Bavaria, the land of Lederhosen

My last night in Florence was great. I realized that I was leaving the best place in the world to get gelato so I decided the only way to fix that was to have two gelatos for the day. I would have had three if I wasn't in such a hurry to catch my train after dinner. I found a hill to climb up and have a wonderful view of Florence during sunset. I'll add more pictures to the Florence link.

The night train from Florence to Munich wasn't as comfortable as my last one. I didn't sleep to well but it still is nice to wake up in a new city. After getting off the train I stowed my big bag in a locker and went off blindly into Munich. It was very chilly this morning and I was glad to have a hat and gloves with me. Munich is pretty much flat and not hard to get around. I didn't use any of the public transport and just walked around today.

Munich has one of the largest city parks in Europe, the English Gardens, and they were great to walk around in in the morning. This is also the park that is well known for the nude sunbathing but nobody was out today. I also walked past the Glockenspiel around 8 in the morning when no one was there and came back at 11 when it goes off and the square was packed with tourists. I must say I wasn't too impressed with the Glockenspiel but it was neat.

For lunch, I got a good tip from somebody that works for a bike tour company in Munich. It turns out the famous Hofbrauhaus has a lunch special under 5 euro. It was some sort of potatoe and cheese soup with some meat and potatoes for the entree. It tasted pretty good especially washing it down with a nice Hofbrauhaus beverage.

I made it to Landshut this afternoon and Mirjam picked me up from the train station and brought me to her home. It really has been great how the families I've stayed with have been so helpful and nice. It makes traveling so much easier when you stay with a local. Later, I went with Mathias for a bagel snietzel (sp?) at a restaurant in downtown Landshut, pretty tasty and cheap. Well off to planning for tomorrow, I just found out that the A380 (super big passenger jet plane) will fly into the Munich airport tomorrow afternoon. I'll post some pics of it if I see it. Auf Wiedersehen.

Munich and Landshut

Pics of Firenze!

Well I finally found a place I can upload my pics from. Enjoy! I take a night train to Munich tonight and then should meet up with the Klemms in Landshut. Looking forward to seeing Germany!

Florence

Uffizi, Bargello, and more

Well I made it through another day in Florence. I really only went into the Bargello and Uffizi museums today so I was taking it pretty slow compared to some of my other days of travel. Although both of these places have superb paintings and sculpture. They don't let you take pictures in either, as well as a few other places I've been recently, so I'm not holding out on you in posting pictures of David, just not able to deliver. Well at least not the originals, there is a copy of David near the Vecchio Palace that I got a picture of but it's just not quite the same.

They made the jump here to summer hours (one hour ahead) last night and the hostel I'm staying in was good enough to post signs everywhere letting us know. Otherwise I may have been an hour late to my reservation for the Uffizi and very sad. The Bargello had many sculptures in it including David by Donatello (different than the one by Michealangelo that most people know). The Uffizi is full of great Italian paintings including the cy Botticelli. I really liked one of the unfinished paintings by Leonardo though. It was great to see some of the sketches he made before completing the painting and really see how well he works with the three dimensional perspective that was a new concept in the renaissance.

It rained a bit today but nothing somebody from Seattle isn't used to. I booked a night train to Munich for Monday night today, so Chelle I guess to answer your question I'll have to come back later to make it to Switzerland.

I'm trying to post pics but the sight is continuing to load and not finish and my time here is up. I guess you'll have to wait a little longer for Florence pics, sorry. It's good to hear so many comments from you all, keep them coming.