Travelog for: Spencer

I helped my host with the shopping and we strolled over the Victuals Market - it's very close to the Marienplatz which is the center of the city.

Visited the German Museum (Science Museum) - in front of the entrance there are several turbines. Can you see me? They are really huge 

Next to the turbines I noticed some light-coloured stones in the ground, they formed sort of a pattern. I read that they make a "living" sun clock. I tested immediately, sat down on the mark for "April". My shadow - little short though - showed in a direction. When I followed the direction I hit the mark for 10 o'clock. Yes, it was correct! Isn't that cool? 

At the European Patent Office there are lot of different countries's flags - I like to see them flying over me.

Before leaving I absolutely wanted to see the Marienplatz. It was very hot today - so hot that I did not do a lot of walking.

The weather being hot I needed a mass of beer at the Hofbräuhaus to cool down 

The Auer Dult started yesterday. I took a stroll over the dult.
The Auer Dult is characteristic of Munich, the Bavarian capital. The history of the popular fair with its folkloric flair can be traced back to the Middle Ages. Nowadays the event is organized by the Munich Tourist Office.

Three times a year, the locals flock to the Mariahilfplatz, in the part of town called the "Au", which means "meadow" or "pasture": here they can walk around at leisure, shop for bargains, have a bite to eat and enjoy a good time. During the "Dult", the fairground, which spreads over 20,000 square meters, becomes an island in the heart of the city, alive with conversation and congeniality. Children young and old enjoy going on the bumper cars, the boat-like swings, the merry-go-round or the ferris wheel.

And if you like Punch and Judy, you must go see their Bavarian cousin, the famous " Kasperl von der AU". The Auer Dult is Europe's largest market for tableware and all kinds of pots and pans. New-fangled household products are proudly praised as "kitchen marvels". The junk dealers' wares conceal many a treasure, sometimes art and sometimes kitsch. Whether glass or porcelain, wax or wicker, cloth or leather, whether it's candy or an old-fashioned herbal remedy you're looking for: your heart's desire awaits you at the Dult.

After the dult I took the tram to the Munich Botanical Garden for a longish walk.

On the way back to the tram we passed the park of Schloss Nymphenburg and saw the Magdalenenklause.

The third pavilion in the palace grounds, built by Joseph Effner, is the Magdalenenklause (Magdalene Hermitage), sited north of the Grand Parterre and constructed between 1725 and 1728. Elector Max Emanuel did not live to see the completion of the building, which was finished by his son, Elector Karl Albrecht.

The Magdalenenklause was conceived as the living quarters of a hermit and stands in a small, "overgrown" wood. Built with tiles and partly plastered, it looks like a ruin from the outside. Cracks in the masonry and crumbling plaster serve as a reminder of the frailty of all things earthly.

The one-storey building has a rectangular ground plan and is extended to the south and north with semicircular conchae. At the corners of the east front are circular turrets. The south part of the Hermitage comprises the Grotto Chapel of St. Mary Magdalene and a similarly grottoed Entrance Hall. To the north are the Electors' Apartments , which consist of monastically austere rooms with oak panelling " à la Capucine" and decorated with copper engravings.

Individual furnishings emphasize the building's strangeness, including the altarpiece in the chapel with a crucifix and two candlesticks made from a narwhal tusk and a Byzantine table crucifix in the refectory, which Max Emanuel took as booty during the Turkish wars in Hungary

The hermitage enabled the Elector to escape from reality, although his genuine contemplation here was mixed with courtly play. It is another extraordinary Effner creation. By using exotic and historicizing architectural forms, he produced a strange, romantic, anachronistic structure that incorporates both a serious aspect and elements of the courtly art of metamorphosis.

Nymphenburg Palace owes its foundation as a summer residence to the birth of the long-awaited heir to the throne, Max Emanuel, who was born in 1662 to the Bavarian Elector Ferdinand Maria and his wife, Henriette Adelaide of Savoy, after some ten years of marriage.

Time to leave - I'll travel to the next host now. Good-bye Munich!

I arrived in Bruchsal just in time to see a double rainbow. Isn't it nice? You can see the baroque church St. Peter, when you look out of the window at my new host's home.

