From Bad Tolz to Berlin

I did not want to miss the First Annual Bad Tolz Cheese Festival, but with company (my sister, Judi, and her husband, Bernie) arriving very early on Saturday, June 13, my only option was to make a quick trip there for the 2PM opening on June 12. I did not get the full flavor of the festival (literally or figuratively), but I managed to breeze through the compact and cutesy old town (yes, cutesy--the articulated facades of the buildings along the wide cobblestone main street sloping downhill to the Isar River are frescoed with multicolored pictures and designs) (see photo) on my way to the park where the festival participants were setting up their booths. The cheese was plentiful and many participants were in their traditional dress (see photo). The goods most certainly were no cheaper than at the grocery store or the regular outdoor markets, but it was more fun buying from the manufacturers themselves (my apologies to the cows, goats, and sheep--these manufacturers of the raw materials were not present to sell their products). Even absent the cheese festival, Bad Tolz is on my list of places to revisit with Henry for a pleasant, unhurried lunch.

The City of Munich spent the June 13-14 weekend celebrating its 851st birthday. Now, that's OLD! That many years ago, only the Native Americans knew the "new world" existed, and back then, they weren't called Native Americans and they didn't know they lived in the "new world". After allowing Judi and Bernie a few hours to sleep off their jet lag, we headed to the celebration via the Englischer Garten and one of the large biergartens in the park (see photos). Judi and Bernie experienced a "typical" weekend afternoon in the biergarten--the weather was perfect; the biergarten was filled to the brim with people (as were the beer mugs); a selection of wursts, sauerkraut, and huge, baked, salted pretzels were in large supply; an oom-pah band, led by the accordion player, provided musical accompaniment; and a wedding party was serenaded to their reception luncheon at the next-door restaurant. However big the crowd was at the biergarten in the park (but with plenty of room to roam along the many walking, bike riding, and horse paths or to picnic, play Frisbee, or sit by the lake or one of the streams), the Munich birthday celebration drew literally wall-to-wall people on two of the main parallel pedestrian streets and the two bordering main squares--Odeonplatz and Marienplatz. Along with obligatory beer dispensers, booths with home wares and a broad array of usual and unusual arts and crafts (e.g., jewelry, toys, clothes, sculpture, paintings) were lined up one right after the next. Chorales and dancers performed on the Marienplatz stage, while a rock and roll band belted out old time American hits (Sweet Home, Chicago was especially well done) on the Odeonplatz "stage" (see photo). The lead singer appeared to be (and sounded) American, and although I estimate he was around age 50 (not so old anymore), he tried to be a mixture of Elvis Presley (dead) and Mick Jagger (skinnier and age 66) in their respective heydays. The Odeonplatz "stage" is more of a monument than a stage, but works rather well for that purpose. The plaza also provides lots of room for spectators and beer drinkers (I don't know whether the woman in the bottom right corner of the Odeonplatz photo is unhappy with the beer, the music, her husband sitting next to her, or a combination thereof!). Adding to the festivities were a number of spectators in traditional German dress, as well as costumed participants who passed out roses, pretzels, and other treats to the throngs of party goers (see photo). The pretzels were not as good as the ones in the Englischer Garten, but maybe that was because these pretzels were free! By the way, the blue and white diamond design on the horse's blanket is the design of Bavaria's flag.

We steered Judi and Bernie to some of our favored Munich locations--the Viktualienmarkt (freshly squeezed orange juice and freshly baked rolls for breakfast), the Residenz Museum and Treasury (a palace, paintings, furniture and interior design, jewelry, porcelain, priceless (or at least extremely pricey) gifts of state rolled into one (or two, depending on how one counts)), and Mario's, one of the many neighborhood Italian restaurants (typical German food (schnitzels and wursts in various forms) does not work well for vegetarians (Bernie)). We also added some new favorites, such as the Deutsche Museum. This huge museum is dedicated to science and technology, with lots of hands-on exhibits and welcome English language exhibit descriptions. One does not have to be a scientist to enjoy the old airplanes, boats and sailing ships, telescopes, atom models, tunnel and bridge construction exhibits, and so on. I will have to return to spend more time in the physics exhibits so I can impress Henry!

