Winter Walks – Osterseen (Bavaria)

As usual, the snow did not come at Christmas. But last night, it came.

 

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Schloss Nymphenburg

Nymphenburg Palace was the summer residence of Bavaria’s rulers, the Wittelsbacher family. The gardens, which are largely woodlands, are enormous and contain, in fact, five palaces, one big one and four teensy ones. Well worth a visit if you happen to be in Munich with an afternoon to spare and a hankering for a dose of nature.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had a delicious plum crumble, but wolfed it down too fast to take a photo…

Deutsches Museum – A Quest For The Quirky

“I want to go to the museum.” Those were the words I never thought I’d hear. Ever. Not from the mouth of my brother. But he said them. And off to the museum we went. To the Deutsches Museum in Munich, to be exact, whose ample bowels are a splendid repository of science and technology paraphernalia. Germany has come up with quite a lot of this stuff over the years.

I won’t bore you with the fascinating details of the various exhibits (not being sarcastic for once, I love all that stuff!) – my photo hunt was rather aimed at the quirky side of things.

Like this staircase! Without…

…and with people on it 🙂

Or these windows reflecting a building site:

Knitted coral reef, anyone?

How about some knitted…

MEAT?!?

“Meat oysters” – don’t ask…

Ditto. So much for “the food of the future”.

Abstract art? No, mum and bro as seen by a heat sensor camera

Structure of a crystal

Can’t remember… something do to with microprocessors

Ship’s propeller

Some rooftop views:

Beautiful Munich 🙂

People swimming in the Isar… it was a hot day!

 

I shall leave you with some famous last words (as displayed on a wall behind the knitted coral reef):

 

Burghausen – A Long Trip To A Long Castle

Nine hours on public transport. My heart sank when the Deutsche Bahn lady printed out our itinerary replete with bus and train changes. This had been my Mum’s idea, this trip to Burghausen, an end-of-train-line town near the Austrian border, overlooked by “The world’s longest castle”. The world’s longest schlep more like.

In the end, despite all the platform hopping, it turned into a great day out.

Burghausen’s Coat of Arms

Part of the castle that goes on forever

 

Inside the castle complex:

Not canon balls, but catapult missiles, in case you’re wondering

Will they pass Mum’s inspection…?

I sat on that one…

 

 

 

 

 

 

A few pictures of the town of Burghausen:

No cake. There was an ice cream… but the forces of greed got the better of me on this occasion and pulled my fingers faster towards the spoon than to the click button.

 

 

 

 

 

Pea Soup Productions Presents

Snow on New Year’s Day, they said. Proper Winter to make an appearance, finally, at the crack of 2016, they said. What we’ve got instead is fog, grizzly drizzle and all the cheeriness of a Siberian laundry  with the heating up the creek.

WW1 Memorial in my village

 

Have I depressed you quite enough yet..? Welcome to the club!

Wait… maybe some spiritual guidance to lift our mood? I’ve got just the thing: Last week, while the weather was still nice and sunny, I came across this saucy lady on one of my walks:

This being Bavaria, there’s thousands of Madonnas everywhere, perched on pedestals, squeezed into grottos and stuck to the lower echelons of crucifixes, but they don’t usually wear bright red undergarments, nor red lipstick, like this one. Whory Mary…!

This is how my village looked last year at this time of year: What a difference!

When Winter Just Isn’t Winter

There’s people walking about wearing T-shirts. And cycling in shorts. In Bavaria. In late December. Outside!

It smells like autumn. But it feels just like spring. Even the bees are busy, but busy with what…? Flowers are far and few between. Plant life is dormant. Or trying to be. The poor buzzy blighters can’t sleep – it’s too hot to hibernate.

This non-winter is a tricky situation not just for them, but also for faux photographers like me. Bavaria is pretty in the snow. In absence of a powdery white blanket beautifying the season’s barrenness, there’s usually at least an early morning dusting of frost gracing the trees, making them sparkle in the sunshine.

But this year, with temperatures persistently well above zero, everything is brown and (brownish) green. The gently rolling countryside, though easy on the eye when you’re standing in it, turns into nothing-to-write-home-about snaps of muddy fields and dead bristly bits. And my camera is way too crappy to capture the faint silhouettes of the snow-capped Alps towering above the landscape in the far distance, like ghostly dinosaurs.

I had to re-think my strategy. So, here it is: Big skies, small details, textures and splashes of colour where I could find them. And trying not to get myself arrested while loitering around people’s garden fences.

Birch trees laden with mistletoe

 

And I know you’ve all been waiting for this:

Mum’s Christmas baking 🙂

 

Some of you may remember that last year’s winter-time shots of my tiny little village and surroundings were wildly different:

A stunning white Christmas: https://ladyofthecakes.wordpress.com/2014/12/26/a-white-christmas-after-all/

Followed by an equally dazzling New Year: https://ladyofthecakes.wordpress.com/2015/01/01/a-happy-new-year-from-narnia/

Apparently, there will be snow next week. Am not holding my breath…

Lake Tegernsee and Wasserburg, Bavaria

Not another lake, I hear you groan. Not the Bavarian Alps AGAIN…! But yes, I’m afraid, I’ve just got to cram one more in before I’m done with this year’s home visit 😉

Tegernsee is another one of these fabulous destinations just an hour from Munich on the train. Although it is most definitely a tourist destination, foreign tourists don’t really know about it, so I’d say that probably 95% of tourists are Germans.

Who said Germany didn’t have great beaches…??

Traditional Bavarian dresses (“Dirndl”) on sale.

Tegernsee Fire Station 🙂

And now, to give your Alps-and-lakes-weary eyes a rest, a couple of shots from a trip we took to Wasserburg, a medieval town in Upper Bavaria, circled by the river Inn.

Aw, look, how pretty! (Note: I did not take this photo myself, it comes from http://www.wasserburg.de)

Wasserburg Town Centre

That’s my mum there in the white skirt

There’s nothing as tempting as a shot of someone’s privates…

And to finish off:

Another portion of fabulous apple fritters! I had a bit of an obsession with them on this trip…