{"id":4437,"date":"2024-12-20T10:22:19","date_gmt":"2024-12-20T07:22:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.goingplaces43.com\/?p=4437"},"modified":"2025-07-07T17:46:58","modified_gmt":"2025-07-07T14:46:58","slug":"munich-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.goingplaces43.com\/index.php\/2024\/12\/20\/munich-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Munich Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

For this next time in Munich our accommodation was the boutique Hotel Splendid Dollmann where we had stayed on our first trip to the city in the winter of 1989. It is comfortably located in a quiet part of the Old Town’s Lehel District near an interesting bar and a couple of fine restaurants. We were happy to be back in Munich, especially after some unpleasant hours in a crowded train and the miserable task of getting from the train platform and through the station under construction to find a taxi.<\/p>\n

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We had come to Munich from our literary conference with our friends Jenny and Ralph, and dined a final time with them that evening at the restaurant Tattenbach<\/em>. Kay and I would spend three more full days in beautiful Munich, the first of which took us to Odeonplatz<\/em>, a single stop on the U-Bahn.<\/p>\n

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St. Kajetan Theatinerkirche<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The first thing we saw as we came up from the subway was the great Baroque St. Kajetan Theatinerkirche<\/em> built between 1663 and 1692. Although we didn’t enter the church, it was impressive with its yellow facade an eyecatcher.<\/p>\n

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Elsewhere, the square was filled with beanbags and hammocks occupied mostly by young people.<\/p>\n

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Residenz Courtyard<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We were there to visit the Residenzmuseum<\/em>, perhaps the largest royal palace in Europe. Looking for the entrance, we wandered around it and were intrigued by its courtyards with temporary seating for special events.<\/p>\n

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The building’s walls are grey and painted with tromp l’oeil effects. The Residenz housed Bavarian rulers and their multitudinous families from 1385 until 1918. It is said to have one-hundred-and-thirty rooms, and during our morning’s short tour we must have passed through at least forty of them. In addition to information panels in each room, we were equipped with audio guides.<\/p>\n

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Despite all we have seen in our travels, both of us were gob smacked by the decor and treasures we saw. The Wittelsbach’s wealth, accumulated over centuries and through royal marriages, was immense.<\/p>\n

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While some private rooms had silk wall coverings, gilded Rococo ornamented many of the large public spaces.<\/p>\n

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Tapestry<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Some walls were hung with Beauvais tapestries.<\/p>\n

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Portrait Gallery<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Residenz has two large galleries. The first is lined with ancestral portraits of the rulers and their consorts.<\/p>\n

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There is a full-length portrait of the first Bavarian duke<\/p>\n

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Charlemagne<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

and another of Charlemagne, the only likeness of that Carolingian ruler I had ever seen.<\/p>\n

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Antiquarium<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The second gallery must be the largest in the palace. It is the Antiquarium<\/em>, a barrel-vaulted space sixty-six meters long built to house the Wittelsbach’s huge collection of antique busts and statues. Most of the Roman Emperors are likely depicted among them. Kay said I should study Latin so I could read the inscriptions that we couldn’t decipher.<\/p>\n

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The Antiquarium is lit by a succession of windows along one long wall, each in its own bay. The ceiling and walls are painted with frescoes, some of which have faded with age. One mythological figure portrayed repeatedly is Mercury, the messenger.<\/p>\n

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Mercury<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There is even a bronze sculpture of that god adorning the Grotto that we walked through next. The Antiquarium is extraordinary, but saying so doesn’t do it justice.<\/p>\n

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Grotto<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Grotto is a unique space designed to be open to an enclosed garden centered on a pretty fountain.\u00a0 We could admire the garden through glass but could not enter. Instead, we stood in the Grotto itself, in front of an indescribable sculpture,<\/p>\n

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Grotto<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

made mostly of seashells, that was grotesque and fascinating.<\/p>\n

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Porcelain Room<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Chinese and Japanese porcelain rooms are what Kay liked the most.<\/p>\n

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The Chinese created their exquisite contents for export to Europe during the Ming and Qing dynasties.<\/p>\n

Toward the end of our nearly two hours in the Residenz Kay and I were tired and hungry. Exiting on Residenz Strasse, we sat a large restaurant terrace and ordered a lunch of Franconian sausages and potato salad. For dessert, I ordered my favorite apple strudel and vanilla ice cream. We took our time, resting at our table.<\/p>\n

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Hof Garten<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We made our final visit of the day to the Hof Garten<\/em>, the royal garden located at the end of the palace. It is large with a couple of ornamental pavilions. While Kay sat comfortably on a bench, I walked around and listened to a couple of musicians perform in an open-sided pavilion set among formal flower beds that looked very well cared for.<\/p>\n

Back in the room, we both needed a nap and slept for a couple of hours. After 8 o’clock, we walked to the end of the street to the Moon Cafe where, after drinks, we shared a pizza.<\/p>\n

Day Two. Munich is an elegant city; however, its many construction sites are ugly and impede traffic. Pedestrians face speeding cyclists. While it was imperative to stay off the bike lanes, the lanes were not the only places cyclists rode. They passed quickly across squares and other open spaces. We had to be alert as we walked.<\/p>\n

