Nymphenburg

Nymphenburg is just a little summer home in a little town called Munchen aka Munich. I mean, the royals could hardly use it as a primary residence because with only 490 acres and over 12,000 square feet in the main building it was much too small to be an all-year kind of a palace. Everything about Nymphenburg was gorgeous. The grounds alone were worth the visit with swans waddling and gliding all over the place.

There were also ducks which, long time friends know, I have a little bit of an obsession with ducks. This adorable little guy was waddling around with his strange black and white striped feet.

Crazy, huh? Anyway, the palace itself was in the baroque style. The detail work and paintings were so beautiful. Even the feet on the outdoor lamps were carved and gilded.

These are pictures from the Great Hall. It was breathtaking.

Dominika's favorite part of the palace was King Ludwig I's Gallery of Beauties. I can agree with her that it is nice to know that not all women in the 19th century were unhappy and unattractive and in some ways the gallery is progressive. The women who sat for portraits were from all classes of society. On the other hand, the idea of a gallery of beautiful women for King Ludwig I to stare at is a little bit creepy. Regardless, the portraits are beautiful and it was fun to wonder about the lives of the various women depicted.

In addition to the main palace, there are mini-museums and other buildings to visit on the palace grounds. I enjoyed going to the carriage museum which houses a number of ornate carriages and sleds. I don't think I realized how often sleighs were used for transport. I guess it makes sense since there were no snowplows... and no roads sometimes... and those carriages didn't have all-weather tires. I desperately wanted to sit in some of those carriages and practice my princess wave, but dang it ALL of them said "nicht sitzen". Boo.

Aww, a carriage for the wee little princes and princesses.

See, you want to sit in this one too, don't you?

The figures on the sleighs were awesome and a little over-the-top. I loved the glass lanterns on the sleighs. It made me think of riding through the snow on a winter's night with big furs and warm bricks. It sounds terribly romantic but was probably also terribly uncomfortable.

Of course, some of the sculptures were also kind of hilarious. In particular I was tickled by the lions suffering from strabismus...

...and the cherubs wrestling the swan.

Take that, demon fowl! We will lasso you with a garland of flowers. Apparently, even when cherubs are getting tough they use flowers.

The other place we visited on the palace grounds was a little 18th century hunting lodge called Amalienburg. Most of the lodge was not as ostentatious as the main palace but I loved every bit of it. I loved how the doors were painted and even curved to match the walls so that when it was closed it was almost impossible to tell it was there.

The oriental style tiles in the kitchen were charming and beautiful. This is a kitchen I wouldn't mind cooking in... except I would want appliances that didn't require me to build a fire first.

I was already hooked, but then the bedroom had a yellow curtained bed. Yellow! I want one of these installed in my house.

The largest room in the lodge was the hall of mirrors. The hall was decorated in the rococo style and the light reflecting around the room gave it a glow. Pictures don't do it justice.

This final picture isn't as amazing or beautiful, but I just loved the fading painted patterns on the walls. It reminded me just how old these buildings really are. They were built before my country was even organized.

We could have stayed at Nymphenburg all day, but we were eager to see what else Munich had to offer. This is the picture I took as we walked away. Goodbye Nymphenburg.

Eins, Schwein, Drei, Vier...

The Polizei struck again when we attempted to go to the Mercedes museum in downtown Stuttgart. We noticed the traffic was horrible but it wasn't until we saw hordes of people wearing red and white that we realized there must be a big Fussball game going on. As we drove, the Polizei, in full riot gear no less- these people take their Fussball seriously, started blocking off roads. Unfortunately for us, the museum was right next to the stadium so one by one all of the access roads were blocked off until it was clear that there was going to be no trip to the Mercedes museum that day. What to do? It just so happens that right next door, but still accessible, was the Schweine Museum.

Yes sir, the world's largest pig museum just happens to be right there in Stuttgart, boasting more than 46,000 little (and big) piggies. This is the pig outside the entrance sporting the crest of the Stuttgart Fussball team. And why wouldn't he? Fussball is good for business. How many other hapless travelers have been turned away from downtown by the Fussball traffic and driven into the waiting parking lot of the Schweine Museum?

