Tuesday, May 21, 2024

Day 0 - Chiemsee

wrong, we'll get things wrong
but as long as we keep every promise we make, we'll stay whole
I know there'll be heavy days
but in every mistake there's a lesson to learn, so stay here with me
Sweet Symphony - Joy Oladokun & Chris Stapleton

My flight to Munich arrived around 40 minutes late. That's perhaps the beginning of me and the gods that's there in Germany getting off on the wrong foot. Let's backtrack, why was I in Munich? My pilgrimage to see the world this year took me to Munich, Prague, and Krakow. How did I come to that? Well, I was curious to see Auschwitz and I decided to set Krakow as my base rather than Warsaw. Then I found out there's a train connecting Krakow and Prague, so Prague was added. Then I found out there's also a train connecting Prague and Munich, and so Munich rounded up the trip. Initially, I had planned it so that I would start in Krakow, but applying for a Schengen visa in the Polish or Czech Embassy here is less straightforward than in Germany, so I started in Munich instead.

Arriving 40 mins late shouldn't be a big deal but I had such a tight plan that I wanted to do on day 0, so that 40 mins or so delay was not good. See, my head went crazy that I decided that I should go to Zugspitze, which was the highest mountain in Germany, on the day I landed in Germany. Why did I have to do it on the day I arrived? Well, Zugspitze was transitioning from their winter to summer season that they had maintenance days where the cogwheel train and the cable cars would not be operating on the weekdays I would be there. Upon finding this out, I actually resigned to the fact going there would not be possible for me, but then I read the timetable again and again and saw that they would still be open on the weekend, so if I was going to do it then it had to be that Sunday when I arrived. Crazy? Hell yeah, but darn when something gets in my head, I am the dog with the bone. To get there, I would need to first get myself to Munich, drop my things at the hotel, and take the train that would bring me to the nearest town to Zugspitze. There's a timetable that I had run through over and over in my head, it was tight. First thing first, getting from the airport to Munich main train station. I found the ticket machine (the red one), but for some freaking reason that machine doesn't accept me just tapping my card. It needed me to insert my card and enter the PIN number which I didn't quite remember because who still needs to do this in this world? Apparently in Germany, you still do. First attempt, it didn't work and perhaps I have to blame myself here. I must have entered the same wrong PIN, instead of stopping and checking my phone where I noted down what the PIN is. I tried again and again and got the message it's not working. Somewhere inside my brain, it's telling me the card must have been blocked by now - which was true by the way, but darn it DBS, it's not a 24-hour block and you cannot just do Internet Banking and unblock it yourself, it's a block forever until you call DBS to get it unblocked which I only did after I arrived in Singapore. Anyway, I wasn't going to risk my other card encountering the same fate, so okay gonna try using cash instead, but again the freaking machine only accepts bills lower than 50 euro and I didn't have enough smaller change. I was a bit pissed by then because I saw the train that I should take but now I needed to break my bill first and I saw it left :'( So I went to buy water and then I finally managed to get the ticket to the main train station. By this time, I saw the timing was getting really tight, but perhaps it could work - geez, I am so stubborn sometimes. I did see the combo railway ticket to Zugspitze in the ticketing machine, but I chose not to buy it then because who knows if I may get delayed further that would cause me to be unable to take the train to Zugspitze at the hour I should be there. Side note: I don't recall getting train ticket check in Germany, except for maybe the ICE train, so perhaps the bold move would be to get on the train without a ticket, but are you insane?

Arriving in Munich, I saw my hotel easy enough from the exit and was allowed to get in my room immediately. Love the room. It's spacious, big bed, I like it a lot. Then I went back to the station and I saw that the train is departing from a platform that's quite far on the other end, so I thought I would go nearer to the platform and get the ticket in the ticketing machine near there. I saw the train was there waiting, but the machine near the platform is a different one, not the red one and this machine doesn't have the combo ticket to Zugspitze. Ironically, this different machine allows you to just tap your card, arrrghh. There's no red machine nearby so I just have to watch that train go away, second time watching a train I should have been on just went away :'( Could I just take the next train? The next train is around an hour away and calculating the timing, it would give me little time in Zugspitze and Lake Eibsee which I also wanted to see, so it's not worth doing that. So next plan, go to Lake Chiemsee and see Herrenchiemsee. By the way, I was reminded again in this trip that the word for lake in German is see. So in English, the correct wording perhaps Lake Chiem? Anyways, going to that lake also involves taking an around one-hour train ride out of Munich. Again at this point, one may wonder, girl why are you so crazy, why can't you chill a bit and just do things in Munich? Well, the Herrenchiemsee palace I wanted to go to is located on an island on the lake. To get there from Munich, you take a train to the nearest station near the lake. Then from that station you could walk to the pier to take a boat (I think it's a 20-min walk) or you can take a small steam train. Since the summer season hasn't really officially started when I was there, the small train only operates during the weekend, so yeah if I was going to do it, it'll be that Sunday. So off I went. My other card worked on the machine that allows you to just tap your card, so there's a relief there. There's a piss-ness though, because if Chiemsee had been the plan all along, at the airport I should have bought the all day train ticket that covered Chiemsee because that would also cover the ride from the airport. So doing it the way I did, getting a single ride ticket from the airport to Munich and then an all day train ticket to Chiemsee was a waste of money. Little did I know, throughout my time in Germany, it would ask more from me :(

The train to Chiemsee departed from a platform on the other end of the station, but I got on without any drama. Train was rather full. Arriving in the station near Chiemsee, I managed to find the counter to buy the combo steam train + ferry ticket after only getting slightly lost, so that's win in my book. Overall things went according to all the timing that I have noted, got off the train and got on the boat. It was a pleasant day, the sun was out and the sky was blue.

