Day Trips

Neumarkt sets up an ice rink for a few months every winter.  Available snacks:  curry french fries, all sorts of gummi treats, Kinderpunsch and Glühwein.  This was Declan's first time on skates and thanks to a certain Pinguin, the day was a success!

 

The kids and I are doing our best Frankenstein walks...

We spent a day in Ingolstadt,  home of the Deutsches Medizinhistorisches Museum.  The museum was one of the sites used by Mary Shelley in Frankenstein.  It was where the good doctor studied and gained... inspiration.

 Some Ingolstadt street scenes: On January 6, Drei heilige Könige, kids will go house to house and sing for a donation.

Then your doorway will be marked and blessed for the coming year. These gentlemen represent these 3 kings, or wise men, Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar.  Who knew they had names!  The CMB below in the photo is often thought to refer to their names but it's actually from Latin Christus Mansionem benedicat - Christus möge dieses Haus segnen. May Christ bless this house.

Our door!

Schloss Neuschwanstein inspired Walt Disney

 Luckily for us, there was also this fantastic exhibit on "Crazy" King Ludwig II (1845-1886) at the Bayerisches Armeemuseum in Ingolstadt.  Crowned at 18, the craziness didn't really creep in for several decades when he started to retreat from the public and even from his advisers (they often had trouble even getting signatures as he reportedly would hide).  He is most well-known for his castles, including Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein which completely drained the treasury.  He died under mysterious circumstances -- did he drown or did he get some assistance?

 A = Austria or I = Italy?  On this trip, we stayed in Germany and went to Munich for another museum exhibit, much to our children's dismay.  Why oh why  must their parents be history geeks?

This time it was on the 30 Years War, 1618-1648, which was a complicated tangle between the Habsburgs, the House of Austria, the Danish, Dutch, Spanish, French, Swedish and various Germanic dukedoms.  Most of the battles took place within the modern German borders.

Porous bones

 It was also a religious war to a certain extent among Catholics, Lutherans and Calvinists.  The mess was compounded by armies who were expected to be largely self-funding (plunder anyone?) which left huge areas completely devastated for years.  The soldiers often joined up to escape famine and poverty and were known to switch sides depending on who was winning -> who had better living conditions.  Remember, this lasted 30 years...

A recreation of a typical soldier

So this exhibit focused on a grave discovered in Wittstock, Germany.  During some digging, bones were found and assumed to be from the Death Marches of WWII.  Upon closer examination, it was determined the 125 bodies were from the 30 Years War. The bodies were carefully excavated and analyzed.  What I find found fascinating was not so much the cause of death but the condition of the physical health of the soldiers.  Bones showed malnutrition for their entire life, scurvy, parasites of all sorts, rickets, and massive tooth decay.  The teeth of some soldiers were nearly ground down to their jaw due to the rough grain bread available.

The "train" which followed the soldiers was often twice as long.  It consisted mostly of cooks, wives, widows, children, prostitutes, and blacksmiths.  So imagine 15, 000 troops plus their entourage heading through your village.  If you survived the attack, joining them was often your only hope of survival, especially in winter.


The museum offered a special children's program which included an excavation of its own.
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We were joined by the Lloyds

The day wasn't completely museum based - we visited Munich's famous English Garden known in summer for its topless sunbathers and in winter for its surfers!