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Franz Marc<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Wanting to see the paintings of the artists known as the Blue Rider Group<\/em>, our hotel told us that bus number 100 would take us to K\u00f6nigsplatz,<\/em> and the museum called the Lenbachhaus<\/em> where the paintings are installed. We sat on the bus until, blocked by large street-construction, it turned onto another avenue. Had we stayed on it, we might have arrived at our destination. Unsure, we got off to walk the rest of the way. It was hot, and we hadn’t eaten breakfast when we passed the outdoor terrace of Cafe Luitpold<\/em> filled with people enjoying brunch. We joined them and enjoyed some of the best Eggs Benedict we had ever tasted.<\/p>\n

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We finally arrived at the museum, and before entering, sat on the cafe terrace sipping cold drinks. I chose something called basilikum ingwer<\/em> that turned out to be a very strong-flavored drink with a ginger taste.<\/p>\n

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Portrait of the dancer Alexander Skaharoff by Alexej von Jawlensky<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We enjoyed the Blue Rider galleries. Some of the artists exhibited were Gabriele M\u00fcnter, Franz Marc, Maria Franck-Marc, Wassily Kandinsky, Alexej Jawlensky, and Marianne Werefkin. They shared a desire to escape the overly academic style predominating in 19th- century Germany and sought to go their own way. Their art grew out of the Art Nouveau-movement at the turn of the 20th century.<\/p>\n

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Tree on the Bank of the Seine by Gabriele M\u00fcnter<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The most exciting discovery for both of us was the work of Gabriele M\u00fcnter<\/em>.\u00a0 As a young woman, she visited the United States with a camera and took some lovely shots of the daily life she encountered at the turn of the century. Kay bought a book of her work.<\/p>\n

We were tired by the time we left the museum and wondered how to get back to the hotel. We couldn’t find a taxi and chose the U- Bahn. It took us two trains and a lot of figuring out, but we made it in the end.<\/p>\n

After 7 o’clock, we went again to the the Moon Caf\u00e9 and studied the bottles on the backbar. Kay chose an unfamiliar gin while I asked for Mount Gay rum and soda, a drink I remembered from our past. We sat for an hour sipping and chatting. Dinner was around the corner at an Indian Restaurant named Sitar<\/em> where we each ordered a thali<\/em> plate after a starter of samosas. It was a good meal and different.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, July 28, our last day in the city, we had to change rooms in the hotel. Kay had added a room for one night to her original booking, and the addition necessitated an upgrade. Our new room next to the old was nicer. The bathroom was larger, which was wonderful.<\/p>\n

Relaxing during the day, I read a synopsis of Richard Wagner’s Tannh\u00e4user<\/em>, the opera we would attend that evening, and listened to its overture on YouTube. At 4 o’clock, Kay and I were dressed and ready to head to the opera house that we had seen earlier on Odeonplatz<\/em>. We walked there along Maximillian Strasse.<\/p>\n

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Munich’s Opera House<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We had not been in Munich’s opera house before so had to learn how to navigate it. It was fun seeing how the mostly older patrons were dressed. Some were in black tie; others wore fashionable suits. Some women were elegant in evening gowns. All were extremely stylish. No one seemed to be wearing sneakers.<\/p>\n

About the production: there was the music, of course. Tannh\u00e4user is an early work that Wagner spent most of the rest of his life revising. I had read about some of this earlier in the afternoon. The Paris premi\u00e8re in 1861 had not gone well, squelching the composer’s bid for success in France.<\/p>\n

What was remarkable, besides the enormous cast of dancers and extras, was the imaginative staging. During the overture, a large group of bare-breasted women in long skirts fired arrows from bows at a large black-and-white projected image of an eye on a huge circular disk suspended above the stage. At a certain point, the eye changed to a man’s ear. We didn’t understand any of this but were struck by the choreography of the women\u2019s movements.<\/p>\n

Venusberg, the underground Domaine of the goddess who loves Tannhauser is portrayed with the singer standing among a bed of men and women covered from head to toe in some kind of material that stretched as they writhed around Venus\u2019 feet. The entrance to Venusberg was a circular hole in the backdrop through which we could glimpse a rocky wall and sometimes the bodies of nude women.<\/p>\n

Tannh\u00e4user is in three acts, between which were intervals long enough to eat and drink. During the first, Kay and I stood at a tall table sipping drinks. During the second interval, we sat at a table eating a dinner plate, consisting of tiny ramekins of Lobster salad and c\u00e9leri remoulade. Next to these were pieces of cold roast beef with tarter sauce, smoked beef, bits of melon, and a slice of terrine. We drank cold Chablis. All was highly organized; we had preordered our meal, and it was served quickly with style.<\/p>\n

The theater is classically constructed with five balconies over the orchestra. It is not as ornate as some we’ve been in but beautiful enough. It seemed that this performance was completely sold out. We hope to return to Munich to attend more performances there.<\/p>\n

Flying to Istanbul was the usual routine of security and passport control. Our only surprise was the sumptuous array of food and drink in the lounge where we waited. The flight went smoothly, as did the ride home from the airport. As always, we were happy to regain our familiar surroundings.<\/p>\n

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For this next time in Munich our accommodation was the boutique Hotel Splendid Dollmann where we had stayed on our first trip to the city in the winter of 1989. It is comfortably located in a quiet part of the Old Town’s Lehel District near an interesting bar and a couple of fine restaurants. We … Continue reading Munich Part 2<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4455,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/www.goingplaces43.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/DSCF5873.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.goingplaces43.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4437"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.goingplaces43.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.goingplaces43.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.goingplaces43.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.goingplaces43.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4437"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.goingplaces43.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4437\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4467,"href":"http:\/\/www.goingplaces43.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4437\/revisions\/4467"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.goingplaces43.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.goingplaces43.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.goingplaces43.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.goingplaces43.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}