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Tuesday 18 December 2018

Storm and bells

You may have read about the storm in Sydney yesterday.  We lost a large branch of the liquid amber.
SES is coming tomorrow to take it away and then we can see what sort of state the rest of the tree is in.

Sorry, you will have to turn your head for two of them.  The program keeps on re-rotating them.



We went bell ringing at Goulburn
And this is mine!
Muffles - attached when ringing for a funeral.  They are strapped to one side of the clapper, so you get one normal "dong" followed by an echo the next.



Thursday 6 December 2018

1. Sydney to Munchen

Another first.
We saw this as we walked to our plane.  We weren't the only ones who noticed - it generated lot of comment!. It looked as though someone had taken a tin opener to the aircraft.
 But be reassured, this is the one we were heading for.
We caught up with family in Singapore.  Then it was a SWISS 777 to Zurich.  One good thing is that they have the option for a small and quick meal straight after takeoff, so we opted for that and slept as much as we could.  And Lindt is Swiss, so Lindt chocolates were on offer.

Due to Swiss efficiency, I didn't have time to get a pic of our small plane to Munch.  But it was an Embraer 190.

This is a similar aircraft, taken through our foggy window.

And picture perfect scenery from Zurich to Munich.

Kin Mun navigated the ticket arrangements and we found our way to Marienplatz and our hotel.  It is a Mercure.  It is clean and efficient.  We can hear bells from our hotel, but they aren't the English style!




Wednesday 5 December 2018

2. Our first sausages and sauerkraut in Germany.

In our jet-lag fog, we looked around Munchen waiting for our hotel room to be ready.  At lunch time (ours), we ventured into a beer hall.

Jet lag plus menu in German takes extra mental effort!  KM perusing the menu.

We thought the white tureen was for soup, but no, it is for white sausages.  So we decided to give them a try.  Obviously traditional chefs haven't been watching those cooking shows where they plate up! Just as well they were white, otherwise....
And we ordered a plate of other sausages, sauerkraut and mashed potatoes.
I could have done with some tomato sauce. Must be a sacrilegious thing to say.  The white and pork sausages and meatballs were very good, more to my taste, but the other two types were edible too.

First Munich icon ticked!


Tuesday 4 December 2018

3. Munchen next day. Museum, Rathaus, food and bits and pieces..

We had a look at Marienplatz in the daytime.  This is the Rathaus, which translates as Town Hall.

On our walks, we passed a pastry shop.  This was the window display.
This one didn't have the most appealing name.It translates as 'doughnut"

We walked to the Deutches Museum.

You could spend a lot of time there, but we looked at three sections: a High Voltage display, Aviation and Medicines.   The English descriptions varied, but you didn't need any to watch the lightning demonstration!

We looked at a couple of churches.  We are not in the Lutheran part of Germany - Bavaria is very Catholic as it turned out.   And they have bells, all rung together at the same time!.  The pitch is low, so it merges into one dirge. I must still be jet-lagged.

This was lunch.  Nudel suppe (ie noodle soup).
KM had penne puttanesca.  Both were salty, but they had good coffee!
.Germany is green.  This is an electric vehicle! 

We have found the nearby supermarket has an array of bread, hot meat, salad and pastry, so have been buying food from there to eat in our room.

I have been surprised how different German is from the Latin languages I am more familiar with.  French/Italian/Spanish have links and knowing one helps with the others. I had thought German and English were sufficiently similar to help with the other - but they are not!  Or perhaps I know more French than I had realised.  No doubt we will have acquired some vocab by the time we get back home.

Monday 3 December 2018

4. Hitler's Munich, Poppies, St Peters, Vietnamese food.

Munich lives with its history.  This was where Hitler founded the National Socialist movement and it remained the party headquarters during the war, even while the government was run from Berlin.

It was a lengthy walk, covering places where resistance people were interrogated, the Hotel Torbrau where Hitler met with like-minded people, the Hofbrauhaus where he held his meetings, Dodgers Alley where people used to walk to avoid saluting to a Nazi memorial, and Hitler's office (the Fuhrerbau) where he met with Neville Chamberlain in 1938.
.Image result for fuhrerbau
 This is the building today - the eagles have gone.
There was also a memorial to the victims of the National Socialists.

We could see these places, safe in the knowledge that we were in modern Germany.

This weekend is the 100th anniversary of the end of the first world war.  There are poppies too in Munich, a recent thing I gather.


On a lighter note, we climbed the 316 steps up St Peters Tower, to a wonderful view of Munich.  There was some sort of bell up above us, but it was not hung for change ringing.  Fancy climbing all those steps for a view and not for bells.  But we did. Plenty of handrails for balance and not too much of a challenge.
The longer view.
 The autumn colours are lovely.

