Tuesday, June 30, 2009

We walked a lot today.

Another glorious day, weather-wise, in Munich today: another huge breakfast in the hotel started us off well, and we left our bags to venture out to two major museums. The Deutsches Museum is kind of like the Smithsonian, and we had done so many art museums that we thought this would be a nice change of pace. It was also only 3 Euros each, which made it a REALLY nice change. :) Anyway, it took us 45 minutes to walk there, but we didn't mind because the sun was out and there was a nice breeze. We perused the main branch for about two hours, taking in exhibits about mining, boats, airplanes, time pieces, astronomy, calculating, farming, etc. It got a little boring by the end, but overall it was pretty interesting.

After this, we hiked back across town to the best collection of paintings in Bavaria, Munich's Alte Pinakothek. It wasn't very big, but it had some impressive stuff: Durer, Rembrandt, Rubens, Titian, Raphael, da Vinci, and a few more names of note. Also very interesting were the "cartoons" by Rubens - little paintings he had made so his workshop could produce the massive-scale paintings he was known for.

We didn't have a lot of time today, as our train to Fussen was to leave at 5:20, so after the art museum we headed back towards our hotel. We decided on our way to stop by the basement grocery store of a department store and get a picnic to eat while waiting at the station, and this turned out quite well. A quick stop at the hotel to get our bags and we were off to the train station, where we spread out our dinner in the lounge and chowed down.

We took two small-ish trains to Fussen with a change in Kaufbeuren. They were almost like commuter trains, and the second one was like a hometown train, with stops in almost non-existent towns and lots of whistle blowing while going across roads. The countryside was beautiful, and as the mountains came into view, we got excited. :)

When we got into Fussen, we hiked to our hostel/pension and found an overwrought girl trying to work out rooms with "the boss" with whom she was on the phone. This resulted in a bit of standing around with heavy bags, but finally the two guys who had come right before us got a room and then it was our turn. When we finally got to the room, we asked for towels, and the girl handed us one (that looked used, by the way) and said, sorry! We were, of course, a little grossed out by this, and decided to walk around the town in search of - well - anything. It was a lovely walk with a scenic view by the river, but of course everything was closed, so no towels could be bought.

We got back to the room and two kind ladies next door gave us an extra towel they happened to have gotten, and we felt a little better about the whole situation... and then as we were getting things around for tomorrow, the overwrought girl brought us clean towels! Huzzah! Now we just have to hope everyone with whom we're sharing the bathroom takes a shower tonight and won't need in there in the morning. Yes, we're sharing a bathroom with a couple of other rooms - we had to cheap-out somewhere!

I'm going to attempt another picture post back on here, as the internet seems to be responding better here than in Munich. We head to mad ol' Ludwig's castles in the morning - we're braving the (supposedly, from what another lady here said) beautiful walking/bike trail up instead of taking the bus. We might as well. Of course, if it's raining, we'll take the bus - here's hoping for another lovely day.

No comments:

Post a Comment