Judi and I rented bikes and rode through the Englischer Garten for a couple of hours, despite the rain showers (no, it doesn't rain only when I go on a bike ride!). We were able to cover a lot more of the park by bicycle than by foot (including a large area of the park north of the main lake, an area I had not seen before; it's nice and much less crowded, but not nearly as special as the southern half of the park). While riding with Judi, I was reminded of when we were kids, not just riding bikes together, but also taking pictures of each other taking pictures! Instead of the Brownie cameras (I know some of you are old enough to remember them) with black and white film (the only kind available), we now use our digital cameras, and if we don't like the pictures, we just erase them! To get to and from the Englischer Garten, we needed to ride on some of the city streets. I'm still sufficiently unused to riding in traffic--be it cars, bicycles, or pedestrians--that I regularly walked my bike across the city streets, rather than ride the bike through intersections the European way. Besides, when I was a kid, my mother always told me to walk, not ride, my bike when I crossed the street. Mom, I can still hear you, wherever you are!

Bernie, Judi, and I also took the 45-minute ride to the Munich suburb of Dachau, to visit the Concentration Camp Memorial. This was the first time I visited a concentration camp, and it was numbing. The mounds on the left side of the photo are where rows and rows of barracks sat. The camp held many political dissidents and other "undesirables" (e.g., homosexuals, clergy, gypsies). It also held many Jews, who received less food than other prisoners and were given the most difficult work assignments. Many prisoners were shot and killed "while trying to escape" (NOT). Torture rooms were also displayed--e.g., whipping tables and ceiling hooks where prisoners were hung above the floor with their arms twisted. The camp was apparently not used for mass gassing (though the gas chamber was used on a smaller scale), but more so to provide slave labor in armaments plants and other "upstanding" companies such as BMW, Krupp, and Siemens. It mattered little that the prisoners were literally worked to death--there was an unlimited supply of slave labor. After the camp was liberated by American troops in April 1945, residents of the city of Dachau were marched through the concentration camp to view what had been going on in their own back yard for the past 12 years. Denial of any knowledge apparently was the most common refrain, even after the residents viewed the camp, with its gas chamber and crematorium. It is unfathomable that residents could not smell the stench of piles of bodies that were accumulating more quickly than the ovens could burn them (sometimes because of lack of coal to stoke the ovens), or that they could not smell the smoke of burning flesh. The memorial is very informative (one of the displays acknowledges that for many years after the Holocaust, the German bywords were "repress and forget"), and is a credit to those who created it (though Bernie astutely pointed out that most of the references in the displays were to Hitler and the Third Reich, rather than to Germans and Germany). Today, many Germans visit the camp, especially younger ones. Nevertheless, we unanimously and independently rejected the option to eat lunch in the city before taking the train back to Munich--none of us wanted to spend any money in Dachau. Time passes, but I could never, ever live in this otherwise normal looking Munich suburb.

On a much happier note, the four of us had big plans to spend a beautiful day in Salzburg and to see the sights of the Sound of Music. Unfortunately, for ease of handling Judi's, Bernie's, and my luggage, we opted to rent a car and drive there (Henry, who was planning to return to Munich at the end of the day, would return the car, while the rest of us would continue by train to Vienna). The driving rain brought with it hazardous road conditions and lots of traffic. The construction work on the highway also slowed us down. However, by having the car, we were able to stop for lunch at a beautiful "country" restaurant (Gwandhaus) just outside of Salzburg. Lunch was delightful and delicious, but then we had to figure out how to find parking in the city. Our GPS could help us only so much when all we could enter was "the parking lot inside the mountain next to the Salzburg Old Town". In any event, through the raindrops and without much time left, Judi and I still managed to complete a self-guided walking tour of the Old Town (thank you, again, Rick Steves (see Barcelona blog entry)) (see photo) and to see several of the Sound of Music sights (e.g., the cathedral where Maria and Georg Von Trapp were married (see photo) and the cemetery on which the scene where the Von Trapps hid in the convent was based). The city is quite quaint, and I would love to return on a pretty day and check out the view from the Hohensalzburg Fortress overlooking the city.