And Vietnamese for dinner tonight. I have noticed that the noodles are cut up - no long slurping here!  Perhaps it is just easier to eat them with a fork - we had to ask for chopsticks. The flavour was recognisable.  Presumably they could not get Vietnamese mint so used ordinary mint.  A bit of mental re-orientation was needed when the Vietnamese owner spoke to us in German!


Sunday 2 December 2018

5. Flugwerft

We caught the train to Oberschleissheim Station to the Aviation Museum, which is part of the Deutsches Museum.  It is in Schleissheim, a neat little suburb of Munich.

We walked the 1+km down the street, with more autumn colours.
We were obviously close.
It was cold.  We had anticipated being outside, as at HARS (NSW) and Duxford (UK).  But no, everything was inside and well heated, which was a blessing on this cold morning.

Here are some planes - in no particular order.

The DOWA 81 was a home-made aircraft, built to allow a family to escape from East Germany.  For secrecy, the builder used only non aviation-grade materials and generally available components. Power was provided by two East German MZ motorcycle engines. It was never flown, as the plan was discovered.

Google has a better pic


A Musculair - a human powered aircraft.  It was built by a German academic and engineer in the 1980s.  Apparently he got up to 35 kph.  Nothing relaxing on that flight!
And after looking at all those Spitfires in the UK, here is the other side of the battle: a Messerschmidt 109e.  Behind is is a Heinkel light bomber also used by the Luftwaffe.

And every museum has one of these - a DC3/C47.
As we had our morning tea, I saw this - the same as ours at Cheltenham, assembled by Robert!  Such is globalisation, and Ikea.

Saturday 1 December 2018

6. Last day in Munich

Today is Sunday and there were bells all over Munich.  We are beginning to understand why change ringing developed!

This morning was our last chance to see the Glockenspiel.  It is in the Rathaus (I kid you not - it means Town Hall).  According to Wikipedia, a Rathaus is a historic administrative building in certain central European countries.  It always has a bell-tower, unlike other city halls that may or may not.  So Sydney and Brisbane would qualify as having Rathauses?

But I digress.  Watching the Glockenspiel it is one of those things you must do in Munich. Apparently it tells the story from the 6th century of the celebration of the marriage of a local Duke.  In the celebratory joust, the Bavarian knight always wins.  The lower level portrays the coopers dance - apparently 1517 was a year of plague and the coopers danced to keep everyone cheerful.  All to the sound of the glockenspiel.

The rooster crows (at the top) when it is all over and we went to catch our train to Salzburg.

Friday 30 November 2018

7. Salzburg

We caught the train to Salzburg.  This is the station.
Our hotel room. They had put us in a room for four - upstairs was an unmade bed and balcony. Note the European bedding system. We had a light-weight, single doona each.  The rooms were so well heated that was all we needed.  When they made up the beds, the doonas were folded lengthwise, but across the bed.
And the view from our room.

8. Surprising Salzburg

It didn't take us long to realise there is something different about Salzburg!

It is a small town with a population of only 150,000.  Munich was small but they did have locals. As we walked about the streets in Salzburg, everyone seemed to be a tourist.  It was like being in a theme park.  The other time  I have thought this was in Venice.

Later a bus driver explained -  local people live in the new city, the old town is a museum.

Certainly it is gorgeous, with mountains in autumn colours around it.  But there were tour groups everywhere.  And this is the off-season.

They must be glad that the Sound of Music was filmed here.  And that Mozart was born here.  The gifts that keep on giving!

We had our second attempt at German cuisine last night.  Suffice to say I won't be buying the cookbook.  KM's pork skewer was good, mine was like a breakfast bubble and squeak of various pork cuts and potatoes.  I guess, if your culinary claim to fame is sausages.....

Funny thing - Germany is neat, clean, efficient with lousy food.  India is the exact opposite.


Thursday 29 November 2018

9. Music in Salzburg - from Mozart to the Sound of Music

Salzburg is the birth place of Mozart.  His family lived in a third floor apartment in this yellow building, now a museum.  Along we went - it was very interesting and gave a comprehensive overview of Mozart and his life.

Photos were not permitted, so only pic I have is of the outside.
And there is a statue of him in Mozartplatz.

We took a tour to see the locations where the Sound of Music was filmed.  But the 4 hours was so much more!  The tour guide was full of knowledge about the making of the film, all put together with a wry sense of humour and a sing-a-long during the bus ride.
There was a dedicated bus.

The abbey in the movie.  You can just make out the archway - marked with an arrow.
The lane where Julie Andrews skips along singing "I have confidence".
A gazebo - this is a smaller one used for background shots only. The one used in the movie (where Leisl and Rolf sing "16 going on 17") was larger.
This was the lake where the children, and Maria, fell out of the boat.  The producers had hoped to use the house, but the owners refused permission to remove some of the trees to help filming.  So they used the lake and put other houses in the background.

The church at Monsee - used in the film where Georg and Maria were married.
And inside
And lovely views of the mountains and lakes.
And us.
What else did I learn? How much work goes into preparing for a movie.