Mad Kind Ludwig II

Some of you may have noticed that I have been mentioning King Ludwig II a lot lately in my blog.  It's not because I have a crazy obsession with him but mostly because you can hardly sightsee in Bavaria without ending up in a location that King Ludwig II either built a castle, a palace or a summer retreat.  The man was obsessed with his creature comforts and spent a lot of the citizen's money, and most of his own, on improving his lot in life (instead of theirs).  When the attempts by his ministers to restrain his spending failed, they used his extravagances against him and had him declared legally insane by a doctor who had never even met him.  He was transported to Berg Castle on the shores of Lake Starnberg on June 12, 1886.  On June 13, the same Doctor that had declared him insane reportedly told the ministers that he was confident he could treat and cure Ludwig.  Strangely, that evening both Dr. Gudden and Ludwig were found drowned in the shallow waters of Starnberg Lake after taking a walk together after dinner.  Alone.  With no bodyguards.  And he was a King...

No one has ever solved the mystery of how both of them could drown in less than a foot of water or how their heads and shoulders were both above the water when they were found or even why Dr. Gudden had strangulation marks around his neck.  And it seems they never will because even though they have exhumed his body and studied it carefully and there is evidence of a gunshot to the head in Ludwig's case, there is just no money in solving the mystery, and no one will declare a new cause of death.  

Ironically, the frivolous spending of money and building of opulent castles is probably what let to Ludwig's demise, and yet those same buildings are some of the most profitable tourist destinations in Bavaria to this day.  

But on this day trip didn't set out to see any of the castles - but rather the spot where Ludwig died and the chapel that was built in his honor.  We left just after dropping the kids off at school and headed about 30 minutes south-west of Munich to Lake Starnberg.  The lake is the largest in Bavaria and home to many of Germany's most famous (Heidi Klum has a house here).  We parked and then hiked from one side of the lake to the other passing many a scene like this...

And houses like this.

We made it to the chapel about an hour later.  It was quite the hike and all the way around the other side of the lake, but it was pretty, and the company was good, so the time went quickly.

Stopped for a quick selfie...

The inside of the chapel.  It was difficult to take photos because there is a screen in front of the entire thing but I did my best.  It really was pretty inside.

 

And out...

The cross marks the spot where Ludwig and the Dr. were found.  Even in this photo, you can see how shallow the water truly is.

We were a bit hungry from our trek, and it was nearing lunchtime, so we backtracked to a little restaurant we had passed on the way in and had a genuinely Bavarian lunch of Flammekuchen, Obazda and steak salads with a side of bier or weinshorle before heading back to Munich to pick up the kids from school.  I love adventure days like this.

Down Below and Up Above

 With our girls sleeping over at a friends house, it was a relaxed and easy going morning involving pastries, copious amounts of coffee and a discussion about what we should do while we were waiting for them to come back into the city.  When the Underground Tour popped up as having space for us on their first tour of the day, we quickly decided that this was the perfect way to spend a few hours.

There is a very interesting story to how Seattle was founded way back in the mid-1800's but it is long and I don't have time for it all here so here is a short version - One man came in, saw the land and said, this is a great place to build my city.  So he did.  But he didn't realize he built it upon shaky (or perhaps soggy ground) so for many years Seattle was at the mercy of the tidewaters rise and fall, in more ways than one.  The whole city was sitting on the Puget Sounds seepage and the part that were on a bit higher elevation were soaked by the rainfall that the city is still known for today.   The whole place was a muddy mess.  The owner of the sawmill had a brilliant idea - we will take the sawdust from the factory floor and use it to soak up the mud and water and fill in the potholes along the streets.  So now the streets are a muddy, soggy, sawdust filled mess. Not only that but when the water closet became popular a few years later, most of Seattle installed the new-fangled indoor toilets.  The only problem was that the sewage system they had put underground to carry the waste out to the Sound was not a one-way system as it should have been.  Nope, twice a day, when the tide came in it pushed all of that sewage back up the pipes turning the toilets into fountains spewing, well, sewage.  Thankfully, the entire town burned to the ground in 1889.  In one fell swoop, the town had rid itself of all of the ramshackle buildings and poor planning that it has built itself on in the first place.  Time to start over!

Rebuilding began right way but this time they had experience on their side.  Instead of building in wood, they built everything of brick and rock.  Instead of being a slave to the tide that flooded the streets each day, they decided to build one story above ground, on top of the ruins that remained.  Store owners were told that in a few years the sidewalks and streets would be where their second story windows now sat so they needed to take that into consideration as they planned.  The first story would all be underground soon so builders left those unadorned and just functional while the second story (which would soon be ground level) had adorned doors and windows.  It must have been a strange sight for awhile. 

And this is how Seattle got an Underground.  Totally by accident.

A photograph of the original wooden built Pioneer Square before it burned.

Plan drawing of how the first floor would be underground and the second story would become the first.  Notice in the middle the two-way sewage they would be putting in.  Also, notice that there is no way to get from one business to the next before that road is completed - both sides were just huge ditches.  You had to use a ladder to climb out of your side of the ditch and then climb back down on the other side.  Can you see the problem in a drinking kind of town?

During construction.

