Travel Blog: European Trip (Day 5)
Paintings at Alte Pinakothek
The Sports Chief Photography/Garett
The fifth day of our trip was much different than all the rest of the days, including days six and seven. We had been on the go constantly throughout our trip, trying to see and experience as much as we could. But the fifth day was pretty much a resting and re-charging day. It was not by choice, however, because if possible, we wouldn’t have used any of our seven days in Europe to rest and not experience new things. The reason was we were tasked with traveling that day. From Venice, Italy to Munich, Germany was supposed to be about a six-hour drive, but like always, it took longer. Dealing with traffic and stopping for lunch made the trip to Munich closer to 7 ½ hours.
So, we settled in for a nice, long car ride to Munich. Even though we got tired of spending so much time on the road throughout our trip, the drives weren’t all bad. It allowed us to see some beautiful scenery across the German, Austrian, and Italian countrysides. Riding through Italy all we could see were vineyards for miles. It was very hilly in northern Italy and vineyards were scattered across the landscape in every direction. There were even a few castles that popped up as we drove, just several hundred yards away from the highway as we rolled on through.
Once we got back to Austria, we were quickly approaching the tall peaks of the Alps again, with their white tops. It was an amazing sight to see riding alongside the huge mountain peaks. Unlike the Appalachian Mountains (the ones we’re used to), these mountains seemed to go straight up. This was one of the first things we noticed after seeing them for the first time. You can look out and see a flat field for miles, almost like you were in Nebraska, but then suddenly, a huge mountain stood at the end of the field, shooting straight up into the sky. They were far more vertical and contained a lot less trees than the mountains of the Appalachian range. And a lot of them were tall enough to be covered with snow at their peaks.
After a while of driving, we decided to stop for lunch at one of the Autogrills in Austria. In Italy, we had seen a few Autogrills that stretched over the top of the interstate and allowed visitors to eat dinner right above the traffic. But this one was located off to the side. We pulled in, luckily just beat a very large crowd inside the door, and grabbed some lunch for a decent price. It was like a very small cafeteria-style place with several different options to order lunch from (like a very small mall food court) before all going to the same cashier to pay for it. I opted for the cheaper deli option and enjoyed a nice sandwich. Re-fueled, it was time to get back on the road.
Painting at Alte Pinakothek
The Sports Chief Photography/Garett
Finally, after several more hours of driving and dealing with traffic, we arrived at our hotel in Munich. Up to this point we had been staying in a different hotel every night, but the H2 Hotel in the Olympic Park area would serve as the only hotel we would stay at for the remainder of the trip. We checked in around 5:00 p.m. and decided to check out a few things in downtown Munich. Specifically, we wanted to check out two museums before they closed. The first was a Nazi museum that highlighted the rise and fall of the Nazi Party, which was based in Munich during its time of power. The second was a famous art museum that housed thousands of paintings.
For the first time on the trip, we were able to put the car keys down and rely on public transportation to take us where we wanted to go. We purchased our transit tickets and hopped on the U-Bahn (subway). It was close to dark by the time we got off at the Odeonsplatz stop and headed to the Nazi museum. It was getting cold too. The air temperature was probably in the upper 40s and the wind was whipping around pretty viciously as well. It felt nice to go inside.
I didn’t know what to expect, but as a history guy I was excited to go inside the Nazi museum. It wasn’t really what I envisioned it being, though. There weren’t really any exhibits to look at and mostly everything were things to read. The abundance of reading is not a bad thing, but when you only have 30 minutes before the museum closes, it is. It would have taken two hours to read everything from the four floors inside the museum.
Even though it was supper time, we decided to put it off and check out Alte Pinakothek (the art museum) since we were close by. So, we walked about ten minutes and entered a huge building. And when I say huge, I mean HUGE. It was home to so many paintings spanning many centuries. The oldest painting inside that I noticed was from around the 12th century. There quite possibly could have been even older ones. There were also paintings from many renowned artists such as Vincent Van Gogh and Leonardo da Vinci. I don’t know much about art, but I recognized a few other names such as Rafael, Monet, Manet, and one or two others.
Painting by Leonardo da Vinci
The Sports Chief Photography/Garett
The art museum was a great experience. Even though I don’t know very much about art history, it wasn’t necessary to appreciate it. For one, I appreciated how old and historic they were. But mainly I appreciated how much skill and effort it took to paint some of those paintings. The detail included in many of them was absolutely incredible. And then there were some paintings that were as big as the entire wall it hung on. I can’t imagine how long those took to paint. I must admit, it was cool seeing paintings from guys like Leonardo da Vinci and Vincent Van Gogh up close. We spent about an hour inside, but really only just scratched the surface. The building was so large that it seemed like there were paintings for as far as you could see. For someone who is really into art and wants to see it all, they would need to plan to spend four or five hours inside.
At well past supper time, we headed back to our hotel. Conveniently, we had a restaurant on the bottom floor. We all ordered different things, sat down, and ate supper while we watched a Germany soccer game on the restaurant television. Before too much longer we were getting ready for bed and preparing for our last two days of adventure before heading back to the U.S. It would be two days complete with exciting new experiences.
Garett