Munich and Ulm, Germany: May 30-31, 2017 - Heights

We weren't 45 minutes outside of Staudt before we had to pull over.  We had all noticed that the bus A/C wasn't providing much relief from the warm nearly-summer day as morning progressed on, but it took a second or two on the road to realize that it wasn't just a lack of A/C - it was the presence of a blast of heat.  When this mixup was reported to the driver, he fiddled with some switches to "fix it"...which actually just cut out what little A/C we had going and left us with just the heat.  People in the back of the bus began shoving their heads into the overhead storage compartments - the only place any semblance of cool air remained - and after a few insistences that, indeed, the system was not just taking awhile to get going but was in fact not going at all, we pulled off at a gas station to figure out what was wrong.  Not the best introduction to Norbert, our bus driver for the remainder of the trip, who actually turned out to be a great guy.

He worked his magic, though, and the air problem was sorted in fairly short order, and soon we were back en route to our first stop, Ulm, where the largest cathedral in the world resides.  This is what the world's largest cathedral looks like from the outside:

It's tall!

We had come, of course, to climb it, which you can do via staircase and no other way.  They told us how many steps it was, some ungodly amount in the 700+ range, but whatever.  We were there to troop.  Now, we all remember how I had done the previous summer at China's vaunted Great Wall, so I was determined to make it up, and luckily - and I'll go ahead and spoil this for you - I did.

Some steadily ascending views from the climb up:

Then came the final ascent, through a partially-exposed spiral staircase leading to the summit itself:

The view was pretty spectacular.  Totally worth the climb.  What I can't imagine is the people building it, ascending to those heights each day to add one new stone brick or carve one new detail.  No wonder it took like a billion years to complete.  Even worse: imagine the people born after it started, who worked on it their entire lives, and died before it was complete.  Hard not to feel like just a cog in the machine.

After the climb back down, we sat in the main church for a moment to rest:

And checked out the varied styles of stained glass window:

A bit worn out from the climb, I and a few other people were desperate for something to eat, but we knew we were short on time.  We here hoping to find a fast food place in the vicinity of the Cathedral, but the best we could find was a hole-in-the-wall Turkish place.  We ordered our food, which then took way longer than expected to get made, and as a result were late getting to the bus.  Oops.

Another hour or so busride later and we arrived in Munich for dinner and touring.  First, we saw this summer palace and its backyard garden, just briefly:

Then, through the city, stopping at the opera house on this square:

And were then taken by our guide to Marienplatz.  I was back!

Always interesting for me to visit a foreign place for the second time, especially faraway places I didn't expect to return to.  Like London, back in 2015...which incidentally is the same trip where I first visited Munich.

ANYWAY.  We then were allowed to split off for food, and most people were interested in Hofbräuhaus:

but having been there before, and not being too terribly hungry or in the mood for a big ass beer, I went with a different group to the popular traditional German restaurant, Hard Rock Café.

Shina met a living statue outside:

We then returned to the opera house to wait for the bus pickup with the evening glow in the background:

The drive to the hotel was another hour or so.  While this leg of the trip was ostensibly "in Munich", the only real time we got in the city proper was that evening.  The rest was more in the Munich area.

It was a rainy morning the next day when we set out for our first sightseeing stop, the Herrenchiemsee palace, another of Ludwig II's massive places of residence.  The interesting thing about this one is that it's on an island in the middle of a lake, so it took a ferry to get there.

followed by a brief hike to the palace itself:

No pictures allowed inside, but luckily SOMEONE, whose identity I have sworn to protect, snuck a couple contraband photos:

It is a NICE PLACE, as you can see.

Next up, a place I'd never heard of but which turned out to be quite an interesting stop: Hitler's Eagle's Nest.

This was the special retreat he'd nestled high up in the Alps for high-ranking visitors or foreign diplomats, as well as the higher ups in his own party.  Kind of the official headquarters of the shady, secret side of the Nazi government.

Had some shuttles shuttle us up, where I took this to give you a sense of how high we were:

Although it really wasn't necessary, as you will soon see.  We then took an elevator even further up:

Into the foggy abyss:

Proof of how high we were: snow in late May

I didn't take many photos of the lodge-style building that was up there, because frankly it was the least interesting thing about the location.  More interesting to me was the path that trailed off into the misty unknown:

It seemed to go on forever, and kept taking turns that made me think surely I'd gotten off of it somehow and was now just roaming the rocky landscape freestyle.  In fact I'm sure I did that eventually because I made a bit of a climb to the last area that was almost certainly just a cliff face:

Spectacular view.  We then retraced our steps back to the Nest.  Here's the one real shot I took of the place:

See?  Kinda ski-lodgeish.

Took the elevator back down.  Did our thing in the reverberant tunnel where it drops you off:

Safe to say most visitors to the Eagle's Nest don't get to hear some Eric Whitacre on their way out. 

The rest of the day was spent getting to our hotel, this time an hour on the OTHER side of Munich, to give us a head start for the next day.  We had dinner in a place called Berchtesgaden, which was lovely, but didn't do any tourist-like things there - it was just for food.

Before reaching our new hotel, we stopped to say our goodbyes to Emily (Black), who was taking a plane the next morning to California for some summer opera workshop she was involved in.  This trip was also going to be her last hurrah with the Cardinal Singers, so it was a particularly significant goodbye.  We sang our song, as per tradition, once more, and once more, there were tears.