Munich

Due to some difficulties concerning the license plates (We still had our American ones – we got a lot of funny looks for that! – and my dad didn’t want to leave the country with the plates because we’d probably get stopped at the border), we decided not to leave on Monday and so decided to leave on Tuesday. We hoped to leave around eight but… We woke up and saw that it was ten to eight. Hmm…

We eventually left around ten.

We passed through France and then up into Germany across the Rhine. We stopped in the Titisee for a lunch break.

The Titisee is part of the Black Forest, but we didn’t see any statues of Snow White or Hansel and Gretal or anything of the sort! We were rather disappointed. But the park was very pretty.

Next we stopped on the German side of Lake Constance (or the Bodensee). If you look at a map of Europe it’s the one sort of in the middle that looks like a crocodile. Germany has the northern bank, Switzerland the southern, and Austria is at the bottom. The border between Switzerland and Austria is between those two mountains. The dock is German.

We stayed with some English friends who have lived there at least since my parents did (seventeen years). They have two children, twins, who will turn nine in September. Anyway, we managed to fit all six of us children onto the teeter totter. J, R, Sister, and BB at one end and LB and I at the other.

The next day we took the train into Munich. We emerged at the Marienplatz.

Here is the church where you can pay ten cents and the kinder child will come out and bless you.

What amazes me is how many of the buildings have been rebuilt since the war. For example, this church (whose name I’m not even going to try to say, much less write down) suffered tremendous damage, but it has been beautifully rebuilt.

My parents also showed us their “old haunts.” They lived in Munich for a year and a half six months after they were married and before they moved to Zurich.

The top two green rows of this building are where they lived for the first month before they found a permanent apartment.

This is the entrance to the building where my dad worked.

The boys atop the fountain.

 

We also visited the Victuality Market (sp!) and the Englischer Garden and had lots of yummy sausages. We rented a paddle boat on the little lake in the Englischer Garden and paddled around.

The Garden is a bit like Central Park, in fact, Munich got the idea from New York.

Then we went home and had tacos (very Bavarian don’t you think!?) and I made a mess of myself and had everyone laughing.

And then, we decided not to go to Salzburg. What! We didn’t go to Salzburg!? Yes, we decided that we were too tired from walking around Munich all day, we’d be too tired to do another city the next day. In the end, it was good that we didn’t. But, enough about that! We went to Neuswanstein and Hohenschwangau, and that’s all I’m going to say for now!