The next stop for Judi, Bernie, and me was Vienna. Are choice of hotels was perfect--the Kaiserin Elizabeth is on a quiet street just a block away from the St. Stephans Cathedral in Stephansplatz, which is situated along one of the pedestrian only streets in the city. The rooms are quite large, by European standards, and, although modern, are decorated in a traditional, century and a half old style, with beautiful rugs on the floors of each room. Because Stephansplatz is more or less the very center of the city (or maybe just the tourist part of the city!), it was easy to get to all of the places we wanted to visit. Tram lines form a ring around the Old Town sights. We took Rick Steves' suggestion of taking our own tram ring tour, with Judi reading from his book as we passed each landmark. For a change, his suggestion was off the mark. We would have been better off just walking, especially with the wonderful weather throughout our short stay in Vienna. But, there was a bright lining--I got to have Viennese ice cream near one of our stops along the way. Between the ice cream and world famous Sacher Torte (see photo) (disappointingly dry (as Rick Steves warned), but sufficiently dampened by the accompanying freshly whipped cream), I needed the 343-step walk up and down one of the spires of the St. Stephans cathedral. And, we got to pay 3.5 euros for this exercise! In any event, we were rewarded by excellent views of the city (see photo). The cathedral itself has impressively carved detail, inside and out.


We walked the pedestrian only streets (e.g., Graben and Karntnerstrasse) and ambled through the Naschmarkt, a huge open air market, until finding the appropriate "kebap" stand at which to buy lunch. We also visited Judenplatz to view the memorial to the Austrian Jews who lost their lives in the Holocaust and view the archaeological remains of the medieval synagogue which was burned in 1420. The memorial is a monolithic, slab structure of steel and concrete, appearing as continuous shelves of books (see photo). However, the books face outward, without names and unreadable--perhaps signifying the masses of victims and the void left by the genocide. The names of the concentration camps at which Austrian Jews were killed are engraved around the base of the structure.

Three highlights of our almost two days in Vienna:
1. the ballet, Anna Karenina, performed by the Vienna Ballet and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra at the Opera--the inside of the building is beautiful, the orchestra and acoustics excellent, and the entire ballet company uniformly outstanding. Because only one of our three seats provided visibility to the stage (a hazard of purchasing tickets at the last minute), Judi and I traded seats throughout the performance, while Bernie chivalrously was content to sit in the seat at the back of our box and listen to the orchestra.
2. dinner after the ballet at the Palmenhaus Restaurant, on the terrace overlooking gardens next to the Hofburg Palace--the weather was balmy, the setting relaxing, the food excellent, and the company practically perfect (if Henry had been with us, the company would have been perfect).
3. the Albertina Museum--nicely displayed exhibition of Dutch Old Masters (like a traveling rock group, Rembrandt and his fellow artists of that age appear to be making the European tour this summer!), decent 19th and 20th century permanent art collection, and a special exhibit of some weird photography (e.g., bare legs, in an upside-down position, sticking out of a trash can at a street corner).

One Vienna sight I don't need to see again: the too numerous to count life-size card board cut outs of Mozart offering the various chocolate treats sold under his name. Mozart chocolate balls with marzipan are sold in the candy section of most drug stores in San Diego. Not being a marzipan fan, I pass on them at home and I passed on them in Vienna.

