Bavariage

SO. Bavaria was a wonderfully calm bounce-back from Venice in just about every way. Cooler temperatures, a little less hectic in terms of the tourist trade, and a lot of greenery helped; it was also something of a relief to land in a country where I speak the language at least relatively fluently again. Video, photos, and very brief useless thoughts after the jump!

Heyyyy it's King Ludwig! Wacky King Ludwig, as they called him. Not to be confused with Mad King Ludwig (that'd be II). That came later. Anyway HORSE STATUE

While Italy was a frenzy of exploration and activity, Bavaria and Thuringa were much more about slowing down and recovering, even as the city-to-city pace continued to be a bit quicker than it had been in Italy. A little light sightseeing, but for the most part this week and change was about catching up on sleep, getting back on track with the dissertation, and conversation. (More on that in a coming post.)

Also, while not as evident in some of these photos, it was shocking how much a difference getting north of the Alps made in terms of cloud cover. It's honestly taken me a week or two to adjust to the regularly-cloudy skies after almost a month of entirely-sunny Italy. This makes it all the more ironic that I brutally sunburnt myself on my third day in Munich.

Munich! The collision of new and old, of reconstruction and existing monuments, is actually pretty mild here compared to other parts of Germany (and oh man Berlin...) but it's kind of the most immediate thing that struck me about Germany as compared to Italy.

It was also about beer. Good lord, people aren’t kidding about German beer. Specifically Bavarian lager, and specifically fresh Bavarian lager straight from the keg or the cask. Refreshing, light, delicately flavored, and cheap.  My stop in Bamberg also included some rauchbier (smoked beer, a local specialty), which was odd but also delicious, and much milder than the rauchbier I’ve had back in the States.

Bamberg, as viewed from an amazing beer garden on the outskirts of the city. These were places of community, all-ages and convivial and charming beyond belief. It was at this beer garden that I first noticed what's become a pattern: namely, that I'm somehow a magnet for small German kids who are fascinated with me, and of whom I'm instantly petrified that they're gonna figure out that my German fluency is limited and make fun of me. Pat King: EXTREMELY ADEPT at finding reasons to fear five year olds!

I wish I’d spent more time in Munich, since I needed a lot of my time there to recuperate, spending much of it reading in the Englischer Garten rather than exploring (and certainly rather than taking the you-would-think requisite day trips to Dachau and Neuschwanstein). But I’m glad I got a dose of smaller-town Germany – Bamberg is a real treat of a town, especially at dusk and after dark – and taking it a little easier in these weeks left me ready to dive headfirst into Berlin.

DID I MENTION THAT BAMBERG IS PRETTY? IT IS NOT AN UN-BEAUTIFUL PLACE. Let's all go there for a reading vacation someday.

Speaking of, one last stray thought: Rick Steves has a theory that Americans' vision of Germany (the lederhosen, the beer halls, all that pastoral stuff) is really about Bavaria because that's the area that American G.I.s largely controlled after the war, so that's the imagined nation we brought back. It's an interesting thought, but what I'm finding in my early Berlin days is that it seems to work in reverse. At least in the parts of Bavaria that I visited, there was a lot of American inflection - a prolific (and quite excellent!) burger scene, and the sense that the region was oriented in our general direction. It's not that that's not true in Berlin - it's rare here that you'll go long without hearing English on the street - but Berlin is much more of a global city in its tastes, its culture, its general attitudes, in comparison to Munich. This might be a completely invented reality, but this is my blog so you're all living inside my madness now ok byeeeeee

The Dom in Bamberg. Regensberg's Dom was if anything more stunning, but heavily under construction; Erfurt's was grand but it was hot and glarey, and so NO PHOTOGRAPHIC PROOF REMAINS. Have we mentioned that there's a sort of lazy undercurrent to the weeks under discussion here? What's that all about.