Got off the boat at the first stop, the Herreninsel island where the Herrenchiemsee palace is located and got the ticket to the palace. You can only enter the palace with a guided tour and so they assigned a time slot on your ticket based on your language. I made it to the palace ground. Kinda tired so didn't really explore the ground much. I just went in and waited for my slot to begin. After checking my photos, I realized I didn't take much exterior shots of the palace and the garden - gosh I was quite disinterested.

The fountains were also not on when I was there :( Maybe I missed the timing, I don't know. The fountain has some interesting characters on them, like toads, turtles, and I don't know what this one below is, alligator in a monk outfit?

Anyways, Herrenchiemsee is a palace built under the order of King Ludwig II of Bavaria. It was not finished within his lifetime. King Ludwig II was a young king and seemed kinda interesting with all his different interests. He's most probably gay and he died under mysterious circumstance at a young age - well, 40 is kinda young for me now. The Herrenchiemsee was modelled after Versailles since he's a big fan of King Louis XIV. If King Louis XIV was the Sun King, then King Ludwig II was the Moon King. You cannot take picture of the inside of the palace, so I have none, but I remember it was ostentatious as palaces tend to be and in his bedroom, there's a blue orb symbolizing the moon and blue draperies as blue was apparently his favorite colour. Palaces are ridiculous in how extravagant they are, but as I walked in many of them in this trip, there is that curiousity about how it would feel like to live in one, sleep and wake up in one, and roam in it - if only one can try. Anyways, back to the palace, the hall of mirrors was pretty much the same as the one in Versailles, but I don't know if this one is bigger. There were of course many chandeliers around, but the one I like the most was the porcelain chandelier in the dining room because there's flowers on them, so beautiful. Another interesting thing about the dining room was that the dining room table has a false bottom floor. There's a lift mechanism that connects the dining room table to the floor below it where servants could place the dishes and load it up. The King seemed to be a bit anti-social which is relatable for me :D Perhaps he just liked to spend time with people he liked which is understandable. Anyways, the last part of the tour was actually showing the part that's not finished yet and it's interesting to see the ordinary structure underneath what would have become lavish with all the decorations and frescoes.

After that, I didn't have the energy to walk through the compound of the garden, so I just went to the Augustinian Monastery to check that out. The walk there gave a view of the lake and this view of the Frauenwörth Abbey which is apparently located on another island on the lake, Frauenchiemsee. I'm not sure how easy it is to do boat hopping and just explore all the different islands. Need to really study the timetable for that. I just know my ticket only took me to Herreninsel.

In front of the Augustinian Monastery, there are funny looking trees, more trunks not leaves. I wonder if they would look different with many leaves. Inside, you can take photos and they have some exhibitions going. One was about the meetings that happened there to discuss how Germany should move forward after the end of the WW II and about democracy. I have very little knowledge of this history of Germany and me explaining it will definitely still be inaccurate. I did learn that after WW II, different countries were holding pieces of Germany and until the fall of the Berlin wall, it actually took quite a long time after WW II for Germany to finally become whole. I'm gonna stop talking about this because I will say wrong things. I'm still not knowledgeable. Another exhibition that I found more interesting are of the paintings of artists who used to work around the lake or used the lake as inspiration. There's one section dedicated to Julius Exter, showing his work station and there's a big painting of his featuring Harada Naojirō, who Wikipedia told me was a Japanese painter. The third painting below is from him, which Wikipedia tells me is titled Spring.

After that, I was getting quite tired and didn't have much energy to walk around much that I decided to just wait for the boat back. Took pictures as I made my way to the pier. It's really quite nice spending time on the island on a pleasant day like that. They have meadow with wildflowers. By the way, maybe it's just me thinking this way, but the dandelions in Germany seem to be so much bigger than what I usually see. The people there also seem to prefer bigger dogs; well I guess in Singapore it's very difficult to have big dogs. Anyways, got on the boat, then the small train, and went to the train station to get back to Munich. Found out the train to Munich was late, I was surprised but throughout my time in Germany, I found out this shouldn't be a surprise. The train back was packed but managed to find a seat. Back in Munich, had Italian food for dinner because I was hungry and tired so I wanted comfort food. I wouldn't say the day went as I wanted to, but I managed to execute back-up plan correctly so I tried to be positive. For more pictures from Chiemsee, please go here.

:) eKa @ 11:36:00 PM •