Fresh strawberries greeted us in the Marienplatz, the center square of Munich or München as they refer to their town.
We had lunch at the Hoftbrauhous, which we also did in the fall of 2001. It was excellent. Here is a bit of the menu. I had the 2nd item, the Bockwurst, and Beth had the Crackling Pork at the bottom. Very reasonable prices, highly recommended fare.
Here is Beth at the Hugendubel bookstore while I scouted around for books. It is not my best photo, but I had to include it because...
Here is Beth at the same Hugendubel bookstore in 2001, in the same place! It is fun to revist places from the past.
The view out of a window of the Hugendubel onto the Marienplatz. I loved the rain, which I had not experienced before in Munich...
So Beth bought an umbrella next door at the Galeria Kaufhof. This is a great department store. In the basement it has books, purses on sale, a nice market with foods like Herrod's of London has, and five more floors of clothes. It is my favorite department store in the world. Beth got a purse and many little gifts to bring home. I stocked up on 0.3 mm mechanical pencils, and small pads of graph paper, and larger booklets of graph paper, and smaller than 3x5 cards with graph lines...
<Soapbox> When we came to Munich and discovered the Galeria Kaufhof for the first time in 2001 I found, at the bottom of the escalator going down to the lowest level, a stack of math and physics paperbacks for about $6 each, a huge pile of books that people were grabbing like the next Harry Potter book! Where in America could you find a pile of math and physics books piled up in a department store the way novels would be? And we wonder why America is doing so poorly in math and science... </Soapbox>
We then drove to the north part of the city and saw the Holiday Inn we stayed in many years ago, and then we went and found the BMW Welt. It is in quite an impressive complex! There are four major buildings here. First there is the BMW headquarters. Next there is a major factory where 3-Series cars are made, along with the engines. Third, there is a museum, and fourth, there is the BMW Welt, which is this building. It is in essence a grand dealership. All of their current cars are here to be inspected. Brochures, in German or English, are available. Orders can be placed. When your car is deliverd, one takes delivery of it here in a very grand procedure. Here we are on the ground floor.
Here you can see a row of their smaller vehicles. The red one in the back was Beth's favorite, a BMW 123d Cabrio. The black car is the new Z4 with a folding metal top. They are no longer made in South Carolina but are made in Europe. (South Carolina just makes BMW SUVs now.)
This is the second floor of the Welt. It is very impressive. All of those cars are being delivered to Germans who have often come from all over Germany to pick up their new vehicles. The ceremony of handing over the keys to the cars was impressive, and the cars were on display as if at the Frankfurt Auto show!
Here is the BMW corporate headquarters across the street, a very cool building.
While in Munich we saw this unusually colored Porsche 911 Carrera. It looks like thick Army green paint. (You can order Porsches with any color paint you want in Germany.)
Here was the array of items I bought in Munich at the Galeria Kaufhof and the Hugendubel.
We planned to stay the night in Munich but all of the hotels were full. A lady at one hotel we
stopped at told us to go north an hour to Ingolstadt (home of Audi), but we wanted to head west to
the castles, so we drove west and then began asking the Mercedes Nav system where hotels were. Beth
saw an area she liked on the map and we picked a hotel called the Landsberger Hof in the town of
Landsberg am Lech,
or Landsberg on the Lech river. It is located about 65 km west of Munich, and was settled around
1700 BC, with the church being built in 969 AD.
Travel Note: we learned that
an
auto is a car,
a strasse is a road,
a bahn is a path,
an autobahn is a freeway,
a park is a park,
a haus is a house,
a parkhaus is a garage,
a hof is a courtyard,
a bahnhof is a station,
a hauptbahnhof is the main station, and
a flughafen is an airport.
We also learned that a bach is a brook, a berg is a mountain, a burgher is a wealthy citizen, a burg is where a burgher lives (a very nice home or small castle), a fluss is a river, a heim is a home, a schloss is a castle, a strom is a stream, kartoffeln are potatoes, an orange is an orange, and a zitrone is a lemon. Now from this short digression you can see that a place named Landsberger Hof would be a place with a courtyard near the mountains, and so it was. It was part of the historic city of Landsberg which was where Hitler was imprisoned during 1923-1924 and wrote Mein Kampf. Just think if this town had kept him in prison how history would have changed!
Here we are taking a self-guided walking tour of Landsberg.
We went to the Mutterturm, a tower a man built from 1884 to 1888 in honor of his mother.
The marker about Herkomer, the builder/artist.
The door at the Mutterturm entrance, with my beautiful wife.
Ornamentation: a flying monster with a javelin on the building next to the tower.
The lower part of the Mutterturm. Notice all of the nice flowers near the entrance.
We liked the unusual roof on this nearby shed.
The view out of the Rathaus, or city government building onto the main Landsberg square.
We visited three floors of the Rathaus or historic town hall. This painting is entitled The invasion of the Swedes during the Thirty-Year war and was painted by Eduard Schwoiser in 1633. It is said that the women jumped from towers (seen in the upper right corner) to their death below rather than be compromised by the attackers.
Taking a rest in the third floor performance hall. This town was to produce 11 concentration camps in 1944 that would have used the Jewish prisoners to build three bunkers that in turn were going to house the production of the first jet fighter, the Messerschmitt Me262. The war ended before this could happen, but many died near here in the camps.
We set the GPS for Neuschwanstein. The route took us on quiet two lane roads next to the Bavarian alps. Gorgeous!
The region around Neuschwanstein was gorgeous. Here it is in the distance as we approach.
The castle was built by King Ludwig II in the 1880s. It was the model used most in the building of the Disneyland Castle.
We bought our tickets and then found out that we had to walk up the hill 0.8 miles to get to the castle. We picked the one week the shuttle bus could not run due to roadwork, but I think we had fewer people around so it was worth it. We decided to hydrate first... and the concessions had Pepsi rather than Coke! Most places have Coke, so I was happy.
The brotworst and fries were excellent. Ready to climb the mountain!
The climb took about 30 minutes.
As we rose up the hill we got a good view of Hohenschwangau Castle. This castle is right near Neuschwanstein and it is where King Ludwig grew up! No wonder he wanted to build castles in the mountains.
The walk was shaded and was in a beautiful forest, but it was rather steep.
Here is the view out to the plains.
We were assigned a tour number and time on our ticket. Different tours are done in different languages. There was a large Japanese group ahead of our English tour. We also ran into a family from Brigham City Utah there. Small world...
Behind the castle are trails up into the mountains. The bridge was built for King Ludwig. He liked to go up into the mountains to think. You can climb up to the top and then take a tram down, or visa-versa.
This rock almost looks like wood, but I believe it is a kind of limestone. (Not sure.)
The view from the castle to the southwest is of Alpsee. When you see it from the castle your jaw drops. By the way, I have no photos of the interior of the castle because interior photos are not allowed, but we could take pictures out of the castle windows of the surrounding area.
The Bavarian government owns this castle and it is the number one tourist attraction in Germany. It is worth a visit. It is in the town of Hohenschwangau.
Down at our parking lot we found two matching black Porsche 911s, with license plates only differing by a few digits, so they are probably owned by the same person. The coupe is a 2WD base Carrera, and the Cabriolet is a 4WD S.
Next stop? Stuttgart, the home of Porsche, a 142 mile (228 km) drive. We went via Füssen and then up the A7. We hit huge flocks of butterflies that covered the car, something I have never experienced before. It took about about two and a half hours.
Created: 27 May 2009 Modified: 18 May 2010