Munich:

Over the summer I will be traveling around Europe most weekends, and Stuttgart is a wonderful hub. To kick things off, on Saturday and Sunday I went to Munich (in Bavaria), which is about a 2.5 hour train ride from Stuttgart. I journeyed with a couple other American students who are here on the same program as me, but work at a different school. Because Germany was playing in Munich Saturday night, every hostel in the city was booked. So we went back to Stuttgart Saturday night--which wasn't bad because the Eurail pass we all have allows for unlimited train travel in a given day.

The Deutsches Museum [Here] was first on the agenda Saturday. It is a huge (16 km path to go through all the exhibits) museum that focuses mostly on technical accomplishments. Everything from water wheels to rockets was represented, with inumerable superb machines and exhibits. Needless to say, it was not hard to spend several hours there!

Early steam engine in Deutsches Museum

Next we ventured into the old city, about 1km square, containing quite a number of very nice historic buildings within the old city wall. I will only have room to highlight a couple here. The Neuesradhaus ("new" city hall, found [Here]) borders the main central square in Munich (Marienplatz), and holds the famous cuckoo clock (visible on the tower). Since we were there on a game day, the square was a sea of german ond swedish colors.

Marienplatz


Nearby was another famous building, the Frauenkirsche. [Here] This is a large cathedral that was home to the current Pope for a while. As big as the outside looks, it felt even bigger on the inside with the gold-ribbed vaulted ceiling well over 100 feet above. Such things simply cannot be conveyed in a picture. Suffice it to say that I could not even fit the whole height of the cathedral in a single picture

Frauenkirsche vertical panoramas, interior and exteterior

There were so many other great buildings, towers, and squares that I will have to just wait until I can figure out uploading full photo galleries (hopefully soon!). Anyhow, the rest of the day was spent seeing the old city and going to the Hofbräuhaus, a world famous Bavarian eating/drinking establishment.

The next day (Sunday), we took an hour detour into Ulm by simply getting off the train and catching the next one. There is really only one thing to see in Ulm: the cathedral [Here]. It is the tallest cathedral in the world (500 some odd feet tall) and the second largest. It is perhaps the definition of "gothic cathedral", with flying butresses, jagged spires, and an abundance of gargoyles. Started in 1388, it took nearly 500 years to complete, but the result is breathtakingly impressive.

Cathedral at Ulm, vertical panorama

Once in Munich, we made tracks for the English garden, which I believe is the largest city park in the world. It is at least 5 km long and follows the Isar river [Here]. From the north end of the garden, we trecked on up to the Alianz Arena, (a nice 12 km walk total) where the world cup games are played. Then we caught an U-bahn back to the city and an S-bahn out to Schloss Nymphenburg.

Schloss Nymphenburg [Here] is an exquisite example of baroque architecture and landscaping. It was begun in 1644 far enough away from the city to encompasse nearly 200 acres in its well planned out complex. The straight ponds stretching out from the front and the back of the palace go for at least a mile in both directions.

Overall, it was an amazing weekend that only makes me look forward to traveling even more!! But anyhow, back to work for the week.