Germany: Day 4

On Monday we went and saw a couple of the palaces in the city of Munich.
First up was the Nymphenburg Palace.
The tour of the inside was kind of short and boring in my opinion, but that's because the real draw of Nymphenburg Palace are the grounds.

Unfortunately for us, it was very cold and very foggy all morning. I am kind of regretting now not venturing out into the grounds a little more, but at the time the thought of venturing out into that thick wet fog was completely unappealing.

This was the central pavilion - the main room in which the other wings of the palace branched off of. No flash photography was allowed so these pictures are a terrible representation of what was a breathtaking room.

Seth leaned up against a sign detailing the elements of the room to steady his shot and one of the museum guards freaked out on him and told him he wasn't allowed to touch anything. Obviously that makes sense when it comes to 17th and 18th century art and furniture, but we thought it was a bit silly to be forbidden to touch the modern day plastic sign. She, however, certainly did not think it silly and sneakily followed us around the rest of the time we were there.

Actually my favorite part was a little side exhibition showcasing some of the carriages used by the royal family.

These things were bedazzled.

 And since this is Germany, they also had fancy sleds for the winter.

Fancy sleds with fighting babies on them.
We ate lunch at a little cafe around the corner and then made our way over to the Müncher Residenz (Munich Residence). This was the only time we had difficulty navigating the public transportation system, but after going to three different tram stops and getting on two wrong trains, we finally made it.

The Antiquarium. Named because this was where many antique statues and paintings were housed. The Residence was mostly destroyed during World War II. Most of it has been reconstructed, but some areas were redone more simply than what was originally there. They are still working on parts of the palace to this day and probably will be for some time.

Dutifully listening to my audio tour. This was in the Shell Grotto.

The grotto was ruined by the bombings of WWII. People didn't have the money to donate to its reconstruction but they were able to gather shells to recreate this part - most of these shells were gathered by the German people in this region.

The grand staircase leading up to the King's public chambers. There's not really a good sense of scale here but this was seriously huge. It intimidated me.

The ceilings in some of these rooms would make you gasp when you walked in the door.
Seth and I unfortunately didn't get pictures of our favorite rooms since we were not allowed to use flash photography and anything we took was just a blurred mess.
Seth's favorite room was the reliquary room. He loved that all the fancy ornate glass bottles and boxes had shriveled gray fingers and hands and bits of wood inside. In my opinion, it was gross and kind of fascinating.

The royal family's personal chapel.
My favorite room was a little worship room next to this chapel that was bright blue with gold inlay all over the walls and ceiling. I think I could have stayed in there and stared for hours, but the Palace was about to close and a museum guard pointedly walked in there and started eyeing us so I didn't.

The last room you walk through, the Hall of Portraits.
After we finished up at the Munich Residence we went back to our hotel because 6 months pregnant and a full day of walking meant I was exhausted. After a little nap we went out to a restaurant I had read about on the internet - Kartoffelhausen (House of Potatoes). Seth got the schnitzel with fried potatoes and I got broccoli-potato cream soup and fried potatoes with cheese, onions, ham and bacon. I forget the German name for it. It was so so delicious and I wish they had a place like that here.
If you're wondering, we did gain a few pounds from this trip.