We travelled out to Schloss Nymphenburg by tram. This is the old summer palace of the Bavarian royals and birthplace of Ludwig. It is a truly royal residence – impressive decorations and extensive gardens. The music hall is just phenomenal and we were both very taken with the royal swans in the gardens.. yep I mean live ones.
We even met mother duck and some baby ducklings but were careful not to get too close. On the way back into Munich we enjoyed a nice morning tea in café nearby.
Back into town by uber efficient tram we then went in search of Marienplatz, the heart of old Munich. Found the Isahtor , the eastern gate into old Munich and thus began the church crawl! First church was the Church of the Holy Spirit: beautiful and a little “old”. Then we found the Church of St Peters, started by the Benedictines in about 1139. Obviously it had been extended etc.. but we are talking seriously old!
The church crawl was interrupted by a visit to the Neu Rathaus, the town hall built in the later 1800’s to look much older. The intersection of secular and sacred architecture was amazing. We went up in tower , which afforded great views of a very flat Munich, it just sprawls for miles with little undulation and it is mindblowing when you consider how much damage was done by bombing during the war and all the reconstruction that has happened.
Just before lunch a people watching with a Bavarian sandwich we hit the Frauenkireche , a Dominican church which is huge and has its own square just around the corner from MARIENPLATZ. Then we found a small Marian chapel run by an Italian order and then the beautiful St Michael, run by the Jesuits, just 250 metres up from the other two and run by Jesuits. This one is very, very rococo, and it made at least 5 churches in less than a 1 sq km area. We decided that we would try to head back to St Michael’s as it had a 6pm Vigil Mass and were surprised by the large congregation. Those Jesuits must have something really.
If we could crawl churches in Munich we sure could satisfy the needs of any train tragic and so we did by catching the S Bahn (subway trains to suburbs) back to HauptBanHof or the main central station. Transport here is just fantastic. After a short rest we hopped on the UBahn ( another subway or underground network that connects with trams and S Bahn at lots of major places) to St Paul’s. Not sure which order started this one, but only about half a kilometre from bustling HautBahnhof, it is in a really quiet part of town, suburban and leafy. It is also a very interesting reconstruction, being a combination of the old and the new with contemporary stained glass pinned against a very gothic feel. It also had a art display of huge wood carvings installed around the church. Fascination with the balance of old and new, secular and sacred. Back on the transport system where we found St Elisabeth’s a really tiny church in University teaching hospital grounds, and the signage suggested possibly Tridentine.. eeekk! Run away! On the way to Mass at St Michaels we found St Mathieu, a modern looking evangelical Lutheran church an the only one so far in Munich but it was closed! They don’t like to share L
After Mass we had dinner at Maredo restaurant al fresco on street around Frauenkirche before more S-Bahn back to the hotel where we organized washing and went on a recognizance mission to find the laundry. We walked the neighbourhood and finally found it and met some nice people, passing on the knowledge of how to use the machines, which of course have their instructions in German. Back to hotel to repack, upload blog then sleep. But at nearly midnight 5am was going to come very early!!!!
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