We flew from Vienna to Berlin, and therefore experienced Austrian airport security, both its high and low. The Austrians very efficiently located a small Swiss Army knife that I forgot I had in my backpack. In contrast, a couple of years ago at a not-to-be-named U.S. airport, two of my forgotten Swiss Army knives, one of which was larger than the one found by the Austrians, passed through security undetected in my rolling carry-on suitcase. In any event, the Austrian officer who located the knife could not have been more pleasant--without any accusatory tone, he offered me the choice of leaving the knife for his disposal or spending 10 euros to have it sent to my home. Choosing the latter option, I paid the money,completed an address form, and obtained a receipt. The assisting officer almost apologetically informed me that I might not receive the package until the following week. As promised, I have my knife back. On the other hand, I found it astounding that we could check in online, pass through security, and enter our airplane without showing any identification! I voluntarily showed my passport at the check-in counter, but neither Judi nor Bernie showed any ID at the airport.

Berlin is a few times larger than either Vienna or Munich, and its "sights" are clustered in several areas around the city. We stayed in a hotel near Potsdamer Platz and concentrated on sights in that area. Potsdamer Platz and its surroundings are going through a development renaissance. With all of the building taking place, here and elsewhere in Berlin, the city is truly an architect's paradise. While some buildings damaged or destroyed during World War II are being restored or rebuilt in their original style, other construction is giving the city a new landscape (see photos).



















The Berlin Wall (1961-1989), the total length of which is marked by a strip of imbedded stones (see photo), criss-crossed through the neighborhood of our hotel. Checkpoint Charlie, which is now overly touristed (yes, we have to count ourselves in that group), was just a few blocks away. We passed on going to the Checkpoint Charlie Museum, as extremely informative outdoor display panels lined the corners of the Checkpoint Charlie intersection. Only a few pieces of the wall remain standing today (see photo), leaving it to passers-by to imagine what it was like to exist in a literally divided city. The display panels also documented various attempts by East Germans to escape under (e.g., tunnels) or over (e.g., hot air balloons, home-made airplanes) the wall. Several makeshift memorials to individuals killed in unsuccessful attempts to escape to West Berlin stand near the Reichtag (parliament) building (e.g., crosses next to the river in the above photo).


Berlin is also home to a number of acknowledgments to the horrific era in German history--the Third Reich. Most prominent is a relatively new (2005) memorial to the six million European Jews murdered during the Holocaust. The memorial is about a square block in size and contains over 2,700 stone slabs, each a different shape and size. The slabs contain no markings, and provide a sense of lost identity, lost family, and emptiness. At the same time, the lines of slabs reminded me of Hitler's systematic plan to annihalate the Jews and other allegedly "sub-human" species. The bare slabs also reminded me of the pictures of huge piles of nude, skeleton-like, nameless dead bodies I viewed at the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial. The exhibit at the information center, built below ground underneath the monument, tracks the stories of just a few of the families descimated by the Nazis. On the other hand, the new Jewish Museum highlights, among other things, the numerous contributions that Jews have made to German society over many centuries. Because they were prohibited by the various governments from joining trade guilds, many perforce became lawyers, doctors, bankers, and scientists. Something I had not realized was that in the approximately seven years before1940, nearly half of the Jews in Germany left the country. Unfortunately, some of them moved to subsequently invaded countries (e.g., Anne Frank and her family moved from Frankfurt to Amsterdam, others to Warsaw)--in a manner of speaking, from the frying pan into the fire. Over three million of the Jews murdered by the Nazis were Polish.

Although a very divisive issue, the Germans are finally proceeding to build a museum on "The Topography of Terror". Currently limited to an outdoor exhibit of display panels, the museum will document the atrocities of the Gestapo and the SS, not just against Jews, but against any individuals accused of dissension or other "undesirable" behavior. The building site is the grounds of the former headquarters of the Gestapo, SS, and Reich Security Main Office.

