Vacation Pictures #3 - Scenes from Munich

This is a view of the Neue Rathaus (New Town Hall), a gem of Neogothic. To look at it, you'd never guess that construction was finished on it in 1905. The central bell tower includes a mechanical glockenspiel where knights joust and jesters dance at certain times of the day. The plaza it faces is known as the Marienplatz, and while the building no longer houses most of the city government, it does have shops and a restaurant (good restaurant, too).


Another view of the Neue Rathaus.


Mary is the matron saint of Bavaria, and this statue is in her honor facing the Neue Rathaus. It was freshly gilded for the Pope's visit earlier this year.


Now this surprised me. The Isar River runs through Munich, and part of it was diverted over a hundred years ago to supply the artificial streams and lakes in the English Garden, the largest park in the city. To slow the diverted water down there are a series of barriers just under the surface that cause rapids, and here were two fellows in wet suits surfing.


The English Garden is a park about a mile wide at its widest point and nearly three miles long.






This is the front of Munich University. The only known student protest against Nazism and the War was held here, by several students and a teacher who called themselves the White Rose. There is a small museum in their honor within the main university building, while copies of the leaflets they were passing out have been reproduced as ceramic plaques and embedded in the plaza in front of the building, as if they had been strewn there: