[Culturechat] The Untour that Wasn't (Gigli's Follies) # 3

[Vance Roy]

We got up Tuesday to about ten inches of new snow. We planed a trip to 
Munich to check out the Christmas markets, so we got our boots on and 
used our new found rail skills to get into the city. After signing up 
for an afternoon city tour, we watched the Glockenspiel, cruised the 
hundreds of stalls set up in the old town, and found lunch. "Lunch" it 
wasn't, unless you call a nearly whole pork shoulder swimming in a 
delicious sauce with a softball sized knodel in it, lunch. It was yummy 
and certainly staved off malnutrition for the day.

The city tour was well worthwhile, since we would not have covered so 
much in 3 hours on our own. The Nymphenburg palace was a highlight. 
Especially noteworthy was the room in which King Ludwig kept portraits  
of his forty or so consorts. With forty something of these gilies, the 
old boy must have been so busy that he hardly had time to attend to 
state affairs.

Wednesday morning was beautiful, cold, and the snow made everything 
look like a real winter had arrived. We tried to take the lift up to 
the Schlierberg mountain hotel, but it was closed this day only for 
revision. After a bakery stop in Schliersee, we took the bus to the 
next village beyond Tergensee called Rottach-Egen. This is the gold 
coast of shopping around these parts, but since the season didn't open 
until the next week, the shops were open but the traffic scant. Barbara 
made some Christmas gift purchases, we had beer and Gluhwein, and we 
headed back home with our favorite bus driver. Dinner that night came 
from the local butcher shop around the corner from the apartment. This 
outfit sells meat but also runs a big deli business of cooked German 
foods.

Thursday, it was back to Munich for more sightseeing. The Frauenkirche 
and St. Peter's Church are both impressive even to a non-cathedral 
person such as me. We cruised some more of the market and especially 
enjoyed a warm liver sausage sandwich (don't knock it, it just doesn't 
sound so good in English). We sat in a Beerhaus and watched the locals 
for awhile and then toured the Viktualmarkt. This place is a bad spot 
if you are a foody. We bought sparingly, knowing it had to be hauled on 
the train, but if we had had the car, we would have been in real 
trouble. All kinds of domestic and foreign foods are for sale and lots 
of samples available. Later in the afternoon, we made it to the Munich 
Hofbrauhaus, arguably, the most famous beer hall in Germany. It was 
about half and half tourists and locals and had a nice oom-pah band to 
enliven the atmosphere. By this time, we had spied a spot reputed to 
have the best sauerbraten in Munich. Barbara was going into withdrawal 
for this dish.

We found two seats in the Weissesbrau Haus, a restaurant in a former 
brewery for the German wheat beer that is so good. Barbara had her 
sauerbraten, and I, always on the lookout for something new, had a 
plate full of sauteed veal heart. Thus fortified, we hauled ourselves 
home after buying some hard to find Linea Aquavit in the Munich train 
station, of all places. if it sounds like we ate and drank ourselves 
silly, you have it right.

The finale comes in # 4 (Gigli is still learning about trains).


Vance Roy
gigli.saw@dplanet.ch
http://homepage.mac.com

This is the sort of English up with which I will not put.

Winston Churchill

Said to be a marginal comment by Churchill against a sentence that 
clumsily avoided ending with a preposition.