But on the inside it looked very much like an LDS building - simple, clean, and friendly. Fortunately for me there was English translations! (Lance knows basic German and decided to test it out.) It was fast and testimony meeting, which was very interesting. The bishopric counselor who conducted happened to be French, and once that was mentioned I could actually hear his French accent when he spoke German! The ward was smallish, with a handful of very cute little kids and a few youth scattered about. They were all extremely friendly and happy to see us, which is always nice! As I sat there I mentally noted that out of all the churches we had seen over the past few days, this was definitely the plainest and smallest. But it was also the only one in which I truly felt the spirit, so to me it was the most beautiful church in Germany. It was good to be there.
We only stayed for Sacrament Meeting because we had to check out of our room. Fortunately for us the hotel was happy to store our luggage so we didn't have to lug it around all day. Here are a few pictures I took as we walked back to the hotel after church. Parts of Munich are grey and industrial, but other parts are colorful and so pretty!
I told Lance I would totally be willing to live in Germany for a year. Not forever, but a year would be good. (I later told him I would not be willing to live in Italy. I loved Italy, but I don't think I'd want to live there. Too intense!)
We decided to head back down the Marienplatz since it was on the way to the Residenz, which we wanted to tour.
Then we realized that it was only 15 minutes until the New Town Hall's Glockenspiel show, so of course we stayed for that!
While waiting in the square all of the churches in the city took turns ringing their bells. It was really cool sounding.
I have video of the glockenspiel, but I'm too lazy to load it. Also, it's probably not that interesting if you weren't there. Also, it's long. But I'm glad we got to see it! Seems like one of those things where if you're in Munich you need to see it at least once.
Munich had some interesting fountains, too. I liked that puffer fish on top.
For lunch we picked up a Bavarian sandwich to share at a nearby cafe. It was on a pretzeled bun and had what tasted like some sort of bologna, plus pickles and a few veggies. It was delish.
We also shared dessert - it was like a glazed doughnut sandwich with rich vanilla cream in the middle. These Germans... they know their food!
We of course got lost on the way to the Residenz, but that seemed to be a reoccurring theme of the trip - thinking we knew where we were going, and missing it by just a little and walking far more than needed. But we did see some interesting German on our merry way. They sure like long words with lots of syllables and minimal vowels.
Here's the theater church. Once again, not a fan of the yellow. Must be a Bavarian thing.
So the Residenz is this ginormous palace that Bavarian royalty used to live in. Each time a new king came in he'd add on. Lots of it got pulverized during WWII, but they've done a good job of rebuilding and showing what it originally looked like. By the time we got there (and figure out how to get in - you'd think it'd be more obvious on such a huge building, but nope) it had started to rain. It was supposed to rain all afternoon and evening, and since we were basically homeless we settled in the tour the whole thing.
The first section was the treasury. I took most of these pictures for Tess because I knew she would love seeing all of these crowns and jewels and such. I was right - she loved it.
We had audio tours. It said that if we listened to every single thing in the treasury alone it would take over 5 hours. And the treasury is just a tiny fraction of the Residenz. Yikes! We quickly got pretty adept at listening about only those items that really interested us!
The other part we toured were the actual rooms used and lived in by the royal families. Here's Lance in the garden grotto, which is all covered in painted shells and was actually kinda creepy.
Here's the grand banquet room. Or something. I don't remember, but it was really big and fancy.
Some lady in period dress was giving a tour in German.
At one point there were signs with arrows - one way led to the shorter tour, the other the longer. We chose the longer.
We saw SO MANY ROOMS. This also became a reoccurring theme on this trip - visiting the royal or papal apartments. After a while you just get desensitized to all the Baroque decor, the bright colors and gold everywhere. It's super fancy, but super tiring.
There are something like 130 rooms at the Residenz - we walked through the vast majority of them!
We also figured out the German arrow system. There'd be arrows all over the place telling us where to go, but without any writing or anything, so if there was more than one arrow in the room it could get confusing. But we figured it out.
After several hours we surrendered. Actually, we came to the end of the tour. Our feet were sore and our tummies hungry. It was still raining, but not too badly. We walked back to the Marienplatz area and found a little pub to eat in. I had spaetzel with cheese and caramelized onions and it was so yummy and perfect for a rainy evening.
Since it was nearby, we stopped at the infamous Hofbrau Haus after dinner and waited for the oompah band to play. It did not disappoint.
We finally picked up our luggage and headed over to the train station, which was basically across the street from our hotel. We watched some Netflix for an hour before our train came. The Munich train station is pretty cool - very modern and very busy. Trains coming and going, people everywhere, lots of cafes and shops. You could people watch for hours there.
This wasn't our train, but close enough. I was all excited to ride the night train - I had booked Lance and I our own berth with our own bathroom. A little bit of a splurge, but certainly cheaper than another night in a hotel plus as train or plane ride to Florence. Unfortunately, once we boarded the train we realized there was something strange with our booking - we were in different cabins!!!
I have no idea what happened, other than the train company's English website was not that great. So instead of booking one for us together I booked one for me in a women's cabin and one for him in a men's.
Oops.
I felt really bad.
But Lance was good natured about it. He had an interesting cabin mate named Hazim, who was originally from Syria, but who was married to a German woman and was now studying 16th century manuscripts, which was why he was going to Florence. I ended up not having a cabin mate. Since I was alone we asked if Lance could just share with me, but since mine was a woman's cabin and since technically someone could buy a ticket at any time and ride the train (there were lots of stops), we couldn't. No one ever shared a cabin with me, which is not a surprise since it was the middle of the night.
We got a little gift bag with a few snacks, slippers, that sort of thing. Oh, and my first and only non-mineral water of the trip! Boy, those Europeans love their mineral water. I actually learned to quite like it, as long as it was sparkling.
Lance hung out with me for a bit while eating his last (giant) Bavarian pretzel.
I had wanted to go to bed fairly early since we were getting into Florence at 6am. But I had to wait for the porter to come by and set up my bed and take my breakfast order and show me how things work. And I also had to shower and stuff, so I didn't get into bed until around 10:30.
Which really didn't matter because I hardly slept at all! This was boasted as the most comfortable night train in Europe, but that bed was dang hard and the train kept moving oddly and at one point in the middle of the night the police came through and asked for passports from certain rooms. And not in a nice way, more of a THIS IS THE POLICE, SHOW US YOUR PASSPORT kind of way. They didn't bang on my door, but they did on Lance's.
The bathroom was teeny tiny and reminded me of our cruise.
It was a long night. I'm glad we got to experience a night train (nacht zug in German), and it was nice to travel at night and not waste daylight. But I don't think I'd take another one again. I'm getting too old for so little sleep!
The cabin came with slippers, though, so there's that!
Around 5:30 breakfast was brought to my cabin (nothing much - yogurt and some rolls and hot chocolate). By quarter after 6 we staggered off the train and found ourselves in Florence. It was pouring rain - just POURING. And we were desperately tired. But also excited, because we were now in Italy!
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