I had a very nice day today visiting with Peter and Waltraut. I took the S-Bahn (which is like a commuter train) out about 8 stops from Munich to their cute little town of Grobenzell. For the first few hours we just visited and caught up on things. Then we drove to the Nymphenburg Palace outside of Munich. This place was massive and has a lot of interesting history. It was built in 1662 for the Wittelsbach royal family. Mozart played a concert here at 7 years old and this was where Mad King Ludwig II (who’s famous castle Walt Disney patterned Cinderella’s castle after and we will see in about a week when we get to Füssen) was born and baptized. After our visit to the palace complex (we walked for miles around the beautiful grounds, lakes and gardens) we went back to their house for dinner.
I included several pics of the grounds and palace. The pink colored building was the hunting lodge called Amalienburg and was chosen a pink color since the prince had it built for his wife (Maria Amalia). They say she sat perched on the roof and the hunting dogs would scare the pheasants up into the air and she would pick them off like shooting skeet.
I included a pic of the three of us looking like tourists and rocking our Indiana Jones hats! Talk about travelers. These two have been to Antarctica twice and I believe they are close to 80 years old so they’re my heroes!
The other weird thing was they had all these gold busts of King Ludwig that the palace worker claimed were for sale but I think we had a little “lost in translation” moment!
Hope everyone is having a great Monday!
Jeff
The Wandering Italian 