat. Our GPS said there was a Subway in the Marienplatz are, which is where we were heading. This sounded particularly good to us at the time. However, when we got there, we couldn't find it.

We ended up at a Burger King, thinking it would be fast and not too expensive. I don't know about the "not too expensive" part, but it was fast. The strangest part about it though was the bathrooms. To reach the bathroom, you had to walk downstairs, and a man sat at the bottom of the stairs in front of the bathrooms talking away on a cell phone with a table and paper towels in front of him. There was also a little plate there with a couple coins on it. I wasn't sure what he was there for until I came out to wash my hands. I had barely turned the water on when he rushed over to me and handed me a paper towel. I set it down since I didn't need it yet, finished washing, dried my hands, and went to leave. At that point the man requested some sort of tip. I didn't have any change, so I indicated as much to him and left. I was rather baffled though. The bathrooms themselves were nothing special. They were sort of dirty, and the floors were sticky. I have never seen a bathroom before in which you are supposed to pay someone a tip for using it, and I hardly felt inclined to do so anyway to someone who didn't seem to be doing much of anything besides talking on a phone. It was all the more strange to me since no one tips here in general. The restaurants we have been to don't take tips, and we haven't been anywhere else where tips were encouraged or sought after.

Of course we wandered around the Marienplaz to see as much as we could in the short time we had. It was a beautiful day, and the streets were bustling with activity. Unfortunately, most of the historic points of interest to see were closed since it was after four, so we had to content ourselves with viewing the historic buildings from the outside.

Here are Austin and I on Kaufingerstraße in front of the Neues Rathaus:

The Neues Rathaus was built from 1867 to 1909. It is an elaborately ornamented building with a tower holding the fourth largest chiming clock in Europe. There are copper figures on the tower that dance in two scenes, but they only do so a couple times a day. Unfortunately, we were not there when they performed. One of the scenes is of a knight tournament in honor of Duke Wilhelm V and Renata of Lortharingia's wedding. (The German knights always win the tournament.) The other scene depicts the Schäfflertanz, or Dance of the coopers, which is still performed in the streets of Munich every seven years to commemorate the passing of the plague of 1515-17.

We also saw a guy dressed up and painted to look like a statue talking and playing around with kids in the middle of the Marienplaz.

We also went by the Frauenkirche, the largest Gothic building in southern Germany. This is one of the best known symbols of München, and by law no new building is allowed to be built that would obscured the the of the church with its two iconic towers. Obviously they were doing some work on it while we were there.

There were many souvenir shops in this area, and we stopped by one before heading back home. Austin couldn't take his eyes off the little section of toy cars in the shop. He watched someone else pick one of them up to look at them and broke down in tears when we told him that he couldn't also pick up and play with the cars.