Gilly Pickup goes in search of Chocolate, Beer Steins and the Mad Monarch
Images Gilly Pickup
It's amazing how much rich, chocolate Bavarian cream tart you can eat to sustain you during a hard day’s sightseeing. Besides, we’d just climbed all the way to the top of the 15th century ‘Frauenkirche’, Gothic Church of Our Lady, the city’s famous twin domed landmark to view the glories of Munich laid out before us. Our Lady’s onion domes dominate the city’s skyline, looking somehow curiously out of place against the red brick of the building. And it has to be said that the interior of the Frauenkirche is every bit as spectacular as the exterior, with a late Gothic nave and legendary Teufelstritt, (Devil's Footstep) at the entrance.
Not far away, at the city’s heart is the ‘Marienplatz’, an improbably beautiful square with a tinkly fountain where blue and white flags flutter in the breeze and the carillon plays three times a day. Earlier that morning we had gone to this Trafalgar Square of Munich to be wowed by street musicians, entertainers and oompah bands pumping out German songs.
Munich, once …show more content…
The swan motif is repeated many times throughout the interior; on fabrics, as wood carvings, even the water faucets are shaped like swans. The ballroom is decorated in the theme of ‘Parsifal’, an opera composed by Wagner, a composer much admired by Ludwig. Highly artistic, Ludwig waited 16 years to move into his dream home. During Neuschwanstein’s construction, he spent hours with his telescope watching progress from the mountain opposite while hundreds of craftsmen toiled to produce his