We stayed overnight at a local hotel which was only a 10-minute walk to Old Town. So we slept in till 9 AM before hitting the ground running. We grabbed breakfast at a coffee store, a chain but not Starbucks, before heading straight to the Residenz building. Originally the home of the house of Wittelsbach, the kings of Bavaria, it’s now a gorgeous museum. We started in the ancestral gallery, and William adored it. With paintings of the family members as far back as Charlemagne, although the family tree went back even further.

After we spent a significant amount of time in the hall of ancestors, we walked towards an artificial grotto to get into the oldest room in the palace. Originating in the 1560s, the family built it first to showcase their collection of antique sculptures before transforming it into a hall for banquets. Most of the busts remain in the hall, with paintings on the ceiling representing the 102 views of areas within the Dutchy. Unfortunately, I got slightly sick at this point, so I’ll let William take over here and share his impressions.

The dining hall was beautiful from the sheer size and paintings alone, but along with this came the Roman busts that decorated the wall. Every emperor is present and surrounded by their family, usually their wife and parents. Some of the statues look a little out of place. If a real Roman-era bust could be found, it was used. This led to some smaller or slightly more stylized figures. I spent most of my time looking at every face and reading every tablet. A few people were not emperors, including Alexander the Great with his father, Philip. A few are also dedicated to mythical characters and important republic-era people. It is both a museum and an art gallery all at once, highlighting both the empire’s history and the artistic tastes of the later Holy Roman Empire.

Once I felt better, we headed off to the rest of the museum. Much of it was done up in the same style as it had been when the family lived there. However, much of it was historically reenacted since the palace was hit during World War II with several bombs. The rooms were gorgeous: dripping with gold, rare jewels, and paintings made specifically for the space. They even had paintings on the ceiling of the different seasons or of time personified. Though, as William put it, “eventually it gets hard to really appreciate the grandeur because everything is grand grand becomes normal.” Despite the grandeur becoming “normal,” we still spent the entire day walking around appreciating the palace’s beauty.

At the end of our tour, we visited the Treasury of the palace. I must admit that I was somewhat disappointed. Not because the treasure wasn’t noteworthy, but because there were no plaques or we to tell if something was important! For goodness’ sake, the Treasury included Charlemagne’s grandson’s personal Bible. It was marked with a little two. Cue William screaming in the background once he figured out where it was from the audio tour, which put the information as an afterthought. Unfortunately, the museum was nearing its closing time at this point, so we had to gloss over stuff as we walked through. So we missed learning some cool stuff, so we will have to go back.

Once we finished at the museum, it was Christmas market time! We 1st hit up the Munich medieval Christmas market. The little shops were all done up as wooden huts with people dressed in historical garb. We grabbed sausages grilled over an open fire for dinner with handmade honey mustard and washed everything down with a glass of gluhwein. William was sad we missed the Renfair in Maryland, but I hope this was a good alternative.

**Note: Most places will charge a deposit for your cup, which was always very nice. You can keep the cup or bring it back to the stall to get your money back. **

Once we enjoyed the live music, we were ready to head to another one. We ended up at the Christmas market in Marienplatz, which started sometime in the 14th century. With another glass of gluhwein, we realized we needed a souvenir from Munich. We walked around till we found the perfect ornament, painted with the old Munich city escape. We aren’t putting up a Christmas tree this year, but we will enjoy it in the future.

Cheers,

William and Christine