Our second day was a tram ride across the city and the river to the Deutsches Museum, which is the Science Centre with a more solemn historical mission. Being in Europe - and perhaps being in Cambridge - now more than when I was here, ten years ago now? and far too wrapped up in myself - is to feel the weight of history in every part of the ordinary day. What I remember of the Museum: glass sponges; iron balls vibrating and radiating heat to kill the tumour cells they were injected into; the technical toys exhibition (largely a generic version of lego, though not less cool for that); the glassblowing exhibition; short videos of the future (like the future of food, or of robots - but two videos each, a good future and a bad future (in the bad future, the robots turn overprotective and cage us up for our own good)); the ipod (well - mp3 technology, I think); the Jaegermeister factory model; the 19th-century clocks exhibition (an exhibition on timekeeping, more generally - there is something magical, both precise and beautiful, useless in its precision and beautiful in its functionality, about old clocks and watches and especially sundials); the laser light displays (optics, I think); and pictures of hot air balloons (aeronautics).
Lunch was bratwurst and gluhwein at the Tollwood Christmas market. (We loaded up on breakfast at the hotel - which had the best breakfast of all the hotels we had been to, though still a variation on a theme, of ham and cheese and bread and jam.) The Christkindlmarkt at the Marienplatz is touristy and schmaltzy and I love it - the stalls are wooden carts decorated with leaves and flowers and tinsel, and they sell soft toys you can warm in the microwave (to warm your bed and sweeten your sleep) and woolly hats and gloves and scarves and delicate wooden stars and bright red and gold globes to hang on your Christmas tree. Tollwood sells all that, plus bright throws with animal prints and totem heads from Africa and star-shaped lanterns from Morocco - it's food fair plus pasar malam. The grounds are huge, with one giant tent for stalls (called the bazaar) and another for food and of course stalls outside, selling bratwurst and gluhwein (fortified in all sorts of ways) and the german pizza that Magma sells (whose name escapes me now) and large slabs of preserved meat in all forms on crusty bread. I have had enough gluhwine and sausage to last me a lifetime.
A quick stop to Eilles and the other, slightly posher bakery for Christmas cookies, and then Ederer for dinner. I think it would be fair to call it an updated version of Bavarian food - not quite as heavy - and thoughtfully planned and well executed, except for dessert, which was disappointing. (Traditional Bavarian dessert, at least in winter, seems to be stewed fruit and cream, though I have a soft spot for strudel.) I have possibly also drunk enough Riesling to last quite a long time.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Munich, part one
(I haven't written a diary-type entry in so long that this feels odd, something between a study trip report and a dear diary parody.)
We got into Munich after a long train ride from Berlin, two hours longer than it should have been because of a delay near Naumberg, but German efficiency meant that we could claim a refund of 50% of our ticket price at Munich. Straight out of the Munich station are discount outlets for shoes and hats, a apothecary, train tracks swerving through the slush, a couple of sex shops, a couple of casinos, a kebab shop on the corner. Hotel Monaco is tucked away at the top floor of a derelict-looking building, and bursts into cherubic floral cheeriness once we stepped out of the lift.
After the miserable cold of Berlin Munich had perfect weather (a warm wind blowing from the south, the weather forecaster said). The free walking tour (tips only, to support American students in Munich) started at the Marienplatz, the heart of the old city. This was the 22nd - just before Christmas, no less than zero degrees, the snow was shovelled away and piled to the side, and the air was crisp and clear and full of gluhwein and mustard and sizzling bratwurst. We started with the glockenspiel (the second most overrated tourist attraction in Europe, our guide said, second only to the astronomical clock in Prague - it does last longer, but the astronomical clock is more impressive). Munich is a beautiful, beautifully-proportioned city, the third largest city in Germany (Kai, our beer challenge tour guide, said) but doesn't feel like it, not in the city centre, at least, though you could well believe that all one point four million inhabitants (Muncheners? Munchkins?) and as many tourists were all in the Christkindlmarkt. From the Marienplatz we went past the Fraukirche (built with the help of the devil, who specified only that there should be no windows, but was tricked by the architect - the floor-to-ceiling windows were obscured by the arrangement of pillars when the devil peered into the church the first time round) and the Peterkirche, to the new Jewish synagogue, to the Hofbrauhaus (the shallow channels running through the cobblestones outside, the guide said, were so men could pee without leaving their seats - the Hofbrauhaus was the king's brewery, built for him by the town when he was trying to turn Munich from a wine country to a beer country and was importing too much foreign beer at too great an expense to fill the current deficiency, and later, when it was open to all and not just nobility - all meaning all men, of course - it was crowded and without toilet facilities) - to the expensive shopping street to the Residenz and to end at the Odeonplatz and the stone lions of Munich. The monks and the lions. Munich has been carefully and thoughtfully restored to its pre-WWII state, to the cannonball lodged in the wall of the Peterkirche (I think it was). There was some argument, the guide said, about remembering the city's WWII past - even to say, WWII past, seems to downplay the horror of it - Berlin chose to erect a massive Holocaust memorial at (or near) the Tiergarten, and its Jewish museum is a monument to memory, but Munich chose a more understated approach - there is a Jewish museum and a synagogue (open only to those of the faith or by prior appointment, for security reasons), but no giant memorial. A plaque on the wall of a building at a busy street corner, near the Victualienmarkt, marks where a former departmental store, owned by a Jewish businessman dispossessed and displaced in the putsch (but who eventually returned to Munich), once stood. There is a word in German, the guide said, that means coming to terms with the past. Berlin is one way of doing it. Munich is another.
