Showing posts with label clock tower. Show all posts
Showing posts with label clock tower. Show all posts

Sunday, December 28, 2025

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.

Wednesday, December 4, 2024

NORTHERN IRELAND, BELFAST CITY TOUR PART II

 July 11, 2024

We had one more day and one more city tour planned for Belfast. Bob had booked a street art tour, not realizing that a lot of the street art would be covered in the political "two sides" tour we had already gone on. Oh well, we didn't mind some overlap.

Unfortunately, on our way out of B&B, I stumbled on the door sill and went *SPLAT* onto that concrete block patch to the right of the door. As I was wearing a full backpack, I went down hard and awkwardly and had to call for Bob to help me get up.

Yeah, I'm a klutz.

Initially, I was more concerned about my elbow and hip, which seemed to take the most impact, but gradually, my ribs began to hurt, and while I did okay during the day, trying to lie down on a bed at night was excruciating, which made sleep difficult. A few days after I got home, and after the pain seemed to be increasing rather than decreasing, I finally went in for an x-ray and learned I had broken three ribs. As if that wasn't bad enough, I got Covid five days after visiting urgent care, and I'm pretty sure that's where I got it.

But I digress.

We met a new guide for the second tour near a small shopping mall that included a store with this window display:

I was, of course, looking for medicinal relief for my aching body. These helped.

Outside the mall is this bronze statue by Louise Walsh entitled Monument to the Unknown Woman Worker. The women are carrying symbols of what is traditionally women's work--a colander, a typewriter, a phone, a shopping basket, etc.