1979 Munich (8/14/1979)

Tuesday, August 14, 1979

Kathy and I both totally zonked out and thus missed our stop at Innsbruck! Being on an express train, it was a long time before our next stop. Kathy managed to borrow a guitar to keep herself busy, and I wrote postcards. It was a steel-string guitar and Kathy got sore fingertips. I had a ballpoint pen and had no problems! The next stop was Bischofshafen, a tiny town with a long name, where we only had an hour wait for the train to München/Munich. The train came from Hungary, but was empty. Once in München, we walked to a park close to the station to eat breakfast and plan the day. We had a man ask if a place was free at our bench when every other bench in the park was empty! We let him have the whole bench, and moved to another section of the park with a fountain. Tour buses were stopping there to let people photograph the fountain. We walked through the pedestrian shopping district, keeping an eye open for a camera store and an orthopedic shoe store. We passed through a large square with a fancy clock tower, but apparently had just missed the action.

Rathaus/Town Hall clock tower

We continued on to the German Museum, a science museum similar to but larger and older than the Ontario Science Center in Toronto.

German Museum ticket

We searched for buttons to push, levers to work, etc, and had a great time. We managed to spend hours there, including hearing an organ concert in the musical instrument section. We went through a series of simulated mines for coal, salt, etc. We finally dragged ourselves away from the museum and managed to find a Baskin-Robbins to get a snack. We found a camera store where Kathy was told her camera had to be sent to the factory for repair. We never found the sandals Kathy has been looking for, so the day was a bust for her.

We continued on to the local palace to see the supposedly most impressive crown jewel collection, which it was indeed! It also included reliquaries which held pieces of bone of certain personages, something we were already “grossed out” by in Vienna. In München, the collection also had complete skulls (one neatly veiled) and a semi-preserved hand where you could still see skin and fingernails (ugh!), as well as the single bone memorials. One memorial even had three tiny clothed bodies in it (shudder!); the bodies were skeletons with bits of skin seen on the exposed feet.

Treasury ticket

We then toured the rooms of the palace which were gaudy baroque and rococo with lots of gold. In one room we saw what is supposed to be the largest porcelain collection in the world.

Residenz/Palace Museum ticket

Residenzmuseum Grotto Courtyard with Perseus Fountain

Residenzmuseum Reiche Kapelle/Chapel

It had gotten too late to view the grounds of another palace, so we went back to window shopping. We ate at a McDonald’s which had a second-story, great for people-watching! We then returned to the train station to await the train to take us towards Venice. We waited and waited, then discovered the train we were waiting for ran only on Fridays! So we waited only a couple seconds longer to board a train which finally left two hours later. Since we were first on the train, we had a compartment to ourselves, but later were joined by three Germans. We were all sardined together to sleep that night.

Map of Munich

Next: Venice.