Munich Palaces
Monday 26 December 2016

We spent the last day of our trip in Munich today, visiting two remarkable palaces. After finishing our packing we took the  train to Munich and left our cases in a locker at the station, before catching a tram to Schloss Nymphenburg. This palace was the summer home of the Wittelsbachs and includes a carriage museum and formal gardens.

Schloss Nymphenburg 

English landscape garden

The main attraction inside the palace is the Great Hall which was painted between 1755 and 1757 with a fresco on the themes of peace and reconciliation. Another feature of the palace is the Gallery of Beauties, with 36 paintings of the most beautiful women of the time, commissioned by King Ludwig I.

We next visited the Carriage Museum which houses a remarkable collection of coaches and sleighs in the former stables. The most elaborate were those commissioned by King Ludwig II, the mad king who built Neuschwanstein.

Ludwig II in his dress sleigh

Ludwig II's dress sleigh

Ludwig II's dress coach

Detail from dress coach

We had a short walk in the grounds although the statues in the garden were all covered in wooden shelters for the winter.

Ducks and covered statues on the Grand Parterre

We returned to the station and had some lunch in the food court there before taking the U-bahn to visit our second palace, the Residenz. This is a palace of 130 rooms, including the Antiquarium, the Schatzkammer and the Cuvillies Theatre.

Residenz interior courtyard

The Antiquarium or Hall of Antiquities is the largest Renaissance hall north of the Alps. It was built by Duke Albrecht between 1568 and 1571 to house his collection of antiques and is painted with scenes of old Bavarian towns and allegories of Fame and the Virtues.

The Antiquarium 

We visited the ten rooms of the Schatzkammer or Treasury next and saw a huge variety of beautiful and precious items, including crowns, clocks, jewels and shrines.

Ruby crown

St George and the Dragon

Madame Pompadour's writing set

Cabinet of Miniatures

Detail from a Chinoiserie clock

After much confusion, we managed to find the entrance to the Cuvillies Theatre where we saw this amazing rococo theatre.

Curvillies Theatre

It was then time to retrieve our luggage from the station locker and catch a train to the airport. We had dinner at  Leysieffer Restaurant at the airport (freshly cooked spaghetti and prawns for me and roast pork with mashed potato for Ian) before going through security and passport control. Passport control here was one of the slowest  and most frustrating queues we have experienced!

The flight home was uneventful, with breaks in Dubai and Singapore. We were pleasantly impressed by the current passport and customs arrangements in Melbourne. A lot of the process is now automated and the queues moved quite quickly at least on this occasion.

So we have now achieved another of our dreams: to experience a European Christmas. We loved the Christmas markets, where the beautiful light shows came on at dusk around 4pm, and the atmosphere on Christmas Eve in particular, when there were lots of young families. The beauty of the candle-lit church on Christmas Eve was another highlight. We loved Venice in winter, quite a different city without the crowds of summer tourists, and the misty countryside outside the walls of Rothenburg. And we enjoyed returning to the apartment in Augsburg where we felt so much at home.

Thanks to Ian, my wonderful ‘tour director’ for his meticulous planning and his success in bringing our dream alive.