Nymphenberg Palace and Christmas Markets

Our Saturday started off a bit lazy.  Ben got me up before the sun and we talked and laughed together while we waited for everyone else to join us.  We slowly got dressed and ate breakfast, then it was hurry and make caramel candy, get the sugar cookies baked, eat lunch and out the door.  

We decided to check out Nyphemberg Palace.  It's a huge summer palace, built by the Wittelsbach family, the ruling family in Bavaria for nearly 800 years.  we could only enter a few rooms but they were filled with giant murals, lots of gilded carvings, rich looking damask wall coverings, and some beautiful wood worked desks.  

Wall and ceiling in the Great Hall.

The grounds were huge and the kids weren't happy when we chose to walk through them to get to our tram stop.  It should have been so nice and peaceful walking though the woods, surrounded by trees and leaf covered ground.  Unfortunately, the sun was behind clouds as we walked and the cold was getting to the kids.   

Thankfully, our tram was ready and waiting for us when we arrived at the stop.  We thawed just into time to get to the Christmas market.  Our first stop was a Medieval  Market near the Residenz (the winter palace for the Wittelbachs).  The music was an interesting Medieval Rock and the food smelled divine.  There were shops selling all sorts of Medieval ornaments, fur wraps, trinket, arrow quivers, Medieval cloaks etc. We bought mini pizzas and those helped warm us up though it didn't last long.  My the time we finished eating the temperature had dropped drastically and we were all about done.  

Delicious dinner--speck and cheese pizzas

Medieval Rock Band

The Marienplatz Markets were on the way home and we wanted to pick up a treat so we stopped there.  The lights were on and it felt like Christmas.  There were tons of people so we didn't get too close to the shops.  There were ornaments everywhere.  Some of the were so beautiful.  We bought some Nurnberg gingerbread cookies--they are a soft, nutty gingerbread as opposed to the usual hard gingerbread cookies here.  We also got a couple of mugs of kinderpunsch.  It was a great treat to warm our hands with.  The store fronts lining the market were filled with Christmas displays so we looked at those while we ate our cookies and drank our punch.  

I look forward to going back during the day when, hopefully there aren't as many people around and we can browse a bit more.   By the time we left, it was cold--27 F--so we were glad to find refuge on the U-bahn and thaw a bit until we had to walk the half mile home.  Everyone was ready for their warm bathes last night.