Mimi's Own Blog: Munching in Munich

Last night for dinner we went out to the Augustiner Bier Garten for dinner. We had hearty German food and beer. I had never had a potato dumpling before—interesting, and the beer is served in 2 sizes ½ liter and liter. I felt a bit hung over this AM after 2 (small) beers.

We are in the Regent Hotel near the train station. Very nice with a more than generous breakfast included—all for the same price as each day in Amsterdam?? I guess Munich does not have the cachet of Amsterdam—but I think it is a great city.

You can certainly tell that Munich is a bigger city than Bruges. The ice rink is quite a bit classier with a double deck structure. In the picture you see only about half of the front. The ice is groomed daily and they have special white plastic bears on skis that you can skate around with if you are a beginner—child and adult sized.

We visited the Burgersaalkirche where Father Rupert Mayer preached against Hitler. He was arrested in 1938 and sent to a camp (not a death camp). He was liberated in 1945 by the US Army, but died soon after. He has been put on the list for sainthood and the Pope visited here in 1987 to honor him.

This wild boar is in front of the Hunting and Fishing Museum. It reminded me of the two wild pigs Wm shot 40 years ago when he was an intrepid hunter.

We are back in the land of fancy Catholic Churches. Lots of art and buried kings of Bavaria. In this church we saw the devil’s footprint. A footprint sized mark opened up in the stone at a spot where you could not see any windows. The devil laughed and stamped his foot at the thought of people who would build a church without windows. He then moved and saw that there were windows so in his anger he caused the wind to always blow strongly around the tower.
This is in the Liebfrauen Cathedral with Wm in the Devil's Footprint.

Also here I saw a number of statues of St Nicholas carrying 3 oranges on top of his bible. I did not know that this was the way he was often portrayed or why. The statue in the Dutch Reformed Church in Amsterdam had a mandarin orange on the bible St Nicholas was holding and I took it off and placed it on a ledge as I thought someone had been disrespectful in placing it there. Live and learn. We also saw a number of portrayals of St George that just showed him slaying the dragon and did not include his horrible martyrdom as the pictures in the Groningen Museum in Bruges showed.

Back outside we noticed that there were few pigeons. The buildings have a lot of anti pigeon netting and electric wire around the tops. The Germans really mean business when they want to deter pigeons.

Next was the carillon at 11AM. There are large moveable figures in the clock that rotate for about ten minutes while the bell player played some simple German folk tunes. I think the bell player must have been the apprentice substitute as the tunes were slightly off.

Here we are at the top of the carillon tower of the Rathaus (Town Hall).

We looked over to the Viktualienmarket (a huge permanent food market).
And then went on to Old St Peters Church which had 2 reliquaries with full skeletons in them. The first was of St Honoratus. He was dug up out of the Roman Catacombs and brought here in 1578.
The second was the holy Munditia who was brought here out of the catacombs in 1675.
William taking a picture of this fabulous church of gold.
Me getting my wish and eating a pickled herring and raw onion sandwich and liking it. I think it is my German heritage. Jacob Schneider, my great grandfather, immigrated to the US from around here in the late 1800’s.

Little Red Riding Hood and the WOLF!

William in front of the Greek Orthodox Church. Inside at the side of a tower they are renovating there was a brass plaque with a recording of a prayer that the tower would not fall down before they could renovate it.