Munich–January 22, 2017

The plane arrived on time (7:40 a.m. local time) in a fairly heavy fog; so heavy that I wasn’t aware we were close to the ground until the wheels touched it. The airport wasn’t busy, so I was able to clear customs without any problem and get a ticket for the S8 train to the main train station. Due to the fog, I wasn’t able to get any pictures of the surrounding area.

I checked in at the Europäischer Hof hotel. The room wasn’t ready, so I had about a half hour to wander around the area, and found myself near the Palace of Justice:

The hotel room is nice (no pictures of it as yet). The following picture is the exterior of the inner courtyard:

On each floor are inspirational posters in English and German. I’ll post a different one daily. Here’s the first. The text reads, “Nobody knows what they can do until they try.”

Museums: Alte Pinakothek

Later in the afternoon, I headed out to the museum area. It turns out that admission prices on Sunday are only 1 €, which is quite a bargain. Near one of the museums is a column that shows where the museums are and how far it is to walk to each of them.

I went to the Alte Pinakothek. One of the important exhibits is a self-portrait of Albrecht Dürer. This painting caused quite a stir, because up until that time, the pose was reserved only for paintings of Christ.

Herewith some of the art. If you like this sort of art, you’ll really enjoy this museum. I don’t, and didn’t, to a great extent.

Credits as follows:

• Susanna im Bad und die Bestrafung der Verleumder (Susanna in the bath and the punishment of the slanderers) - Albrecht Altdorfer
• Der Bethlehemitische Kindermord (Massacre of the Innocents) - Breughel the Younger
• Die Maria der Verkündigung (Mary of the Annunication) - Antonello da Messina

At first glance, God seems to have lost some hair and put on a bit of weight in this painting, (Die Heiliege Familie in einer Landschaft [The Holy Family in a landscape] by Lodovico Mazzolino:

They had a whole room of paintings by Peter Paul Rubens. The first two are typical examples, which do not appeal to me in the slightest.

• Das Große Jüngste Gericht (The Great Last Judgment) - Rubens
• Madonna im Blumenkranz (Madonna in a Garland) - Rubens and Breughel the Elder
• Der Zecher (The Reveler) - Hendrick ter Brugghen
• Stillleben mit Maus und Papagei (Still life with mouse and parrot) - Georg Flegel

Signage

Lots of signs today. First, this advert that says that a single person falls in love every 11 minutes using this app:

The design of this first set of posters and the kerning on the words “GOLDENE ZEIT” on the second one just seem “off” to me:

A clever advert for Nutella. The text reads: “Name: Heidi / Interested in: The mountains / Favorite color: Sky blue”

This coffee house logo and stickers are nice:

This one uses a slash through the letter “o” to symbolize an umlaut “ö”

These signs on display from a bar called “Falscher Hase” (which translates to “Bad Rabbit” as far as I can tell). The pictures were taken at an angle to minimize reflection from the glass.

Food

This sign for donuts made me do a double take, as the German word pronounces to something terribly unappealing in English:

I went to this döner and pizza place for lunch. The döner was really large, but the meat was a bit dry. Good nonetheless.