"Apparently Mom is Obsessed with Churches"

 Our uncultured children feel that once you have been in one cathedral you have seen them all. I must have under-prepared them for what it is like touring European cities. We toured 3 churches today, all within very close proximity to one another and could have kept going. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

We woke to a beautiful, sunny day. We drove into downtown Munich. We are staying outside of Munich, and we hadn't yet seen much of the actual city. Our first stop was Marienplatz to watch the Glockenspiel at 11:00 am. The Glockenspiel is basically a ginormous cuckoo clock. We got there right as it started to go off. As we were approaching the square we could hear tons of shouting and worried we had stumbled upon a protest, but what we found was a gathering of Romania's football fans all chanting and partying together. It was awesome.

The attention to detail is so impressive. I love seeing the care and attention that went into every detail of these buildings. 

Our next stop was to go to Frauenkirche or the "Cathedral of Our Lady." It is a 15th century gothic church that sits next to Marienplatz. According to the internet, "Everyone knows that the Frauenkirche serves as the final reseting place of Emperors and Kings and that the Devil himself is said to have visited the church." So that's neat.

The above cross is called "The Choir Cross." According to a brochure I picked up at the church, "In 1954, as part of the rebuilding, Josef Henselmann created a monumental crucifix for the cathedral. The cross impresses everyone because of its contrast: It floats above the altar space, despite its obvious weight. Chris on the cross, without passion, seems to be looking inwards, despite the power of the image."

That is all I have time to blog right now. I must log in for work as I have several sessions tonight. I will come back to finish this as soon as I can. Stay tuned.

Okay, I'm back. After viewing the inside of the church we were able to go up in the tower. I was fully prepared for several hundred steps, but after 92 stairs we came to an elevator that took us up the rest of the way. It was a tiny elevator and we were crammed in, but the view of the city was worth the ride.

At this point some hangriness was kicking in for Cormac, so we started to look for food. We found a Five Guys and had to have a conversation about where we were at: do we want to continue eating authentic German food, or do we need a little taste of home? The kids voted for Five Guys, and it really did taste like home. Complete with drink refills...yay.

We then headed to Viktualienmarkt, which was a big open air market close to where we were. We wandered around the shops and enjoyed seeing the different booths. The kids finally found some stickers. They were extremely hard to come by here in Munich. Only one booth had them and the kids have been on the lookout for days.

I really struggle to remember to take pictures of every day things. Like the market. Or some of the food. It just doesn't occur to me, so then we don't have pictures to remember that stuff by. I want to improve on that.

After visiting the market we went to visit Heilig Geist another church. This one is described on Google Maps as "Gothic church with rococo flair." Cormac did not want to go into another church, but I insisted. This one was remarkable. The ceilings were all painted and were amazing.

As we left the church we saw this street performer. We have seen quite a few street performers here in Munich and in Starnsberg and they all are playing accordions.

We then walked back through Marienplatz to head back toward our car. We stopped for a few more pictures.

We found one more church before we got to our car, much to Cormac's despair. This one is St. Peter's church, "Gothic church with a gem-studded relic" according to Google Maps. 

This painting on the ceiling depicts Peter's martyrdom. The building was just as stunning as Heilig Geist. The kids were sure we had already been in this church when we entered it. Funny kids. I would have loved to visit St. Paul's, but the kids were done. So we decided to drive by Siegestor (Victory Gate) which is a three-arched memorial with a statue of a Bavarian and 4 lions. It was originally completed in 1852 as a monument to the glory of the Bavarian army. Once it was restored after WWII it has been dedicated as a reminder of peace.

There was nowhere to stop along the road to park (also the kids were very against more stops and wanted to go back to the Air BnB - no sense of adventure), so I had to snag pictures out the car window.

We then drove back to Starnsberg, picked up a few groceries, and came home to hang out, work and do laundry. I have been trying to get a picture of the tunnels the whole time we have been here and we were going slow enough through one today that I was finally able to get a somewhat okay picture

Something that I learned today, it doesn't matter if you think you look better in pictures with your hair down, it's not worth it. Tie the hair up! It's too hot and obnoxious with it down.