May 17 - Munich

When we left Waldsassen, we drove to Munich. After the smaller cities of Meissen and Dresden, and the tinier towns and villages inbetween, we weren't prepared for the busy-city-ness of Munich. My husband had made a reservation for two nights at a large hotel in the center of Munich. Shortly after we checked in, we changed that reservation from two nights to just one.

Added to the too busy, too noisy, too crowded, too litter-filled atmosphere of Munich, their soccer team had just won the championship and all the soccer fans were gathered in the center of the city, in front of the town hall. They were waiting for the soccer team to arrive so they could all celebrate together. We played language-Charades again, found out when the soccer team was due to arrive in the square, and made our plans to be out of the city center and in our hotel room by that time of the night.

One little glitch with the rental car on our way into Munich-- the dreaded little red engine light came on a couple of times. Luckily, the rental car office was right in the Munich railroad station, which was across the main road from our hotel. My husband walked over there, told them the problem, and they told him to bring them the car and they'd exchange it for a new one. On his way to the laundromat (Munich had a laundry salon just a few streets away from the hotel), my husband dropped off our defective car and arranged to pick up the new car in the morning, which would save us the parking fees for the night. (While my husband did his laundry, I wrote out postcards and enjoyed a nice bubblebath.)

Munich had two art museums, and we saw both. The first museum was gray and dreary, filled with religious-style paintings of saints and martyrs pierced with arrows and tied with ropes. Honestly, after seeing the first dozen of those huge paintings, the rest seemed sad and redundant. Plus, the entire building just had a cold and lonely feeling and I couldn't wait to get out of there. The second museum had more beautiful, happier paintings by the Impressionists. I wish we had seen that art collection first... maybe the first building of religious art would have been easier to take. Once again, the cafes in the museums were lovely, and the delicious food was served on delicate china, with silver flatware and crystal glasses.

Just after our early dinner that night in Munich, we stood in the town main's square and waited for the Glockenspiel to chime at six o'clock. It was lovely.... bells ringing, chimes chiming, and carved figures moving and dancing in two levels of the huge clock. Even with all the hundreds of soccer fans crowded into the town square, the Glockenspiel was a sight to behold. I told my husband I would have been happy to leave Munich right after that, but he had had enough driving for the one day, and we had the reservations at the hotel anyway. (Plus, he had to do his laundry... who knew if we'd find another laundry salon?)

There was also a toy museum in Munich... much smaller toy collection than we thought it was, and it took us only half an hour to see everything. Interesting miniatures for dollhouses, plus a lot of vintage Steiff teddybears, but it was a museum that we could have done without. I told my husband that I've seen larger collections of old toys in some of the antique malls in Texas. But we smiled at the lady who was at the door, and I bought a couple of postcards from her. As we traveled, my pile of postcards kept growing... two inches high, five inches high, and at the end of our trip-- nine inches worth of postcards.