Munich - Day 3

I forgot to mention that since Day 2 was Good Friday, nearly everything was closed, so we had to get our breakfast at a nearby gas station. Similarly, everything was going to be closed on Easter Sunday, so we made sure to get enough food for Sunday's breakfast on Saturday. Switzerland basically closes down for holidays too, and it's somewhat disconcerting for us as things are almost always open in the States. It requires you to plan and do your shopping ahead of time, which admittedly, I'm not always the best at.

Our third day in Munich was spent primarily at Marienplatz and the Englisher Gardens. We first went to Marienplatz, which is a pedestrian only shopping area of downtown, where we saw several churches: Frauenkirche, Heiliggeistkirche, and Peterskirche. From what I understand Frauenkirche is the most famous church in Munich; it has two beautiful towers, but unfortunately one was under extensive work, so we only got to see one (picture below). The church was actually in the midst of a service when we went inside on Saturday morning, but we still got to observe the inside where the only real color was in the front of the sanctuary (no ceiling paintings like some of the other churches).

The next church we went to was Heiliggeistkirche, which was a smaller church just off the square. This church had beautiful paintings on the ceiling (photo below) and interestingly, a display of Jesus' tomb with his body in it. We assume that his body disappeared on Easter Sunday when he rose (photo below).

The last church we went to in Munich was Peterskirche, which was a beautiful red roof and clock tower (see photo below). It was very pretty and one interesting thing that we noted at this church were gravestones and I assume graves of some people that were located on the side of the building. I assume that there was no room for a cemetery, so perhaps they instead chose to be buried in the church walls. Very interesting. This church was also quite beautiful inside (no photos), and this church also had the tomb display as well as a decorated skeleton of a martyr.

After we toured the churches, we waited for the Glockenspiel to go at 11:00 am. The Glockenspiel was on a beautiful building and was much, much larger than I had expected. It also had two different displays: the top half showed two knights jousting with the Bavarian knight winning and the bottom half showed a dance which is apparently reenacted every 7 years (the next one is 2012 and I think we should go :) ). The whole display lasted ~10 minutes and unfortunately for me, Carsten was sleeping before it started and was getting woken up by the music of the glockenspiel, so I had to go around the corner and bounce him back to sleep in order for him to continue his nap. Fortunately, my wonderful husband got the recorded the whole display, so I can relive it whenever I'd like. I included one of my favorite photos from the trip of Carsten sleeping at the Glockenspiel.

Top half

bottom half

Andy is such a great photographer :).

Next on the agenda was to eat lunch at the Chinese Pagoda in the Englisher Gardens, which was a bit of a hike away. Since Carsten was napping and does a great job of napping when I'm walking around, Andy and I chose to walk to the Pagoda and we sent Mom and Dad Huisman on a rickshaw ride through the Gardens to the Pagoda where they scoped out the lunch options and secured us a table. Here's a photo of Mom and Dad with their rickshaw driver:

We expected the Gardens to be quite nice, but were pleasantly surprised when our expectations were exceeded. It was a beautiful mix of open green spaces and forest (photos below).

One thing that the Englisher Garden is famous for is it's nude beaches. Now, we didn't know exactly where those were, but it was our intention to avoid all nudity. We thought we had succeeded in this goal until I looked back through our photos. We took another photo of the open area in the above photo that was slightly more zoomed in to get the pretty building, and when I got home, I noticed that right in the center is a naked man. Don't worry, there's nothing really to see especially as I did not include the zoomed in photo, but can you imagine just walking naked through this grassy area with all those people? I cannot, and I have trouble understanding people who would feel that this is ok. Also, inadvertent pictures from tourists must be a concern as well... :)

Once we reached the Chinese Pagoda (pictured above), Carsten woke up and we found Mom and Dad Huisman at one of the beer garden tables. We were pleasantly surprised to find a live big band jazz, which played a lot of our favorite American jazz tunes. The band was enthusiastic and entertaining, and as a bonus, did not bother Carsten at all. We got some food (I had currywurst, which was advertised all over Munich and really was not that good) and Andy and I got a beer to share. I must say that I'm typically not a fan of beer, but I did enjoy the beer we had at the garden. Carsten also wanted to get in on the action (picture below).

We fed Carsten some carrots and he was in tears by the end of the meal, which I think we later determined was due to a dumpy diaper. However, I took the moment to capture a slightly unhappy baby:

We decided to relocate to a grassy area where we could still hear the band so Carsten could get some wiggle time in while we enjoyed the music. Here's a cute photo of Carsten's playtime:

After about 20 minutes of this we decided that we had better move on, and as we had achieved all our sightseeing goals for the day and Carsten was in need of a nap, we made our way back to the hotel where Carsten took his afternoon nap. After he woke up, Mom and Dad watched him for us and Andy and I went to a grocery store to see if we could find some items that we could not find easily in Switzerland. Our search resulted in finding vanilla extract, white beans, and red lentils, which we had been unable to find in Switzerland so far - so hooray! Yes, we were very excited about these finds :). We mostly just relaxed for the rest of the evening after buying our supper and breakfast items for Sunday morning. All in all, it was a great day and we had quite a bit of fun :).