Remember last time in Shanghai Marina and me did a food walking tour by ourselves? basically Marina chose the restaurant and the food that she likes from her previous walking tour and re-do it with me. Well, since we both separated now she is still in Shanghai and I am in Germany, I did my own walking tour however its not a food walking tour just the classic city sightseeing walking tour. Huaaa I’m miss my other M!
After 2.5 hours of walking with them I feel like Im the “expert” of Munich already, why it is with quote? Because I forgot some of the part already haha
We all gathered up in Marienplatz with our guide from Sandeman tour named Jake. He explained that at 11am (this I remember for sure) 1pm and 5 or 6pm depends if its winter or summer (this I’m not so sure but around that time, good enough for Indonesian already 😉 ) the puppets in Marienplatz will play us some attraction and dance. And why is that time? Because it shows when they start to have lunch, finish lunch and back to work and off from work (yes it makes sense and should be like that)
Since we met at 10:45 so I got to witness the play at 11am, first play is the top one, it is about Austria vs Germany. They started with meeting with each other, then the fight begins, a knight with their horses appear, costume red and white means Austria while blue and white means Germany-specifically Munich color. You know who will win right? it’s should be pretty obvious 😉
Here is some bits of how the music sounds like
Following the show with the knight, it’s the show with puppet dancing. And why are they dancing? because long time ago there was a plague in Munich and people are afraid to go back to work, to go outside as they don’t know what caused it, they thought God was angry with them and ask for His forgiveness and what did Munich government do to make their people brave enough to come out again? They invented the dance, so people could see from their home that outside is safe, they can come back to work, go to market, even dance in open area. Jake said even until now (well, now is Corona maybe if Corona hasn’t happened on the first place) they still or will dance in the New Town Hall area, not every year but every 7 years.
Then on the corner of this Neues Rathaus there is a “statue” of the dragon, on the upper left from the dragon are the people who are afraid, have no idea what or how to do with the plague and on the right are the people who dance in order to make Munich people able to do the previous activities.
Okay, another fact about this Neues Rathaus is all statue in front of it was a man and one man that has a bit of a stage and sitting on a horse, why is he got something special like this? because he was the one that kind of make a big contribution of making this Rathaus and people pay the commission to him. On top of the Rathaus is a Catholic monk, I would like to say priest but Jake use the word of monk, so I followed him 😉 and it is not an adult monk, in fact is a little cute baby monk. In front of the Neues Rathaus there is a statue of virgin Mary on the top, being protected by four little knight, I wanted to say cupid but they are cupid with protective gear, this little knight is standing above something dragon, snakes or idk what other animals is that to protect the virgin Mary or city of Munich from every danger possibility.
Jake said if I paid attention I could see more monks inside and he was right, monks in the ceiling, on top of the building, on the logo etc.
There are the facts and history that I remember about Neues Rathaus, when you have sth called New Town Hall then there must be an Old Town Hall right? where and how does the Old Town Hall looks like?
This white building on the left is the Altes Rathaus, very weird isn’t it? It doesn’t look old at all and why is that? because Munich was destroyed by bomb during the World War so they have to re-built the old town hall but it’s only 70 years old building, the real one had it not been destroyed by the bombed would have been a 700 years old building.
Jake also told me that Munich has sth to do with Grimm books, I don’t quiet remember the details but he said the real fairy tale story is not fairy tale at all, it’s rather scary and for adults. I think the frog in the building was represents Prince Frog or whatever tale or maybe it’s not a tale at all, maybe it represents the disease or sth, I completely forgot about this, sorry! but it definitely means something otherwise I won’t see frogs in this corner and on the door.
Ofc we have to visit the church! we visited the Gothic St. Peter’s church and what is the fact about this church? This is a real church that survived the bombing! how do I know? first is from the bricks (mostly bricks building were real from back then) and second there is one cannonball stuck on the church until now! so when the enemy whoever was it tried to fire this church with cannonball, one of them reach it but somehow stuck into the cement of the building, here is the 600 something years old cannonball 😉
For sure we have to come back to the devil footstep at Frauenkirche. Jake told me half truth and the other half is…just to make it more fun. When King of Munich build Frauenkirche he put a big budget for it, however he miscalculated it, when the construction of the church only 50% they already used 80% of the budget, the King panicked and he thought of how to get more money to finish this church? He asked the Pope in Vatican if he is able to give his contribution unfortunately he was busy with building Sistine Chapel so there was no money left for Munich then what did he do? He asked all 11 architect to have a meeting inside the church and re-planned all the budget. It was dark at night and they forgot to close the window, suddenly there was a bigggg wind came in and blow down all the candles, it was only for 10-15 seconds but was very spooky, then one architect light on the candle in the middle and he and the other 10 were afraid because there was one additional person with them joined the meeting and that person was Lucifer! He said “I could helped you to give all the money that you want but you will have to build it according to my request which is no windows allowed” All the architect were agreed with his conditions then he disappeared. It only took them additional 20 years to finished it, ofc Lucifer visited it to see his church, he was very happy that he did not see any windows and why is that? because the architects tricked him, they built a very large 2 towers so it blocked any lights that come in but after the tower you can see the windows so Lucifer was angry and he stomped his foot so hard that it marked the floor and storm off. Let’s bring back how Lucifer stomp’s looks like.
You are clear which half is truth and lies right? haha but it’s still a cool story anyway 😉 Then we will have to move to a real truth story in Odeonplatz, I forget which year was it but Adolf Hitler marched to Munich with his soldier to take over Munich from the King and stopped by in Odeonplatz, there was a history where in here chaos happened where Nazi soldier and real Munich soldier fire each other due to misunderstanding, however Hitler fell down and he managed to escaped to other city.
But people there recognize him and called the police, he was caught and put into a prison for 5 years or so and liberated after that. In the prison Hitler wrote his book “Mein Kampf” it didn’t sell really well but he was famous all around the world for every wrong reason.
Next to Odeonplatz is the Munich Residenz, the museum that contained history of Munich King and Queen and their palace that ofc was bombed and re-built as close as possible. How do I know it was a new building? From the circle window, some parts are real window and some parts are just painted window. Munich Residenz is so big so the walking tour didn’t get in there, Jake just showed us where is the entrance.
We closed the tour in the Viktualienmarkt where I can eat and buy stuff 🙂
Despite the weather who ironically raining and gloomy, I was happy to joined this walking tour as you can see now I know the history of Munich more or less 😉 not only the history btw but also some good place like this, check this out!
I am very open to repeat this tour again, perhaps I will bring Marina to re-do this M&M tour just like she brought me to re-do the food tour 🙂
I *heart* M stands for I love Munich or Marlyn? or maybe Munich loves Marlyn and Marina 😉
See you on the next tour!
