Snippets from life in Munich and Germany

Nibelungen

Nibelungen is the no 1 German folk tale; the one that every German school child learns, largely I would guess to teach them not to behave like the heroes in the story who seem to be whimsical, illogical and chaotic. Set in the stunning scenery of the Rhineland Palatine, German gods and their offspring become obsessed by the quest to recover a golden ring that has all powerful though unspecified qualities…..sound familiar? After much plotting, fornicating, fighting and sleeping they ...

Regensburg

Yes. That’s right: A day trip to Regensburg Regensburg makes for a convenient and pleasant day trip from Munich. Less than an hour and a half, and thanks to the Bayern partner ticket, an affordable train journey away, the town is perhaps the closest place of serious historical interest. In its day a far more important place than Munich and seat not just of Bavarian government but of the electors and on occasion the Holy Roman Emperor himself. Core to ...

Book Review: The German Lesson

The German Lesson, Seigfried Lenz. First published in English by New Directions Publishing in 1986. I was lent ‘The German Lesson’ by a friend of my fathers who comes from Norfolk. I never been to Schleswig-Holstein, the setting of this book, but it sounds like it has a fair bit in common with Norfolk. The flatness, the remoteness, the washed out big seaside skies, the slight otherworldliness of the inhabitants. One assumes that the author chose this particular spot as ...

Love in Munich

Munich is a place it’s impossible to imagine anybody being miserable in. Grumpy yes. You wouldn’t be in Germany if you didn’t have to contend with hard staring, grumbling malcontents, but real misery is an impossibility in this town. Life is just too sweet. The town exudes wealth, contentedness and health. Parks and forests are everywhere, Alpine air and soft water, crime statistics have to count littering just to make up the numbers and the weather system, while changeable, is ...

Olympics

There are some striking similarities between the 1972 Munich Olympics and those planned for next year in London. Both are Olympic ‘Parks’ in the full sense of the word – parklands, recovered from refuse and waste sites – dedicated to achieving not just a successful games, but also very much concerned with the legacy product. Munich certainly managed to produce something that is widely used to this day. With a great sports centre – particularly the Olympic pool – and many ...

Bavarian Library

B S B If you like reading books and you like looking aimlessly at young women, there are few more pleasant places to pass an afternoon than in the Bavarian state library. Inhabited principally by hordes of glossy haired, tight sweatered university students and with a collection of books unrivalled in the region, it is an enormous fun palace of learning and leering. It runs on a similar model to the British library, in that there are vast underground vaults ...

Waterworld

Munich is a city of lakes and in the height of summer, lakeside leisure is a city wide activity. Head out any direction and you’re likely to find one, in its own little piece of parkland, clean, blue and busy. Head North and you’re likely to find them before you leave the city limits. Many of these Northern lakes are man made. Not content with their wealth of splendid Alpine lakes to the South, many smaller as well as some ...

Schloss Tratzberg

If you’re getting tired of castles or Schlosser that look like big Christmas cakes or were dreamed up by some half mad dilettante then a trip across the boarder to the Inn valley is a good way to get to see some proper castles where people had more bloody matters on their mind that floating around in ruffs and powdered wigs. My favourite to date is Schloss Tratzberg. Unlike the medieval castles that are dotted all along the Inn river, 15th ...

Stuck on you

Still unable to face the big historical sights in Munich like the labyrinthine ‘residence’ or massive ‘Kunst Haus’ (art house), I picked the more approachable ‘Villa Stuck’ for my first museum excursion. Home to one of Munich’s greatest home-grown artists, Franz von Stuck, and a temple to his work and interests. The building itself is, like so much in Munich, a reconstruction and, like so much in Munich, lacks the antiquated charm you might hope for. However, once inside the interiors ...

Plastered

Woke up early. I do hate Venetian blinds! Why bother hanging anything! Still, afforded me an early start to a planned day of tourism. I’ve been cycling round and using this town for six weeks, but haven’t really seen any sites nor attempted to ‘look up’ and notice the places I’m passing through. First destination is the town hall. A massive gothic pile, famous for its clock with dancing statues that dominates the main square. I was surprised to learn ...

Book Review: Germania

Germania. Simon Winder. Picador 2010 When I came to Germany I didn’t really know much about the place. I arrived in Munich very ill informed about the country I was moving to, either historically or culturally. While I think a school history lesson or two may have been devoted to Bismark and unification, really I had nothing to go on beyond this and of course, the huge number of war movies I have watched. Luckily my girlfriend had slipped a ...