SATURDAY, OUR LAST DAY IN MUNICH 9/7/2013

Today was our last day in Munich, and it was a lazy one.  For some odd reason, we have both turned into night owls, and are up till midnight, and sleeping later,  Must have something to do with jet lag!

The hotel’s wi-fi has been on/off last night and this morning--mostly off.  We took our “electronics” next door to Starbucks for morning coffee and to catch up on our email, etc.    We left the hotel about 11 am, wandering down the street to the Viktualienmarkt, where we picked up some fruit and a pretzel for a late breakfast.  

We walked along some back streets towards the The Royal Residenz, the largest palace in Germany and home to Bavarian rulers for over 400 years.  

Along the way we passed a restaurant window where they were roasting pig knuckles (I think they are actually pig’s knees--but what do I know!)  They looked so yummy--all crispy and brown turning on the spit.  I stopped to take a picture, and a chef posed in the window for me--complete with a big ole skewer of pigs knees and a smile.  He was pretty cute, but don’t tell David.

Cute guy with pig knuckles:

After that fun encounter we walked a few more blocks to the Residenz, paid our admission fee 13 Euros for me, 10 for David.  He gets a senior discount, and of course I’m much too young for that ;}

We started our visit in The Treasury where we saw room after room of priceless jewels, most dating from the 15th to 17th centuries.

First there were the crowns.  No modest, simple crowns for the Bavarian Kings and Queens--they went all out.  Maybe their motto was the same as mine?  "If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing!"

I love the colorful stones in this one, and the detail around the bottom is beautiful

Fairly simple

Note the angels on the top of this one--amazing detail:

Very feminine and graceful--- gorgeous!

This crown was child sized:

This one was huge, and looked way too heavy to wear

And this last one was my favorite:

And the jewels, note David's hand for size comparison--this necklace is huge!  

This jewel encrusted statue of St Georg slaying a dragon was pretty impressive, and the detail was amazing:

After we left the rooms and rooms of precious jewels, we moved on to the decorative arts section.  There were several rooms of glass ware: etched, cast, hand blown and carved--it was all beautiful.  Then rooms of porcelain and pottery and horn, then on to furniture--and on and on and on!  After a couple of hours we were on sensory overload, so decided to move on the the museum and royal residence section.

Much of the Royal Residenz was destroyed during WWII, but it has been nicely restored.  Some of the original furniture was saved, but the most of the original painted and gilded walls and ceilings  were destroyed.  Many of the rooms have been faithfully reproduced, my favorite were the sleeping chambers:

The large and VERY ornate reception hall was quite amazing.  I don't think there was a square inch that wasn't decorated!

Look at the size of this fireplace:

There were several more wings of the palace we explored, these are just the highlights!  We s spent hours roaming around the palace, and finally decided we'd had enough!  After a while it all starts to look the same, even though it is special and spectacular.

We finally found our way out of the maze of wings, rooms and halls,  retrieved our bags from the bag check, and walked out through the garden.  We were starving and VERY thirsty, as they had confiscated our water bottle at the entrance!

We walked and walked until we found a nice restaurant, and decided that a pizza was just what we needed.  OK--we each had a beer, too!  I think it's the law in Germany to have beer with every meal!

This was a beautiful restaurant!  Definitely the fanciest "pizza" restaurant I'd ever been in!

The view out the big windows was lovely:

And the pizza was deeeelicious; very thin crust, wood fire baked---mmmmm good!

We relaxed and took our time over lunch, talking about the wonderful treasures we'd seen at the Royal Residenz.  I wouldn't say it is quite the same calibre as Versailles, or Napoleon's apartments at the Louvre, but it sure wasn't shabby!

As today is our last full day in Munich, we decided we'd go back to our hotel and relax a bit, pack our suitcases and be ready for our train trip tomorrow morning.  

After much re-organizing of our suitcases and backpacks, we felt fairly organized and ready for tomorrow morning.  We had a very late dinner at a small outdoor restaurant right on our street.

I probably shouldn't admit this, but we both ordered pork---and beer.  We're being soooo bad.

David had sausages with spaetzle and sauerkraut, it was really good:

I chose a slice of pork roast served with a dumpling (sliced) and "cabbage salad".  It was very tasty!

So now we're all packed up and ready to go.  We have really enjoyed our time in Munich--it's a lovely city, and we've found the people to be friendly, helpful and welcoming.

Tomorrow we're taking a regional train to Fussen, a small town in southern Bavaria about 3 miles from the Austrian border.  We'll be seeing some spectacular castles, so check back tomorrow!