Petra told me, that I will go to school with her tomorrow and that I had to be prepared about their theme Baden-Württemberg. She told me, that I should tell her pupils something about those federal states, which I have seen already and that I will learn something more about Baden-Württemberg, too.

The tip of this biro shows, where you will find Bruchsal on the map.




Here's the coat of arms of Baden-Württemberg. The deer on the left is the heraldic animal of Württemberg and the griffin on the right is the heraldic animal of Baden.




On this map of Germany you see Baden-Württemberg in green. You can spot Stuttgart and Bruchsal.




Here's a map of Baden-Württemberg with some important cities and the Bodensee (Lake Constance).




The green part is the Rhine Valley, the brown is the Black Forest and Swabian Mountains and the blue is Lake Constance.




I had to answer some questions like, which city in the Rhine valley is called "Fächerstadt" (Fan-City): Karlsruhe, because it is built like a fan around the palace.




I learnt some Badisch and Swabian, like Grumbiere for Kartoffeln (Potatoes).




And of course I had to learn the Badner-Lied.

Today I went to my host's workplace - a primary school. She is a teacher of 4th graders. I'm sorry, but she didn't want to take photos with me, while her pupils were there - she said, that she had no time for it and I really believe, that she told the truth. She even had to run to take some photos with Stoker, Spencer and me of the Baden-Württemberg exhibition. Her pupils had made posters of different themes, but all of them have to do with Baden-Württemberg, which is the Bundesland (state), to which Bruchsal belongs.

Three pupils had to find out interesting places for pupils. Here are two of their posters:






Other pupils had to tell something about the Black Forest, the Schwarzwald, which is only about one hour drive from our host's home. The Black Forest is famous for the Kuckucksuhr, Black Forest Cake and the Black Forest costumes.






The Mummelsee is a 17-metre-deep lake at the western mountainside of the Hornisgrinde in the northern Black Forest of Germany. It is very popular with tourists travelling along the Schwarzwaldhochstraße. According to legends, the lake is inhabited by a Nix and the King of the Mummelsee.






The Schwarzenbachtalsperre (Schwarzenbach river dam) is also located in northern part of Black Forest. It was finished in 1926.








Konstanz is a city at the Bodensee (Lake Constance). It is close to the neighbour countries Austria and Switzerland.




Heidelberg is famous for its castle and the river Neckar with a nice bridge.




Karlsruhe is the main city of the Baden part of Baden-Württemberg. It is only about 20 km from Bruchsal and my host told me, that she studied there ages ago.






And finally Stuttgart, which is the maincity of Baden-Württemberg. It is called Stuttgart, because there were farmhouses for mares - in German "Stuten". That's why you see a horse in the coat of arms. Stuttgart is also famous for Porsche, the oldest television tower and Wilhelma, the Stuttgart zoo.








At last I was allowed to sit on the large Germany puzzle. I sit next to Baden-Württemberg, you can see the red dot Freiburg. At the border, which is the thick green line you maybe can spot some blue, this is the river Rhine, which flows through Bodensee (the blue part at the border to Switzerland (CH) and Austria (A) to the Netherlands. Bruchsal is located in the Rhine valley.




Two pupils talked about the Rhine, because a part of it flows through Baden-Württemberg.

In the early afternoon we went to see the baroque palace of Bruchsal. The most part of it was destroyed during the Second World War, but then rebuilt until 1975.

Schloss Bruchsal is one of the most beautiful Baroque palaces in Germany and the only episcopal Baroque residence on the Upper Rhine. The foundation stone was laid in 1722 by Cardinal Damian Hugo von Schönborn, Prince Bishop of Speyer, who made the palace the centre of his absolutist dominion.




There are nice chestnut alleys in the palace garden.




At one crossing you see statues of the four seasons. This here shows summer.






There's also a small pond with green water and some ducks.






At the next crossing there are statues of the four elements water, air, earth and fire. This statue shows fire.




Here we are in the rosegarden.








On this wall we found a sun dial, but we wondered, whether the time was right on it.




You see, that many houses belong to the palace area. The house with the little tower is the county court.






At last we took a look back to the entrance of the mainbuilding.