Today my wife and I decided to attend one of the informal Munich city tours that originate each morning in front of the New Town Hall beside Mary’s Column. These begin between 10 and 11 each morning, so after another splendid breakfast bouffet at the Hotel Monaco we walked to Marienplatz and selected the free tour (in English) which was hosted by a young man named Mark. Mark comes from Essex in England, and though his thick rural British accent took a little getting used to, his enthusiasm for and knowledge of the city and its history were very impressive. Over the course of about 3 hours he brought us to and into the Frauenkirche, the original Hofbrauhaus, past the new Jewish syngogue (and all that its presence in Munich represented as a triumph over this city’s Nazi past), into Maximilianplatz and over to the Residenzmuseum. He concluded the tour on the site where Hitler staged his abortive beer hall putsch in November 1923. Of course, being a young man, his emphasis on Munich’s history and its contemporary economy centered on one word, which he urged us to repeat over and over at the top of our lungs — BEER! Once his tour had ended (he works only for well-deserved tips), we found ourselves next to the large complex that is the Residenzmuseum. Being interested in art and history, we purchased tickets for the combination program for €8 each — the treasury (featuring an impressive and often jaw-dropping collection of crowns, jewels, religious artifacts in gold and silver, etc.), and the actual royal residence rooms and furnishings, remarkably restored (in many cases) from damage sustained at the end of World War II, of seven hundred yers of Wittelsbach ruling families. Many of the jewels are enormous rubies, emeralds and other precious gems. We wandered through enormous halls with spectacularly painted and sculpted ceilings, lavish and often gaudy rooms for studying, greeting guests, and sleeping, and even a reliquary within a vault. This latter room is filled with the bones (and sometimes other body parts) of variious saints and holy men, generally presented within crystal and silver display frames. Overall, this is really a must-see museum, though it was surprisingly sparsely attended on this Saturday afternoon.
Robert Apfelzweig
Foster City, California, USA