The tour ended at lunchtime, which was currywurst from the Christkindlmarkt, and then a climb to the top of the Peterkirche, from which we could see all of Munich - the twin domes of the Fraukirche (why domes, incidentally?), the slanting, snow-capped roofs of shops and houses and market stalls, the clear dark bands of road. (I can't help thinking of England and the panic over being snowed in; the German roads and clear and clean of snow, more or less, each morning.)
Then a stroll around the Victualienmarkt - I love markets, and this is a lovely market to walk around - bright exotic fruit (even mango and papaya and even dragonfruit), hams and sausages and cheeses, large barrels of gluhwein, delicate wooden filigree angels, strings of dried flowers and orange slices and green Christmas wreaths to put up - no-one, I think, does Christmas better. We had coffee and apple strudel in one of the cafes nearby, and then it was time to trot back to the train station for the beer challenge tour.
Which was a tour of three beerhouses and one bar in the youth hostel near the train station, which meant it ended just minutes way from our B&B. The first was Augustiner Keller, on the other side of the train station - away from the city centre - a good-sized beerhouse, but arranged in multiple rooms. The beer Kai recommended was Edoshtuff, or "noble stuff" - once made by monks, and drank by the pope (who ordered a small barrel every month) - a good light beer, light but with flavour. The second was Hacker Pschorr (I think) and we had the dunkel, which was stronger in taste and flavour, an almost nutty beer, and this near the Oktoberfest ground at Theresenwiese. Then Hofbrauhaus, at which we made a perfunctory but necessary stop, though only after we had been taught a German drinking song - Hofbrauhaus is large and boisterous, exactly as you imagine it might be, and a place to go to simply to go to it - and last more Augustiner (I believe) and a shot of Jaegermeister at the Euro youth hostel. A beer challenge tour that is not also a pub crawl - and we were not drunk at the end, though mostly not sober neither - attracts a particular crowd - people who enjoy their drink (or they would not be there) but somehow feel the need for some edification with their beer (hence the tour, though Kai was a good guide - the right balance of life and gaiety and sober instruction). This means an almost entirely Asian crowd, if we can count the Asian Americans and the Indian man living in Australia (and a whole family of Singaporeans, incluing the old father, who did seem to have a good time).
We got into Munich after a long train ride from Berlin, two hours longer than it should have been because of a delay near Naumberg, but German efficiency meant that we could claim a refund of 50% of our ticket price at Munich. Straight out of the Munich station are discount outlets for shoes and hats, a apothecary, train tracks swerving through the slush, a couple of sex shops, a couple of casinos, a kebab shop on the corner. Hotel Monaco is tucked away at the top floor of a derelict-looking building, and bursts into cherubic floral cheeriness once we stepped out of the lift.
