We’d seen Mumford and his mate before. At least six foot tall, earrings, nose rings, big bushy black and grey bikers beard, jeans T-Shirt and boots. He looks like someone that could look after himself, someone you wouldn’t want to make eye contact with for too long. This morning we sit next to them at breakfast.
Turns out, Mumford is a pastry chef who met his air steward mate Kevin (let’s say Kevin – we never got his name) drinking beer and today they’re going shopping for nice soft hair brushes.
Mumford makes his own traditional historical costumes that he wears to historical gala days and proudly shows us photos of himself in traditional Bavarian gear, Scottish attire, American civil war kit Etc. Kevin, a now retired air steward, lives mostly in Venice, Florida and comes regularly to Bavaria to catch up with Mumford. He’s deeply concerned and genuinely scared about how he sees Trump’s leadership providing a context for closet white supremacists to surface.
They’re lovely blokes and give us some hot tips for our site seeing today; the Munich ‘Residence’, the traditional Bavarian coffee place near the Victuels Market, Dallmayr a 300 year old coffee house and delicatessen and supplier to the royal court, and a gorgeous little hair brush store just down from Mariatz Platz.
There’s been a freezing fog and although we don’t get out till well after 10am, there’s a heavy hoarfrost in the church yard opposite and it’s only the gravel they’ve scattered on the paths over night that stops us from slipping and sliding.
In the morning sun the Victuels market is alive with colour; rounds of cheese, meats, exotic fruits, a soup house, a beer garden and plenty of coffee shops around the markets periphery, shoppers, bags of fresh bread and groceries at their side, warming their hands on hot mugs of coffee and chocolate.
We buy some pepper cheese, pickled squash filled with cream cheese and some olives and munch on these as we wander along. We duck into the hair brush shop (because it is pretty cool), and find Mumford and Kevin in there who have just brought a range of lovely soft brushes for Mumford’s beard.
It’s another sensational day and we dawdle happily up and across the large open, sun filled Platz, wondering whether we really want to spend half the day inside the residence. To stimulate our thinking we step into Dallmayr for coffee.
Dallmayr is sensational, any place with a fountain inside has to be pretty cool, and has whole sections for each food type; meats, cheeses, breads, fish, cakes, pastries, chocolate etc. Like a really posh indoor market really, but beautifully arranged. Downstairs there’s also a seafood restaurant where you can sit in the market watching the goings on enjoying freshly shucked oysters and Champaign. Upstairs is a very popular cafe, out of the market milieu below, where you can pay almost anything you like for very small cups of coffee made from beans from around the globe. We opted for the coffee (and possible bankruptcy – I may have partaken in a cream brulee – may as well go down in style), and in due course, to check out the Munich Residence.
It’s a palace, and so, big and opulent as you’d expect but some of the stand-outs for is included; the miniatures room where gold work links scores of miniature paintings into the rich red velvet walls, the metal inlay in some of the pieces of furniture (brass, copper, silver and gold), the beautiful gold gilded theater, the exquisite wall hangings and tapestries and some of the crown jewels.
The reliquaries section is pretty freaky too, with fingers, skulls, leg bones and mummified hands of various saints all worked into fine sculptures of precious metals and gems.
After resting our weary feet at the Residence wine bar (where Jeff made the grand faux pas of asking if they had any gluten free beer – ‘sir, we have one beer, we are wine bar’) , we wandered back to the main square (Mariatz Platz), to meet Michelle (Harry’s long time friend who’s studying in Berlin) and enjoyed a wonderful meal at a Swiss fondue place. Harry arrived safely in Innsbruck while we were dining.
We bid Michelle adieu and enjoyed a brisk walk home to pack and bed – tomorrow Verona
No photo with Michelle?
We took a selfie with Michelle’s camera….I’ll get a copy for you.