We started day 4 at Nymphenburg Palace then took our city tour. Munich is a great city – a lot of museums and beautiful architecture. I’d totally live here. After the tour we had free time at Marienplatz. We climbed all 302 tiny steep stairs to the top of Peterskirche and saw the entire city from above. Unfortunately we didn’t see the Glockenspiel at Neuen Rathaus because it was being renovated.
For lunch we went to the big Viktualienmarkt. The stalls were filled with the most delicious-looking fruits and vegetables. Mom and I had some weißwurst – a finely minced veal and bacon sausage that is white and served boiled with a pretzel and delicious sweet brown mustard.
In the afternoon we met at Max-Joseph-Platz in front of the giant statue of Max I. Joseph in front of the National Theatre. We made the hour and a half trip to Linderhof Palace. Linderhof was absolutely beautiful. A small version of Versaille, each room was lavishly decorated and the grounds were breathtaking. I liked it better than Versaille. It started raining and time was running short, but I sprinted over to the Moroccan House so I could see what it was all about. Originally built for the Internation Exhibition in Vienna in 1973, King Ludwig II bought it and had it redecorated.
After Linderhof we drove to Oberammergau, home of a world-famous passion play that is done every 10 years. We saw and bought some lovely hand-carved religious pieces (nativity set, ornaments) and tried to enjoy the painted buildings as much as possible in the cold rain.
We drove back to Munich and ate at a restaurant around the corner from our hotel – I had some delicious wiener schnitzel and as was our vacation custom, a glass of white wine.
We left Frankfurt early in the morning and set out on our Alpine adventure. Roberto, our bus driver, took us down the Romantic Road to Rothenburg. We spent most of the day walking around the medieval city’s streets and enjoying the medieval festival that was happening that weekend. We arrived in time to see the Meistertrunk recreation at the City Councilor’s Tavern. We climbed a lot of stairs to see the city from the top of a tower, then ate at a gasthaus’ outdoor cafe. That night we arrived in Munich. We checked into our hotel then walked to the Hofbrauhaus. We ordered beers the size of my head and tried our best to finish them.
We arrived in Frankfurt at midday. As the day wore on we desperately tried to stay awake until after the tour’s welcome dinner. After checking in at the hotel we took the tram to the oldest part of the city, Römerberg. We spent a few hours walking around the square and across the River Main to the Museumsufer where a flea market was just concluding. Soon though, our legs stopped obeying our brains and mom and I had to stop and sit down. Almost sobbing with exhaustion I hoped that at any moment Aunt Pat, Laura and Amy would appear and we could go back to the hotel for a pre-dinner nap (they had our group return ticket for the tram). Finally I fell asleep on my mom’s shoulder on a bench in Römerberg Square. Eventually we made it back to the hotel. I took a nap before dinner and Amy…took a nap during dinner.
flight from chicago to frankfurt germany and some margaritas at chili’s beforehand.
the LA county fair was fantastic, but remind me next year to space out the fried foods a little better. in all, i had 7, meghan had 8 and josh had 9:
- beer-battered french fries
- fried onion rings
- fried zucchini
- deep fried cookie dough
- deep fried coke
- deep fried sweet corn on the cob
- fried banana & peanut butter sandwich
- fried bacon-wrapped jalapeno filled with cheese (i didn’t have this one – i was busy eating my pork chop on a stick)
- fried avocado & tomato (i guess this was sort of gross so i didn’t try it either)
other fried foods available included frog legs, snickers, s’mores, oreos, waffles, artichokes and apple fries, which i really wanted to try but by that point i just couldn’t eat any more fried food. john and maria went and i got to meet their friends david and naomi who were awesome too. next up: halloween horror fest at the fairplex. woo!
addendum: on the way to the LA county fair after what seemed like hours of driving:
kara: where are we?
josh: pomona. orange county.
kara: …that can’t be right.
update: photos
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see the whole set at flickr
on july 20th my parents and i drove out to muscatine, ia. my dad was born and spent some of his childhood there, so he showed us his family’s houses and his grandparents’ farm. we also spent some time at cemetaries out in the country and at the muscatine riverfront. afterwards we ate at the button factory which was amazing.
photos here.
you can see this photo in xun zhou’s book, karaoke: a global phenomenon.