After the miserable cold of Berlin Munich had perfect weather (a warm wind blowing from the south, the weather forecaster said). The free walking tour (tips only, to support American students in Munich) started at the Marienplatz, the heart of the old city. This was the 22nd - just before Christmas, no less than zero degrees, the snow was shovelled away and piled to the side, and the air was crisp and clear and full of gluhwein and mustard and sizzling bratwurst. We started with the glockenspiel (the second most overrated tourist attraction in Europe, our guide said, second only to the astronomical clock in Prague - it does last longer, but the astronomical clock is more impressive). Munich is a beautiful, beautifully-proportioned city, the third largest city in Germany (Kai, our beer challenge tour guide, said) but doesn't feel like it, not in the city centre, at least, though you could well believe that all one point four million inhabitants (Muncheners? Munchkins?) and as many tourists were all in the Christkindlmarkt. From the Marienplatz we went past the Fraukirche (built with the help of the devil, who specified only that there should be no windows, but was tricked by the architect - the floor-to-ceiling windows were obscured by the arrangement of pillars when the devil peered into the church the first time round) and the Peterkirche, to the new Jewish synagogue, to the Hofbrauhaus (the shallow channels running through the cobblestones outside, the guide said, were so men could pee without leaving their seats - the Hofbrauhaus was the king's brewery, built for him by the town when he was trying to turn Munich from a wine country to a beer country and was importing too much foreign beer at too great an expense to fill the current deficiency, and later, when it was open to all and not just nobility - all meaning all men, of course - it was crowded and without toilet facilities) - to the expensive shopping street to the Residenz and to end at the Odeonplatz and the stone lions of Munich. The monks and the lions. Munich has been carefully and thoughtfully restored to its pre-WWII state, to the cannonball lodged in the wall of the Peterkirche (I think it was). There was some argument, the guide said, about remembering the city's WWII past - even to say, WWII past, seems to downplay the horror of it - Berlin chose to erect a massive Holocaust memorial at (or near) the Tiergarten, and its Jewish museum is a monument to memory, but Munich chose a more understated approach - there is a Jewish museum and a synagogue (open only to those of the faith or by prior appointment, for security reasons), but no giant memorial. A plaque on the wall of a building at a busy street corner, near the Victualienmarkt, marks where a former departmental store, owned by a Jewish businessman dispossessed and displaced in the putsch (but who eventually returned to Munich), once stood. There is a word in German, the guide said, that means coming to terms with the past. Berlin is one way of doing it. Munich is another.
The tour ended at lunchtime, which was currywurst from the Christkindlmarkt, and then a climb to the top of the Peterkirche, from which we could see all of Munich - the twin domes of the Fraukirche (why domes, incidentally?), the slanting, snow-capped roofs of shops and houses and market stalls, the clear dark bands of road. (I can't help thinking of England and the panic over being snowed in; the German roads and clear and clean of snow, more or less, each morning.)
Then a stroll around the Victualienmarkt - I love markets, and this is a lovely market to walk around - bright exotic fruit (even mango and papaya and even dragonfruit), hams and sausages and cheeses, large barrels of gluhwein, delicate wooden filigree angels, strings of dried flowers and orange slices and green Christmas wreaths to put up - no-one, I think, does Christmas better. We had coffee and apple strudel in one of the cafes nearby, and then it was time to trot back to the train station for the beer challenge tour.
Which was a tour of three beerhouses and one bar in the youth hostel near the train station, which meant it ended just minutes way from our B&B. The first was Augustiner Keller, on the other side of the train station - away from the city centre - a good-sized beerhouse, but arranged in multiple rooms. The beer Kai recommended was Edoshtuff, or "noble stuff" - once made by monks, and drank by the pope (who ordered a small barrel every month) - a good light beer, light but with flavour. The second was Hacker Pschorr (I think) and we had the dunkel, which was stronger in taste and flavour, an almost nutty beer, and this near the Oktoberfest ground at Theresenwiese. Then Hofbrauhaus, at which we made a perfunctory but necessary stop, though only after we had been taught a German drinking song - Hofbrauhaus is large and boisterous, exactly as you imagine it might be, and a place to go to simply to go to it - and last more Augustiner (I believe) and a shot of Jaegermeister at the Euro youth hostel. A beer challenge tour that is not also a pub crawl - and we were not drunk at the end, though mostly not sober neither - attracts a particular crowd - people who enjoy their drink (or they would not be there) but somehow feel the need for some edification with their beer (hence the tour, though Kai was a good guide - the right balance of life and gaiety and sober instruction). This means an almost entirely Asian crowd, if we can count the Asian Americans and the Indian man living in Australia (and a whole family of Singaporeans, incluing the old father, who did seem to have a good time).