Residenz Muenchen

Today marked our last walking art history tour with Dieter. We will miss him, as his half of the art history class has ended.  We certainly had an interesting day at the Residenz (palace complex) in the heart of Muenchen!  First, they didn't give us enough tickets, so Dieter had to talk me into each of the exhibits!  Then Mary got yelled at for using a flash on her camera.  Then Paige got yelled at for touching a rope in the chapel ... we figured we'd get arrested before the end of the day!

The Residenz is simply massive.  So massive, that the walking tours go into completely different areas in the morning and in the afternoon.  Today was weird, as MAN Diesel rented the Residenz (to the tune of 1 million euros) for its 250 year anniversary.  Security was heavy, info desks and kiosks were all over the place, and red carpet was being laid all around.  Oh, there was a huge glass tent-like-thing with seating for over 1,000 in the center courtyard.  Through it all, we saw the art.

Here is the gallery of the Wittelbach "ancestors" all the way back to Charlemagne.  Dieter said they pretty much made up the family tree and faked it ... including how everyone looked.

This is part of the famous grotto fountain made from seashells.  I couldn't get further back due to the plastic sheets up for the MAN celebration ...

We joked that they rolled out the red carpet for Dieter! Yay Dieter!

This is an amazing room; it is called the Antiquarium.  The rulers decided that they needed a museum of ancient Roman busts and statues.  Dieter told us that only a few years ago a commission discovered that they are all fakes!  Pretty funny.

This is the great Imperial Hall.  Paintings and tapestries with scenes from Bible stories adorn the entire room.  Hopefully the people at the end of the hall give you some idea of the size of this room.

More to come later.  I took about 220+ pictures but had to choose only 5!  Tomorrow we head to Garmish-Partenkirchen at the base of the Alps.