Where royalties stay

How can we missed not to take the most photographed building in Germany right? :)

Neuschwanstein Castle!
The castle was built by King Ludwig II, as a retreat and as an homage to Richard Wagner, the King's inspiring muse. Most of the interior were actually themed after much of Wagner's plays and operas, unfortunately interior photography is not allowed. This is also the castle that served as inspirtaion for the sleepy beauty castle at disneyland :)

Personally I feel that Ludwig is pretty enigmatic and definitely idealistic. From what I gathered from a guide, as a young king he wanted to built this sky garden in the city but after being discouraged by the state officials for 'abusing state funds' he refused to build any more buildings in Munich city itself, which explains why all his buildings are in super ulu places.

Unfortunately, access to Neuschwanstein is not easy, have to buy tickets at the foot of the hill for specific timing (if you're late your ticket is void). So while waiting for our visit to the castle, we went boating at the nearby Lake Starnberg!




Captain Jack Prasanth and his crew!


As you can see, Neuschwanstein's really high up in the hills, took us a 30mins climb to walk up, so bloody tiring!


From the Neuschwanstein hilltop u can also see Castle Hohenschwangau, where King Ludwig II grew up as a kid. the posters in my hand are of newschwanstein, i've put up one in my pgp room :p



that's Vava, our student guide, she's been to the castle so many times she's so bored of it she was just sitting by the lake reading. in the background's the Hohenschwangau castle, eee really ugly.


The other 'castle' which we went to was the Residenz. Much less medieval, and this time they allowed us to take non-flash photography!



The queen's bedchamber. I've absolutely no idea why she doesn't sleep with the king (who has his own bedroom). Anyway the only thing I remember is that green is supposed to represent fertility, cos this was the greenest room, haha.


while the guide wasn't noticing :p

Museums

My memory's really fading as the trip to Germany seemed like a longer and longer time ago.. Better write em down asap before I can't rem.. but there's always this evil "Exams" looming around.. darn

As I was telling Paul, I think its really cool to be a curator, cos its like you have this massive collection of funky, interesting, and rare stuff. And u get to showcase em and earn money somemore, how cool.

Anyway, we went to the Alte Pinakothek, one of the oldest galleries of the world.


The main lobby is set with high stone ceilings, and very bare walls, supposedly to create a solemn mood, as a reminder of how the gallery was severely damaged during the war.

Here are some paintings I found interesting:

The Battle of Issus (Albrecht Altdorfer 1529)
I know this picture depicts a battle between alexander the great and the persians :p and something about the sun shining over alexander's army as symbolism


The Canigiani Holy Family (Raphael Ca. 1505/06)


The Great Last Judgement (Peter Paul Rubens 1617)


The Deposition ( Rembrandt (Harmensz. van Rijn) 1633)
Although I normally like colourful surreal pictures, I strangely like this painting. The painter has a unique style. I'm not really doing justice to this picture, u can find the full picture here


The Assumption of the Virgin (Guido Reni 1642)


Besides the arts museum, we being physicist, how can we not visit the science museum as well!
The Deutsches Museum in Munich is the world's largest museum of technology and science with about 28,000 exhibited objects from 50 fields of science and technology. Its full name in English is The German Museum of Masterpieces of Science and Technology (German: Deutsches Museum von Meisterwerken der Naturwissenschaft und Technik)

Right outside the museum is a human pendulum ride which was really interesting. Built to precision, a delicate shift in weight just by walking within the "pendulum bob" will cause it to start rising on its own, kewl. As long as you keep shifting your weight, you can actually make it rotate 360! :)



Other cool setups...
From this

to this

a simple demonstration of conservation of angular momentum :)



Oh it was Live Earth on 07/07/07. So we decided to wear green!!


The museum is actually sitting on a island in the middle of the river Isar, so from the rooftop of the building, we can have a pretty view of the river and Munich city