Disturbingly enough, the Schweine Museum is one of the places where I took the most pictures in Germany. It wasn't because it was incredibly beautiful or because it was the most fascinating or informative but more along the lines of, "if I don't take a picture of this, no one is going to believe me." I mean, we should have known this was an odd place when the giant piggy bank bus parked outside tried to eat us.

But like characters in a horror film, we just didn't know when to walk away. We walked in and gave them our Euros. Really, I think they should let you in for free and then charge money to get out. I would have given them a lot more money to let me out that to let me in. It all started innocently enough. There were piggy pieces of art...

...and piggy signs...

...and a photo of a cute Police Piggy.

There were Lego pigs...

...and rooms full of piggy banks...

...and room and room and rooms of puny porcelain pigs.

That alone, is kind of creepy. I mean, who spends their hours and days carefully arranging endless pig sculptures in tiny wooden boxes on the wall? Was there some sort of caretaker who stalked the hallways and ensured that every pig was in its place? In addition to itty bitty pigs, there were also large pigs. Pigs that you just wanted to sit on because they were just the right size. So we did, at least the ones that did not say "nicht sitzen".

Chiara is unaware that she will need therapy in the future. In fact, I'm wondering if the curator of the pig museum is also a psychologist trying to drum up business.

"Who's a good yellow piggy?"
Then things took a distinctly creepy turn. First there was the interesting but slightly odd piggy table.

There was something off-putting about it so I turned around, only to see the evil twin pigs laughing at me.

Yeah, that's not scary. As we walked around, it became clear that the Schweine Museum had every quality of a house of horrors, just piggy style. There were rooms where the lights didn't work and we had to use the lights on our phones to peer into the glass encased exhibits. Stuffed boars were leaping out at us in the dark. There was a room dedicated to the processing of piggy parts with scary rusty rendering machines and delightful displays like this one.

Yes, that is a porcelain pig sausage casing holder so you can be reminded of exactly where your sausage came from. Side note: the Germans sure love their pig products. Most restaurant offerings involved pork, pork sausage, ham and/or bacon. I ordered a cordon bleu at a little cafe one day only to realize that there is a reason we call it chicken cordon bleu in the States. In Germany, it is pork filled with ham and cheese. Somehow that just seemed wrong. Pig stuffed with... more pig. Anyway, moving on... There was another room with specimens in jars, real dead pig parts.
Pig skin (not a football),

pig skeleton,

and of course the two-headed taxidermied pig.

Awesome. Then, there was a part of the museum that was so disturbing that I didn't take any pictures and wished I had never seen it. The exhibit was called, or at least this is what the English translation read, "The Horny Pig". This blog is rated PG, so that is all I will say except that I was frankly aghast that so many distasteful porcelain pig sculptures existed and that there were multiples of the same thing which means they must have been mass produced. Why is there a market for such a thing? Just... wow.
Perhaps to offset "The Horny Pig" there was also a display entitled "The Divine Pig" dedicated to pigs in religion. There was this not-at-all creepy depiction of evil spirits being cast into a herd of swine.

Yes, that is a pile of dead pigs at the bottom of the ocean.
 I have no idea what this zebra boar and shattered glass is all about. Perhaps, the disturbing imagery is supposed to help you find religion, to seek deliverance from a higher power. I know it made me cling to my faith a little tighter.

Opposite the divine pigs were prehistoric pigs, or at least pig-like reptiles.

I especially enjoyed the giant squid pig. The creepiness didn't stop there though. I think the curators must have made a checklist of what to include for maximum unease among guests.
Funeral pyre of stuffed pigs in a mirrored room?

Check.
Extremely large pig head that is also the world with evil look staring down from high on the wall?

Check.
Rusted metal pig frozen in terror?

Check.
Cyborg pig that wants to rule the world?

Check.
Robot pig that is laughing at your feeble attempts to escape?

Check.
Pig masks that will haunt your dreams forever?

Check.
We did manage to find our way out of the Schweine Museum and we joked about what we saw for the rest of the day but truthfully I think we were all a little scarred by the experience. I ordered vegetarian pasta and salad for dinner. Keine Schweine for me, thanks.