On Saturday and Sunday I was on my own and I decided to do
some royal residences and visit the Olympic Park. My first stop on Saturday was the Residence
Museum, but, I was there too early, so I took the extra time to visit the
inside of the Theatine Church, the yellow church we’d seen a couple of days
before. 
The Theatine Church was finished in 1690 and was built by
the local ruling couple, Elector Ferdinand Maria and Henriette Adelaide of
Savoy, as thanks for the birth of their son.
The inside is very detailed and beautiful.
From there, I continued up the road to the Siegestor
(Victory Gate), a large triumphal arch.
It was originally completed in 1852 and was dedicated to the glory of
the Bavarian army. It was destroyed
during WWII and only partially reconstructed.
It now bears the inscription: "Dedicated to victory, destroyed by
war, reminding of peace.”
Having killed enough time, I headed back down to the
Residence. The Residence is the former
living space of the Bavarian Monarchs, the Wittelsbachs (I love that
name). Construction began in the 1500’s
and continued up through the 19th century. It is the largest royal residence museum I
have ever seen. 130 rooms are on
display. It just kept going and going
and going. Unfortunately, a lot of the
palace was destroyed in WWII, but most of it has been reconstructed. However, some parts are redone in a
simplified fashion.
I started my tour in the treasury. The house jewels of the Wittelsbach are on
display here and pieces span 1000 years from the early Middle Ages to
Neoclassicism. The oldest surviving
crown of England is here. The Palatine
Crown was made around 1370 and came to Germany when Henry IV married off his
daughter to a Wittelsbach. My favorite
thing was a St. George Statue from 1599.
After the treasury, I entered the residence museum. The first ‘room’ I came to was the Shell
Grotto. It is a covered garden area
covered in shells and rock that looks like it is dripping. It also has a statue of Mercury above the
fountain. I believe it was from the 17th
century.
From there I entered my favorite room: the Hall of Antiquities . This room was constructed in 1571 to hold
Albert V’s antique collection.
Apparently, it is the largest Renaissance hall north of the Alps. Another ruler turned it into a banquet hall in
the 1580’s and it even served as a library.
Eventually, they added the amazing barrel vaulted ceiling, and thank
goodness they did, because that was my favorite part.
At this point my audio guide stopped working. (I seem to have a knack for this since I have
had this happen at the Hapsburg palace in Vienna this summer and at Dachau days
before). This means that all I can
really tell you is that I walked through a lot (and I do mean a lot) of
beautiful rooms. I saw amazing beds and
wall coverings. I also saw a lot of
beautifully painted ceilings.
Eventually I made it to the private chapel from the
1800’s. It was so beautiful. It had a blue (so of course I liked it)
ceiling with gold molding over the top and granite murals on the walls. From there, I got to see some ruler’s
collection of holy relics. Holy creepy
relics. Mummified hands, full arm bones,
and skulls in ornately embroidered holders.
(Holders isn’t the right word,
but moving on) It was like a bone
anatomy lesson.
Finally, I ended up in the Baroque Ancestral Gallery. It is a long gallery filled with portraits of
Wittelsbach rulers and a nice family tree.
It also has a lot of gold. And
so, 130 rooms later, I was finally ready to move on to my next
destination: Nymphenburg Palace.
Nymphenburg was the summer residence of the
Wittelsbachs. It was started in 1664 and
added to for over 100 years. Only a
small portion of the rooms are open to the public because, interestingly, it is
still home to the head of the house of Wittelsbach, Franz, Duke of
Bavaria. Even though Germany does not
recognize royal titles, this problem is circumvented by making the title an
actual legal surname. This is also the
man that some people feel is the correct heir to the throne of the United
Kingdom.
To get to Nymphenburg requires the use of tram 17. Once I figured out which of the several tram
stops in front of the train station 17 actually stopped at, it was an easy ride
out to the palace. I got off and started
walking towards a monstrous complex. It
is huge! It has a lake in front of it and
the front of the building is 700 meters long.
The complex continues around with the stables and other buildings.
I went inside and bought my ticket to see the rooms. The first room was amazing. The Steinerner Saal (Stone Hall) in the
central pavilion is covered with murals.
It is 3 floors tall with an overlooking balcony and amazing
chandeliers. It was one of the most
impressive rooms of the trip and considering, I visited a castle and another
palace, that’s saying something.
From the Stone Hall,
you enter some smaller chamber rooms and bedrooms, including the room where
King Ludwig was born. Eventually you get
to the Gallery of Beauties. One of the
kings (I don’t remember which), commissioned 36 portraits of women from all
social classes that demonstrated the different characteristics of what was
considered most beautiful at the time. I
only found a couple of them to be great beauties. Apparently the standards have changed.
After seeing the little bit of the palace that was open to
visitors, I went through the stables.
This was incredible. There were
huge coaches, small coaches, baby coaches, sleighs, a hearse, paintings of King
Ludwig’s favorite horses, a taxidermy horse that was one of Ludwig’s favorites
(my dad used to joke about getting the family dog stuffed after she died and
setting her on the end of the couch forever, but he didn’t actually do it), and many sets of tack.
From there, I checked out the backyard, or the gigantic park
with rivers and lakes and fountains and 5 pavilions. I only saw 2 pavilions: The Apollotemple, which is an incredibly
picturesque ancient-greece inspired building and the Pagodenburg, a building where “the
lords and ladies rest after the exertions of a round of "Mailspiel” (which
is literally translated “mail game.” I
have no idea what it is). I didn’t go
inside, but the Nymphenburg
website has some to look at, and they are nice.
From there, I went to the Olympic Park. If you go to Munich, there is a metro stop with a the
word “Olympic” in the name that is NOT the Olympic Park. That would have me some time in getting
there. Munich, of course, was the site
of the 1972 Summer Olympics and the park still looks great.
Since the sun was setting, I decided to go up the Olympiaturm. This tower is 200 m high and you can see all
the way to the Alps in the distance. I
also got to see the Olympic Stadium with its sweeping glass roof and the
Olympic Village, where the Israeli athletes were taken hostage. I also saw “BULGARIA” written on the tower in
huge letters. Apparently, I was not the
first visitor to come to the tower via Sofia International Airport.
From there I walked around the park. I poked my head into the swimming hall where
Mike Spitz won his world-record 7 gold medals at one games. I also walked by a section of sidewalk that channels Grauman's Chinese Theatre with its celebrity handprints and signatures. I then climbed a giant hill to over look the
park as it lit up. Finally, I hopped back on
the metro and headed back to my hotel, stopping for a Subway sandwich on my
way.
