Law And Order-ing Food

Arriving in Munchen (Munich) was not as exciting as I'd expected. My guidebook says that no trip to Germany is complete without a trip to the fabled city of Munchen. Well I beg to differ. Similar to Frankfurt, Munchen is a rather modern town. There is little history to be found about the town which I would call fabled. Sure there are museums and city parks, but nothing that really gave me a history lesson about why Munchen has been so important.

I began my explorations with lunch in the Hofgarten park near the Residenz Palace. Outside the gate to the garden was a 5 piece band playing classical music and selling CDs titled something with the "4 piece band." Why then were there 5 playing?? The music was a great backdrop to my outdoor meal similar to what I had in Heidelberg (cheese, bread, hot dog balls, tomato, yogurt). I'm a fan of these tasty nutritious meals outdoors that are inexpensive.

From the garden I walked around the huge palace to the entrance. Inside were 90 some rooms waiting to be explored. Better yet the ticket price included an audio guide so I could actually get some history. The Munich Residenz served as the seat of government and residence of the Bavarian dukes, electors and kings from 1508 to 1918. It was also part of the Wittelsbach royalty and bears architectural features from the Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo and neoclassical eras. It seems strange to me that part of Germany was still being ruled by kings in the early 1900s. I suppose I thought it was the country it is today ever since the US became an entity. The palace was a vast array of huge rooms filled with lovely furniture and many paintings, some framed and some on the ceilings. My favorite room had green fabric on the walls with stars and lines woven into it and a lime green fabric on the furniture. Everything was simple and elegant. I can't remember the guy's name who this room was designed for, but I do remember that the furniture was specifically chosen because he liked to keep things simple. The other striking decorations were the ceiling paintings which depicted essential things for knowing how to properly rule a nation: law, justice, war and peace. One series showed a ruler receiving tablets of law from heaven akin to Moses. In this time period law was seen as divine order and not to be trumped by human creations or inventions. Another depicted an old man robed with a mirror showing the past, present, future and a necklace with a golden heart. This was to show that wise counsel should be taken from someone older with knowledge of the past/present/future and who considers the heart as well as the facts in matters of importance. At the end of the tour was a long hall of the royal family line portraits. One I particularly liked showed that you certainly don't have to be pretty to be a princess.

After such a stimulating adventure I walked around the area to get a feel for the town and also to seek out a place to eat dinner. I wandered through the Viktualmarket where you could find just about any kind of food item in a market stand--fish, meats (raw, cooked, dried), veggies, fruits, sweets. I think there were even flowers and a pharmacy of sorts. It was an overwhelming mix of sights, sounds and smells. People swarmed all over in odd directions being drawn by the sight of one thing and the smell of another. Being a pedestrian area, there are usually restaurants galore. I found one with a menu that seemed to convey spatzle which I had been wanting to try. For dinner I enjoyed the spatzle with cheese, salad including potato salad/mustard dressing on greens/red cabbage coleslaw, and for dessert apple strudel with a warm vanilla custard soup over it. I sampled an unfiltered lager for my beverage which paired nicely with my meal, the smoothness of the beer matching the bite of the cheese on the spatzle. I managed to waddled my full stomached self back to the hostel and prepared for my day trip to Augsburg.