"Our" cluster of Berlin also included the Brandenburg Gate (familiar symbol of the city) (see photo, taken from Reichtag dome), Unter den Linden (Berlin's Champs Elysee), the Reichtag, and other government buildings. Judi and I chose to wait the 45 minutes it took to move through the line to visit the new Reichtag dome. It was well worth the wait and the tight security measures (including pat down, and having to show that the bulges in my zipped up pant pockets were only a hankerchief, passport, credits cards, and cash). The glass dome integrates a walkway that spirals up to the top of the dome, where one has a 360 degree view of the city (see photos). The open dome is not only environmentally friendly (funnels daylight into the plenary Bundestag chamber below, lets stale air out and fresh air in, and has a heat recovery system concealed within the inverted cone sculpture in the middle of the dome); it also symbolizes what the Germans advertise as "transparency and openness in their parliamentary democracy". To emphasize further their commitment to open government, there is no charge for either entrance to the dome or for the well done audio guide (which is somehow coded to start automatically as you head up the circular ramp toward the top of the dome, to stop when you stop walking, and to describe the buildings within your view as you continue your walk to the top).

One of the restaurants at which we had dinner was particularly noteworthy--Maoa, near Potsdamer Platz. I describe it as New Age Stir Fry. Diners are given a bowl into which they can collect their choices of meats, fish, vegetables, and spices. Chefs stir fry the contents of the bowl, either mixing in a chosen marinade and serving the dish with rice or serving the stir fried food over a favored soup with ramen noodles. The food was delicious! We did not try the "Obama Burger" offered at the Mexican restuarant down the street from our hotel, but we appreciated the homage to our President.

Now that I have had a taste of Berlin, I'm looking forward to returning there next week with Henry. We'll be staying in a different area of the city, giving me an opportunity to seek out another "cluster" of sights.

If It's Saturday, It Must be Italy

With apologies to Willie Nelson, we're "on the road again." On Saturday, June 6th, we rented a car and began our drive to Florence, Italy, where Henry was scheduled to give a talk and to meet with colleagues he spent time with in early 2003. Actually, Henry did the driving; I did the riding. He did a fine job, and succeeded in keeping to his mantra for successful driving in Italy--no eye contact with other drivers. On the Autostrada, where the maximum speed is usually 130 km/hr (78 mph) even on some curvy, mountain roads, Henry kept to the maximum while others passed him. In Florence, driving is a free-for-all--just move quickly into the tiny space the driver ahead leaves in his/her wake or someone else will move in before you (see photo). Although there appeared to be fewer bicycle riders than in Munich, there was significant road competition from motorcyclists (see photo). Henry offered the car to me during the time he was busy with his work, but I wisely and sanely declined the offer.

Driving directly from Munich to Florence takes a little over six hours. Instead, we stopped overnight on the way there and on the way back. The first night, we stopped at Gardone Riviera, a small resort town on the western shore of Lake Garda (see photo). The lake is a bit west of Verona, in northern Italy, and is the largest lake in Italy. Resort towns dot the shore around the lake, except where cliffs reach down to the water's edge. In those spots, tunnels, open to the lake, wind through the cliffs. We stayed at a small hotel (Hotel Sofia) on the hillside above the town and enjoyed a view of the lake from the balcony of our room. On the hotel staff's recommendation, we had a lovely dinner at Agli Angeli, a restaurant in a quiet square a few hundred meters above the hotel. Guess what, we ate Italian food for a change!

As we continued our drive south along Lake Garda, on our way to Florence, we stopped at Sirmione, a town that sits at the end of a narrow peninsula jutting into the lake. Although the area has a stylish old town, it suffers from way too many tourists in a limited amount of space. We were rather pleased with ourselves that we chose the hotel in Gardone Riviera rather than a hotel we had considered reserving in Sirmione.

