Augsburg and Munich

About three weeks ago I made it over to Bavaria. Steffen, who went to the UO for a year, lives in Augsburg and offered to show me around. We started in Augsburg and then took the train to Munich.

The train went through a cute little town that I am sure Mom will want to visit.

The Dom, like every famous old building around the world, is under restoration.

One of those efficient house designs was on display in the park. I am pretty sure I saw this in a magazine somewhere, or was it youtube... Anyways, very cool.

You guessed it! Its a Hydrogen Fuel Cell!!!

Solar panel shutters, ingenious.

When they restored the castle in Munich they could not afford the old fashioned stone work, so they just painted on the detail.

It looks a bit 2 dimensional to me. Like a paper doll with a paper tab fixed crown should come walking out any second.

Steffen works at the University of Augsburg. He was pleased when I got so excited about the buildings. This had to be in some architecture magazine a few years ago. Greenroofs, funky windows. It just had to be.

And a small old church in Augsburg may be my favorite yet in Germany. And not just because of the heated seats. The paintings on the wall give it a much more intimate scale. The simplicity of the details. Somehow the focus of the space felt more directed on the people in the church rather than on the power of the people who paid to have it built.

Not a big fan of the later dated organ though.

Munich and Augsburg are beautiful, I can't wait to visit again in the summer. Thanks for the tour, Steffen!

On the way back to Uberlingen I had a hint of what was to come in the next few weeks.

Fastnacht!

Here is a link with some back ground information on fastnacht:
http://german.about.com/library/weekly/aa020501a.htm

I will, of course, blog more on this later.