Bavaria Road Tour: Munich
I've been gently reminded that I am very slack at posting trip photos, to the point that I've still not done much with the vast number I took on our US/Canada trip nearly a year ago. So, as a start, let's get going with the Bavaria Road Trip that darth_hamster and I went on last month...
Our plan was to fly in to Munich, take the train into the city and stay overnight before picking up our car on Sunday morning. Saturday evening we had a very pleasant wander around the city centre, culminating in what was to be the first of several very, very filling Bavarian meals. Bavaria's cuisine is great, so long as you don't mind having half a pig on your plate every meal. The following morning, before getting the car, we had another walk, this time getting a few pictures. (Click for bigger versions)
The pavilion in the Hofgarten, looking out towards the Theatine Church.
The Theatine Church again - by no means the biggest church in Munich (you can see the towers of the enormous Frauenkirche in the background) but very impressive in its Baroque detail.
The Feldherrnhalle. The crow was most amusingly goose-stepping back and forth as if on guard duty...
A very common architectural feature in Bavaria is painted--on detail, even on quite prominent buildings. Look at the columns and most of the 'brickwork' - all just on the surface!
A small shopping mall had this huge hollow-sphere sculpture in an atrium. I loved the patterns of light and dark.
Further to the north is the Englischer Garten, Munich's major city park. A surprise for us was this surfing zone, created via an underwater ramp on a fast-flowing section of river. It was clearly popular both with surfers and sightseers.
We got the distinct impression that staying upright for more than two side-to-side traverses of the wave - about ten seconds - was considered to be Showing Off.
We were most tickled by this street, which we assume must be the despair of local estate agents :-)
(The full set of pictures is here)
On next to pick up the car. Now, this was meant to be what darth_hamster had dubbed my Mid Life Crisis Holiday, with me renting a BMW Z4. Alas, when we arrived at the rental centre they were most apologetic, as the car reserved for us had an electrical fault. No equivalent was available, so they offered us an upgrade.
To an X5.
Yes, we had BMW's spiritual successor to the Tiger II. The first problem was getting this behemoth out of the rather confined courtyard at the rental pickup and through an access lane about an inch wider than it was. Fortunately the Beast was equipped with BMW's system that stitches together the view from all-round cameras to give you a simulated overhead picture of your car, complete with colour-coded sonar-like proximity warning and computer-predicted turn circles. (Also, much to our relief, the rental staff had signed off a prominent scrape where someone else had had real problems getting out.) This first challenge dealt with, we programmed the satnav for Regensburg and set off...
Our plan was to fly in to Munich, take the train into the city and stay overnight before picking up our car on Sunday morning. Saturday evening we had a very pleasant wander around the city centre, culminating in what was to be the first of several very, very filling Bavarian meals. Bavaria's cuisine is great, so long as you don't mind having half a pig on your plate every meal. The following morning, before getting the car, we had another walk, this time getting a few pictures. (Click for bigger versions)
The pavilion in the Hofgarten, looking out towards the Theatine Church.
The Theatine Church again - by no means the biggest church in Munich (you can see the towers of the enormous Frauenkirche in the background) but very impressive in its Baroque detail.
The Feldherrnhalle. The crow was most amusingly goose-stepping back and forth as if on guard duty...
A very common architectural feature in Bavaria is painted--on detail, even on quite prominent buildings. Look at the columns and most of the 'brickwork' - all just on the surface!
A small shopping mall had this huge hollow-sphere sculpture in an atrium. I loved the patterns of light and dark.
Further to the north is the Englischer Garten, Munich's major city park. A surprise for us was this surfing zone, created via an underwater ramp on a fast-flowing section of river. It was clearly popular both with surfers and sightseers.
We got the distinct impression that staying upright for more than two side-to-side traverses of the wave - about ten seconds - was considered to be Showing Off.
We were most tickled by this street, which we assume must be the despair of local estate agents :-)
(The full set of pictures is here)
On next to pick up the car. Now, this was meant to be what darth_hamster had dubbed my Mid Life Crisis Holiday, with me renting a BMW Z4. Alas, when we arrived at the rental centre they were most apologetic, as the car reserved for us had an electrical fault. No equivalent was available, so they offered us an upgrade.
To an X5.
Yes, we had BMW's spiritual successor to the Tiger II. The first problem was getting this behemoth out of the rather confined courtyard at the rental pickup and through an access lane about an inch wider than it was. Fortunately the Beast was equipped with BMW's system that stitches together the view from all-round cameras to give you a simulated overhead picture of your car, complete with colour-coded sonar-like proximity warning and computer-predicted turn circles. (Also, much to our relief, the rental staff had signed off a prominent scrape where someone else had had real problems getting out.) This first challenge dealt with, we programmed the satnav for Regensburg and set off...