In Florence, we stayed at an out of the mainstream pension (Annalena), the same place we stayed when we were in Florence in 2003. It's south of the Ponte Vecchio, near the Pitti Palace and across from the Boboli Garden. The Annalena delivers what it offers, a very dated, but clean and friendly place to spend the night. Although from the street, the place looks like a dump, it is amazing what one discovers when looking out the windows facing away from the street--gardens and greenhouses and balconies and terraces. Now that it's June, instead of early February, when Henry and I were last in Florence together, tourists teemed the streets and squares and the usual Florence museum attractions. Having previously had eight days in 2003 to go through most of the museums, churches, and usual tourist sights, I decided to limit myself to two small exhibits. One was an exhibition at the Palazzo Strozzi, paying tribute to Galileo's discoveries regarding the universe (despite his being forced to recant his views following a trial by the Inquisition in the 1630's) and displaying images, models, scientific instruments, and artwork portraying cosmological views of the universe from antiquity through the development of the telescope. On a bizarre note, the exhibition also included a gilded bone from one of Galileo's fingers, an item normally displayed in Florence's Museum of the History of Science (currently undergoing renovations). In 1737, about 100 years after Galileo died, he was reburied in the main body of the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence. At that time, someone took it upon himself to cut one of Galileo's fingers and preserve it elsewhere.

The second exhibit was one I had seen before, but found it interesting then and now. Models of many of Leonardo da Vinci's inventions, mechanical studies, and anatomy studies have been constructed based on his personal codices. He not only made improvements on older inventions, but was ahead of his time in developing new ways to deal with issues of the day (e.g., speedier ships, lifting heavy objects, reducing friction in machines with moving parts (using ball bearings)). Da Vinci's studies of lift and displacement of air, in an attempt to develop a way for people to fly, are extremely impressive, at least to someone like me, non-scientist that I am. Here is a photo of a mechanism that incorporates theories that led to the modern helicopter. People who know of da Vinci as just a painter are in for a huge surprise when they see this exhibit.

Aside from these two exhibits, I spent most of my day and half in Florence wandering through the huge markets for which the city is famous. The Mercato Centrale is alleged to be the largest covered food hall in Europe (I think the Boqueria in Barcelona is its equal, if one doesn't account for the fact that the Mercato Centrale has two floors). After meandering through aisle upon aisle of food stalls, I settled on a corner spot for a satisfying lunch. It is impossible to miss the outdoor stalls surrounding the Mercato Centrale and lining the streets around Piazza San Lorenzo. Covered with a somewhat protective plastic, most of the stalls are open daily, rain or shine. This is a great place to shop, and because there are so many sellers of the same categories of items, it is easy to comparison shop and negotiate a deal with one's preferred purveyor. The goods for sale range from wool and cashmere products (mostly scarves and sweaters) and leather products (shoes, pocket books, brief cases, wallets, jackets, belts, gloves) to jewelry, Florentine paper products, shirts, ties, glassware, pottery, and the usual array of souvenir kitsch. It was a good thing I had a limited amount of cash with me as I checked out the stalls. I knew it was time to head back to the hotel when my cash supply reached less than one euro!

The following morning, I headed to the once a week market in the Parco del Cascine, one of the outdoor markets I missed out on in 2003. I am told it's the largest of Florence's markets. Although I did not walk the entire length of the market, stalls continued along the bank of the Arno River as far as I (and my eyes) could see. This market was the "whole" package--food, clothes, shoes, pocket books, textiles, kitchenware, lamps and lampshades, hardware, and second-hand almost everything (especially clothes and DVD's). I passed a number of stalls selling anything and everything for 1 euro or .99 euro. If one looked carefully, one could find some great deals for second-hand clothes, including blue jeans, at that price. Also, for all of you clothes horses, if the clothes offered for sale were any indication, then purple is this season's color! Or, if the clothes are showing up here, then maybe it was last season's color?!

