10 May: Golden treasures!

This morning the sky was clear blue and the leaves on the tree-lined streets sparkled with the bright green of spring. A perfect day to visit rhe Bavarian National Museum on the fringe of the magnificent Englisher Garden.

On the way we passed the famous Standing Wave on the Isar river. Fun for surfers and onlookers alike! I regretfully declined Mike’s suggestion to give it a go.

Founded in 1855 by King Maximilian II of Bavaria, this impressive museum complex is worth looking at just as a building.

We chose the Renaissance Dream Vessels exhibition, showing ship design, sea battles and trade in the 15th and 16th centuries. I have always enjoyed detailed ship models (blame the shipbuilders’ models in the old Auckland War Memorial Museum).

Here were detailed models of famous vessels of their time, like Henry VIII’s carrack Henry Grace à Dieu, the “Great Harry”, and the Portuguese Bom Jésus, wrecked off the coast of Namibia in 1533 and found only in 2008.

Most spectacular were the exquisitely crafted golden ship-shaped goblets. These were the ultimate must-have table centerpieces of their time, made by the goldsmiths of Southern Germany.

The next room was full of beautiful things from the early nineteenth century, when Bavaria was an ally of Napoleon. I’ve always had a soft spot for the dashing Eugène de Beauharnais, son of Josephine. He was handsome, loyal, brave and had an excellent singing voice. Everybody liked him. He married the daughter of the King of Bavaria, and his children married into the great royal families of Europe.

These people had great taste in china. No Briscoes sales for them!

After all this time on our feet we were starving, and lucked upon an Indian restaurant the Sitar, which turned out to be first class and slso reasonably priced.Read more