GERMANY: MUNICH

May 24, 2025

Munich, the third-largest city in Germany (after Berlin and Hamburg), has a population of 1.6 million and is the capital of Bavaria. However, strolling around in the Old Town area (below left), we didn't feel like we were in a huge city as there is a lot crowded into a very walkable area. 

The most dominant building in the Old Town square is the neo-Gothic Neues Rathaus,  or New Town Hall (below right).

 It is called the NEW Town Hall because it replaced the 14th-century OLD Town Hall (seen below) in 1874.

The New Town Hall has an impressive 400 rooms.

But what it is best known for is its mechanical Glockenspiel, which twice a day uses 32 life-size figures to re-enact scenes from Munich's history. See my four-minute video of part of the action here.

PORTUGAL: SANCTUARY OF OUR LADY OF FATIMA

 July 1, 2022

Our final destination of the day was our third pilgrimage site of the trip (the first two being Santiago de Compostela and Bom Jesus Cathedral), The Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fátima.

The story is that in 1917, Mary the Mother of Jesus appeared to three shepherd children--Francisco and Jacinta Marto and their cousin Lúcia--in a field in Fátima, Portugal. Over a period of five months, the children experienced six visitations. They told others that they were asked by the Virgin to say the rosary and were told three "secrets" regarding events that were to occur. In 1930, the Catholic Church recognized the visions as "worthy of belief" and granted a papal indulgence to pilgrims to the site. The site quickly became an important pilgrimage destination, and it now receives as many as six million pilgrims a year. 

The huge open courtyard of the shrine is twice as large as St. Peter's in Rome, and it reminded us a lot of the Shrine of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico City that we visited in 2018. The Shrine of Fátima, built near the place where the children saw Mary, is one of the largest Marian shrines in the world.

There are two minor basilicas on the property, and we began our visit in the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary, which has a 213-foot-tall tower topped with a 15,000-pound bronze crown and a cross.

SPAIN: THE CATHEDRAL OF SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA AND THE CATHEDRAL MUSEUM

 June 29-30, 2022

As noted in the previous post, the current Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela was built in Romanesque style in the 13th century, with Gothic and Baroque additions in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. It is a massive structure, and no doubt gets its notoriety from being the reputed burial spot of St. James (aka Santiago) the Greater, one of the twelve apostles of Jesus. However, it is a magnificent edifice of its own accord.

By the way, the only other churches in the world built over the tomb of an apostle are St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, St. Thomas Cathedral Basilica in Chennai, India, and the Basilica of St. John in Izmir, Turkey.

A sign of the importance of this cathedral is that it was visited THREE TIMES in a span of 28 years by two different popes--Pope John Paul II in 1982 and 1989 and Pope Benedict in 2010.

The interior of this cathedral is about 310 feet long, has a transept that measures 206 feet, and stands 72 feet high, making it the tallest building in Europe when it was built. Today it is still the largest Romanesque cathedral in Spain. At first glance it looks rather austere.

But then you see the main altar, and the closer you get, the more opulent it is.

TEXAS, HOUSTON: NATIONAL MUSEUM OF FUNERAL HISTORY

 November 29, 2022

Our last stop in Texas before flying home was one of the weirdest museums we have ever visited (aside from the International UFO Museum and Research Center in Roswell, New Mexico). 

The 35,000-square-foot National Museum of Funeral History opened in 1992 and, according to their website, has the largest collection of funeral service artifacts in the country. (I can not imagine that any other place even comes close.) The museum's purpose is to "educate the public and preserve the heritage of death care."

I have to confess that I was intrigued just walking through the gift shop to buy our tickets. I could tell this was going to be an unusual experience, to say the least. I was happy to see Frida, but a death mask???

We began with the large Presidential Funeral Gallery.

Just after seeing this famous photo of five living Presidents standing together . . . 

. . . we started learning about their deaths and funerals, starting with George and Barbara Bush and moving backwards in time.