Enjoying the stories.  This one was a bit racy and told about the "seamstresses" that made the town the most profitable in the NorthWest.  There seemed to be a lot of men getting "laundry" done back then.

A photo of some of the most famous "seamstresses"

You see these all over the sidewalks in Pioneer Square.

This is that same photo taken from the Underground.  This is how you know that there is an old business just under your feet.

In this case it was a bank vault and teller's cage.

One of the original "fountain" toilets.

Tour over we were back out in the sunshine and just waiting to grab some lunch once the kids were brought back to town.  We killed some time reading about the Smith Tower - the tallest building outside of New York when it was built in 1914.  It also housed the offices of Smith-Corona.  We didn't tour it because the kids were back and it was lunchtime.

 

Lunch with Friends!

With 5 kids in tow what else do you do after lunch except take a ride in the Great Wheel...

And then head out for gelato.

We called it an afternoon at this point and we said a sad farewell to friends that we are not sure when we will see again.  But, we relished in the fact that we had been able to spend these 24 hours together.

We finished up the day with dinner and an early bedtime.  This vacationing was making us all a bit exhausted and B had an early flight in the morning.  The rest of us had one more day to explore.

Derby Girls

 The Pinewood Derby is a longstanding tradition in the Boy Scouts and it was also a fun part of my childhood as I have brothers that were both Scouts.  I remember my Dad and them designing and building their cars and then watching them race against their friends from all of the troops in the area.  It was a lot of fun and it taught them about design, drag, velocity, and sportsmanship among other things.  When I signed my girls up as Brownies a few years ago, I never imagined that they too would have the chance to race their own cars in the Pinewood Derby as it is not traditionally a Girl Scout event.  But we have some great leaders here on the Munich Council and they decided it was high time the Girls got involved.  They purchased some extra car kits, secured a location and an official track and started the First (hopefully annual) Girl Scouts Pinewood Derby.  We jumped at the chance to participate.

Our official car kits and the rules.

Now, my girls are still a little young to be using power tools and handsaws.  And even if they were old enough, we just don't have access to the same tools we would if we were at home (tools don't run on the same voltage here so we left all of ours in storage back in the States).  All I had to work with was a Dremel and a small saw which I couldn't let the girls use because there were no clamps to hold the block, just hands and we didn't want them to lose any fingers.  So, the cutting and power sanding was up to me.  But the design - that was all the girls.  They both picked what they wanted the car to look like and I got to work.  Slowly but surely, I whittled the blocks into something that resembled their requests.  And then they got to work...They painted...

let them dry...

then painted again and added the details and then Modge Podged them.

At the end of it all, we had a sparkly orange crayon and a pink sparkle bunny.  Pretty cute if I do say so myself.

But we had one more dilemma, the cars didn't weigh enough.  See, like any race it is all about speed and the heavier your car is, the faster it will go.  You do have a weight limit - 142 g (5 oz) - so you need to weight your car carefully.  In our case, we attached magnets to the front and back of their cars so that we could add coins for weight and not ruin the looks of our cars.  Looks are important too as there are trophies for best design, most flair, and racers choice to consider.

Race time came and we were officially weighed (came in right at 141, just one gram under the legal limit).  After the weigh-in, we were not allowed to touch our cars again until the final trophies were handed out.

The trophies we were vying for.

It was a pretty good turnout for being the First.

And then the racing began.  The girls were split by troops - first the Daisies, then the Brownies and then the Junior/Cadettes.  Each car would race on each lane at least once and all of their times would be added together to achieve their final ranking.  It was all very official and a lot of fun!

Then the voting came.  The adults picked the ones for Most Flair and Best design while the Scouts chose their favorite car overall.  I was not able to vote for my girl's cars but am happy to report that their hard work paid off...

Stinkerbell won 1st place in her division and was awarded the Most Flair trophy.

MadHatter won 3rd Place in her division and was awarded the Best Design trophy.

So proud of them and their hard work.  I can only hope we get a chance to do it again next year.

The Fifth Season

The Bavarians love any excuse to throw a festival.  If it includes beer, all the better.  And since we haven't had a large beer drinking party since February's Fasching it was high time for another.  Starkbierfest - literally translated to Strong Beer Festival - was started by the Paulaner Monks in the 14th century as a way to get through the fasting required of them from Shrove Tuesday until Easter.  The beer is brewed to have much more "wort" (malt) than usual -18.3%  or about 1/3 of a loaf of bread worth in one liter.  This provided the nutritional values needed for the Monks to sustain themselves while fasting.  It also has a much higher alcohol content (7.9%) which add to the full-bodied, malty taste.   Nowadays the beer is produced only during the three weeks of the festival (it starts the third Thursday after Ash Wednesday) and is drunk for much less pious reasons.  Since we missed it last year, we knew we had to secure a table this year and invite a few of our friends.  

Last Saturday, we donned our Dirndl's and Lederhosen, ate a hearty meal to soak up the alcohol, and tickets in hand headed off for an afternoon of beer, fun, and friends.  And it was everything it was supposed to be - music, dancing, and beer!  What a fabulous way to spend a snowy Saturday.

*The Fifth Season - This season starts at Fasching (leading up to lent) and runs through Easter.  Mostly here in Munich.

Prost!

Brezels and Beer - nothing better!