Kudos to the two restaurants at which we ate dinner in Florence. One of them, Quattro Leoni, was a restaurant we ate at twice in 2003. We were not disappointed upon our return--solid, quality Italian food, and not far from our hotel. The other, Il Latini, was more of an "experience" than a culinary treat. The place is always packed, and strangers are often seated together at the same table. In the middle of our meal, another couple was seated with us, but they soon either moved or left after Henry ordered lamb and I ordered rabbit (aka Thumper). Maybe it was something we said?! House wine is served from an oversized, beaker-shaped wine bottle (with the "bowl" at the bottom of the bottle covered with typically Italian woven straw). The server immediately manages to foist the appetizer sampler on just about everyone, and continues to serve subsequent courses unless customers ask to look at a menu first. Just when we thought we were done, the server brings out biscotti and port wine, and just when we thought we really were done, the owner brings out muscato wine. Somehow, the check still came out to no more than what we ordered! As we were leaving, we noticed that the two separate couples who were seated at the table next to us were chatting away as if they had planned their meal together.

On our drive back from Florence, we stopped in Telfes, a small town near Innsbruck in the Austrian Alps. The area offers winter sports and summer hiking, biking, and hang gliding for the more adventuresome. I'll pass on the latter, thank you. Although it was pouring rain as we made our way into the mountains, the skies cleared the following day, as we took our time driving back to Munich. we passed by the Walchensee (see photo) and Kochelsee, and stopped for a delicious lunch in the biergarten of a guesthouse (Jagerwirt) in Kirchbichl, a village near Bad Tolz. Yes, this was another Michelin Red Guide find! The countryside could have been straight out of The Sound of Music, but for the real thing, we will have to wait until next week, when we travel to Salzburg!

A Week to Relax

What? Me, relax?? I'm not sure I know how to do that, but I worked hard at it the past week. Monday, June 1st, was Whit Monday (the day after Whit Sunday, perhaps?), which meant that stores and offices were closed. Henry and I bussed our way to more greenery in Munich, and took a pleasant walk along the east side of the Isar River. My ultimate goal was finding a new ice cream shop to check out, and I achieved my goal, near the Deutsche Museum. I'm not sure of the flavor I got, but it was good! Our walk together, on a pretty afternoon, along a shade covered walkway, by the bank of the river, and licking tasty ice cream in a sugar cone, was just the right combination! Several people have suggested that I add photos to my blog, so here I am as a satisfied customer. The picture of Henry and me was taken at the biergarten next the Kleinhesseloher See in the Englischer Garten last weekend. (Also, check out the photo of hundreds of commuters' bicycles parked at the Eindhoven train station that I inserted in my posting, Lowdown on the Netherlands.)

While spending a couple of days just walking, choosing a park bench, and reading, I could reflect more on Munich, and more generally, Germany. Here are some observations--nothing especially deep, but different from what I have seen at home:

