Sexte Tag

Day 6-Today was a nice relaxing day in Munich. Because it’s Sunday, all museums are 1 euro.  We started off the Alte Pinotek, or old picture gallery.  Because it hosts Flemish, German, Italian art and stuff, none of that stupid impressionist/modern crap.  I’m not really familiar with German artists besides Durer, but they had like 6 of his works, including his famous self-portrait so that was cool. They had a lot of old Reubens works, and it’s weird seeing how different his style of painting evolved.  They had some Da Vinci’s and some Raphaels, but they had an awesome room dedicated to Tintoretto, Titian, and other people from the Venetian School of Art. 

After that, we saw some Rembrandt’s and then decided to take off to the Glyptotek, or the museum of Greek and Roman statues.  This museum, was more for me then my parents, so I thoroughly enjoyed the collection here, even if more than half of it was only bust’s of heads.    The Barberini faun was a really neat piece, as were some of the animal pieces. They had a special exhibit on the Frieze of some Temple, and it showed how the top of the temple was decorated from plaster marbles to the original thing. This area outside the Glyptotek was a huge area for Nazi rallies, that standalone temple in the middle was a thing that used to glorify the Nazi regime.

After this, we went to watch the surfing at the English Garden. It wasn’t very impressive, it just looked like they were jumping onto one of those fake wave similar things, except you have to keep turning left and right  very fast, and the water is more freezing than California’s.  But it was a beautiful day, so lots of people jumped in, further upstream.   

We then left the park trying to find a restaurant to eat at, but most were closed because it was Sunday so we were on the hunt for any open restaurant and ended up a French club/bar place that served food. I had to labor through a Octopus type salad thing, but food was food #survivalmode.  I then walked down to get a picture of the Angel of peace for Munich before going to the Bayerisch National Museum. 

They had a lot of stuff here, fancy china, to  house decorations, to armor, to furniture, to porcelain, and even some statues.   Then the other part was mainly bronze figures, and church pieces from relics to tapestries depicting biblical scenes.   

After we finally got through this, we rested at the hotel for a bit before we went to  Loewenbrau’s beer garden.  I had the helles beer, and an excellent bbq burger. I was beyond stoked to finally eat a good burger, and it was satisfying.  There were lots of English tourists, and some Italian tourists waiting for the England-Italia game in the beer garden. I watched the game at the hotel bar, with some depressed English fans after they lost to Italy in PK’s. They also this drink called a Cola-Weizen, a Paulaner wheat beer, topped with Coke.  Was delicious.

Fünfte Tag-The Salt Castle known as Salzburg

Day 5-We started off by enjoying the first class lounge at the Hauptbahnoff to get free drinks and access to a nice bathroom because we had first class train tickets to Salzburg.  Our cabin on the train was empty to us, so the three of us got to all stretch our legs and nap on the train ride.  Davis went to Hannover for some EDM concert, that I could care less about.  The only part that sucked about this train was that it was old, and none of the water closets (bathrooms) near us worked.  Once you get to Salzburg Hbf, it kind of sucks because they are doing construction around the main area.  So we got the tourist zone, got our Salzburg cards, and started off at the Aldstadt (OLD CITY).  The first thing we did was the Hohensalzburg Castle at the top of the hill.  You take a funicular to get up there, because its included in the Salzburg card, and it would be a very tough vertical walk.  This whole fortress was pretty impressive, and it was designed by a previous Archbishop of Salzburg.  We got to see the weapons museum, and other things that used to decorate the fortress interior.  It provides for excellent views of Salzburg, but we did not get to go to the Torture tower, or the Observation tower.  

 We then headed back down to check out some of the churches right next to the funicular.  The Saint Peter’s abbey was alright, but the main thing there is the cemetery, where it also filmed the scene from Sound of Music where they hid from the Nazis.   

The Franziskaner church was ok, it’s just cool to see images of the saint that the beer is from.  The Dom or the Cathedral was the main church of Austria, this church was very nice and detailed in the baroque/rococo style. 

 Then we tried going to the place where the Von Trapp family sang their “so long farewell song” along with many other tourists, but the building was closed.  We then tried finding a place to eat, and ended up at some hotel restaurant with a very exuberant host who was happy to speak English.  I had some gulash and it was whatever.  We did the Residence museum here in Salzburg, which was a neat palace for the ruler of the city, but nothing special because they were never the seat of power.  They had some paintings on the top floor, and the special exhibit was on paintings from an Egypt expedition with Napoleon.  

 After this, we went to Mozart Square to see the statue of Mozart, but it also doubled as the finish line for some marathon in Salzburg.  We also walked to the Mozart Bridge, and then to the Mozart birth house.  They had a lot of documents of Mozart’s work, and some of his personal items, and even four locks of his hair.  We had to get some Mozart Balls, a chocolate specialty of the city that it is famous for.   

We then cruised over to the Mirabell Gardens, since the Mirabell palace was closed to see scenes from the Do Re Mi song from Sound of Music.  From the Pegasus fountain, to the stairs, to the grand foundation, to the dwarf, to the archway, we saw it all.   

Then we went to the Mozart residence house, where he lived after his birth house, and got to see more instruments that he used to compose his works.  Right across the street, was Christian Doppler’s birth house, the dude for the Doppler effect.  We still had a bunch of time to kill before the train, so my mom and dad stopped for some drinks, while I went to go take a picture of the famous Horse tamer. 

After that, we tried finding a place to eat dinner around the train station, but there wasn’t anything good.  So we ended up at last summer’s favorite place, McDonalds! So instead of being #4 like in Italy, the chicken nuggets are the #6. It felt good eating last year’s favorite, and with a coke.  Some crazy homeless dude was being a dick in there, until the manager threatened to call the cops and he scrammed.  It’s funny, because like the middle eastern looking people try to act all gangster and look hip like American wannabes, and hangout at the Mcdonalds thinking they’re some trill shit.  The train station here is under construction, but luckily we had a main line that was finished, but we had to wait for the fast train back to Munich.  The train ride wasn’t bad, and we shared it with some fellow orange county peeps, who had been traveling nonstop it seemed from Zurich to Salzburg to Munich via John Wayne Airport to Bush, to Zurich.