Munich, Germany ... May 1-3, 2009

For the long labor day weekend we decided to make out way to Munich and see some more of that city. We had been before for Oktoberfest a couple of years ago and we have driven "through" it a number of times, but we haven't really ever stopped to just see the city itself. We took off Friday morning and made the 5 1/2 hour drive quite easily. We went downtown to the Marienplatz, the main square. We walked up the 350 steps to get the view of the city from Peterskirche (Peter's church) and that was spectacular. We got a great view of the city from the observation platform even though it was pretty crowded.

On the Marienplatz they had a little battle of the bands going on, which was fun to listen to for a time, while we ate Bratwursts on the square. The Neues Rathaus (New Town Hall) sits on the square. It looks much older than it really is, as it was completed only in 1909, but because it was built in a Gothic style, it maintains a more archaic look. Also on the Marienplatz is the Altes Rathaus (Old Town Hall), which actually looks newer than the New Town Hall. Technically, it is, as the original was destroyed during World War II before being restored back to its original 15th century design.

We saw a Haagen Daz, so we enjoyed that ice cream before heading back to the car and to our hotel for the evening.
The next morning we went to the Deutsches Museum, which one would think by the name would be some sort of German History Museum. It is easier to manage expectations calling it by its other name "the German Museum of Masterpieces of Technology and Science". Here we saw everything from Jet engines, helicopters, fighter jets to bridges, physics displays, and Nuclear energy displays. It is the largest technological museum in the world. Probably the best part of the museum was the hands on nature. The kids could "touch" a lot of things. In the kids zone they could actually climb on things, including the fire engine, where even Ryan got to spend a few minutes on his own.

We finalized the morning visiting the bench that saw the first splitting of the atom in 1938, originally from the laboratory of Hahn and Strassman, who were the first to demonstrate Nuclear Fission, leading to the creation of the Atom Bomb.

We left the museum and drove back to the town center where we walked to the Residenz, ate lunch at a Cafe (ie Starbucks), and walked through the Hofgarten. We continued walking to the Alte Pinakothek Museum, let the girls play on the playground in front of the museum while Heather took a little nap on the park bench before trying to find our car (we got a little confused as to where we had parked it).
We decided to end the day visiting Dachau, although we debated back and forth whether it was something we wanted to take the kids to. We explained a little about the German history to Katie when we visited the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam a few weeks ago, and although most people would consider us bad parents, we thought if we explained it on her level, it might actually be a good life experience for her. Maybe fate decided she shouldn't be exposed to that yet, since as we arrived at the camp it started pouring, so we decided to bag it and just head back to the hotel (We'd been a few times before, so we were not completely set on seeing it again...and the sun came out just as we arrived back to the hotel, as usual!)
Unfortunately, our GPS died and the fuse blew on the adaptor, so we were forced to figure out our own way back to the hotel. And this was NOT easy and it re-enforced the benefit this GPS has been for us over the last 3 years. I don't think we could have managed without it, at least it would have been hard to stay sane without it. After a long drive, we finally found the hotel. We walked to a Chinese restaurant down the street from our hotel for dinner, stopped off for some ice cream (as usual) and then headed to bed.
We woke up the next morning and got ready for church. We arrived just before it was to start but found that the chapel we arrived to was under renovation and the meetings were being held across town. We would be too late for most of sacrament meeting, so we finished out our Munich visit stopping off at the Nymphenburg Palace, the old Summer palace of the rulers of Bavaria in the 17th century. We did not go inside but instead strolled the beautiful grounds, decked out with floral, a lake, and swans. King Ludwig II, the man who went literally crazy building Neuschwanstein Castle (The Disney Castle) was born in the Nymphenburg Palace. The stunning nature of this edifice probably triggered his passion for creating something even more spectacular (which he did, by the way!). We headed home after our walk around the small lake (maybe it was just a pond) and made quick time back to Budapest.