1. As I have mentioned before, Munich is filled with bicycles, and it can sometimes be hazardous just walking on the sidewalk. When I stop at a crosswalk in the middle of a long block and wait for the "Walk" sign, I have to be certain I am not standing within a meter of the curb, lest I be run over by a cyclist riding in the sidewalk bike lane! Before I cross the street, I have to look both ways to make sure I am not going to collide with a cyclist as I step across the bike lane and into the crosswalk.
2. I have also noticed many cyclists talking on their hand-held cell phones as they guide their bikes with their free hand. With elections this weekend (voting continues through Sunday, June 7), I should have suggested to the candidates that they pass a law banning cyclists from using their hand-held phones while riding their bikes. The distractions of other cyclists, pedestrians, and vehicles are already enough to handle!
3. The Germans have either figured out by themselves, or implemented the development of others, how to save energy by stopping the continuous movement of escalators when no one is on them. We regularly see this phenomenon going and coming out of the Munich U-Bahn (subway) stations. As someone approaches the escalator, a sensor picks up the movement and the escalator automatically starts running in the appropriate direction. The same escalator can operate up or down, depending from which direction the person is approaching. Pretty nifty, eh?!
4. Munich drivers tend to be impatient and pushy, in a manner that brings to my mind drivers in New York City. Unlike New York, however, I do not see much jaywalking (perhaps because walkers need to contend with drivers AND cyclists??).
5. Parking spaces on city streets are at a premium, but many cars are small enough that if a driver is unable to parallel park in a parking space, he/she simply heads into the space on a diagonal, and leaves the car that way while he/she goes about his/her business. The car might sit a wee bit on the sidewalk, but it barely sticks out beyond the width of the other parallel parked cars.
6. Don't count on being able to use a standard American credit or debit card at a growing number of stores and restaurants. For example, our local supermarkets do not accept our Visa cards. Although we did not encounter this problem in Switzerland, it appears to be coming more widespread around the EU. German credit/debit cards contain a special chip which apparently permits the establishment to access personal information about the purchaser's bank account. If the establishment is unable to access the information, it will not accept this form of payment. I suspect the United States will eventually move in this direction, but not until certain privacy laws are amended.
7. Germans enjoy their football (i.e., soccer), as do other Europeans in their respective countries. In addition, Muncheners are very loyal to their local teams, particularly FC Bayern. The home games are sold out in the almost 70,000 capacity Allianz Arena, and the bars with big screen televisions overflow with loyal fans clad in FC Bayern shirts. Given our apartment's location in bar/cafe-rich Schwabing, we hear the cheers of delight up and down the street when the home team scores and the groans when the opposing team scores.
8. Football or no football, relaxing in the mid to late afternoon with a beer at an outdoor bar or cafe is very popular. Just ask for "Bier vom Fass" (on tap), and if you don't specify "kleine", expect to get the half-liter sized glass or mug. I haven't yet mastered which beers come in which of the many shapes of glasses or mugs, but there often appears to be a designated glass or mug for each beer. Getting into the swing of the neighborhood, we have occasionally stopped off at one or another local cafe for a pre-dinner people-watching session, with liquid refreshment.

The truth be told, I did not spend the entire week relaxing. I visited one museum, and mid-week, I continued my march through Bavarian castles. I took the two-hour train ride to Fussen to view the castle that inspired the design of Disney's sleeping beauty castle--Schloss Neuschwanstein. King Ludwig II, also known as "the fairy-tale king", commissioned the building of the castle as a re-creation of the world of Germanic mythology. In fairy-tale fashion, he had a theater set designer, rather than an architect, create the original blueprint for the castle. A big fan of the composer, Richard Wagner, Ludwig had walls and ceilings covered with murals relating scenes from Wagner's operas (e.g., Tristan and Isolde, Lohengrin). Wood carving in Ludwig's bedroom was so elaborate, it took four years to finish. After 17 years of work, only 16 of the approximately 50 planned rooms were completed. Ludwig lived in the castle for only about 170 days before he was declared insane and died under mysterious circumstances a few days later. As a child and later, while watching his castle being built, Ludwig spent time down the forest a piece at Schloss Hohenschwangau (his parents' "house" which Ludwig inherited). Although Neuschwanstein gets the big press, I personally found the tour of Hohenschwangau far more interesting than Neuschwanstein. Nevertheless, the building and setting together give Neuschwanstein a truly fairy-tale quality. The best view of Neuschwanstein is from Marienbrucke, a walking bridge over a deep gorge about a 15-minute walk from the castle (see photo). Despite the openings between the wood slats that provide the walking surface of the bridge and the several hundred foot drop into the gorge, I was determined to overcome my long-time acrophobia. My sisters probably remember when our family visited Royal Gorge in Colorado 43 years ago--the wood slatted suspension bridge crossing the gorge is over 1,000 feet above the Arkansas River; after several aborted attempts to walk across, I refused to try again, and my parents asked a stranger to drive me across. So, here I am, proving to myself I could walk far enough onto the bridge to be able to get a full photo of the castle. Yes, my legs were shaking and I was holding on as tightly as I could. What I hadn't bargained for, however, was that the two young Asian women I asked to take my picture would then ask me to take their picture! That required me to let go of the railing and move a bit farther along on the bridge, but I did it! No, I didn't walk all the way across the bridge, but I was quite satisfied with making it about one-third of the way.