Ich liebe Deutschland!

We've just got back from a few days in Munich.  Simone is an old friend who I met on a school exchange when we were just 15.   Our birthdays are a day apart, we both share a love for music and art, she's the sweetest girl I know. We've seen each other almost every year since, meeting up in Germany or England.  Daf and I even spent part of our honeymoon at her family's home in the Austrian hills See the photos here on my old blog.   So it was such a lovely surprise when they gave us tickets to visit her and her lovely boyfriend Michael in Munich as a wedding present, amazing!  We've been really looking forward to this holiday for a while, a well deserved break that's for sure! 

This is a pretty long post, apologies.  I'm a bit of a germanophile - I love the food, the language, the people, the culture.  Kaffee, kuchen, kaese spaezle, old apartment blocks, how clean everything is, trams, church bells, oom paa music, lederhosen, the notebooks and pens they sell (I was very good, I didn't buy any new stationery!) We had a fantastic time, and I feel very lucky to have Simone as a friend, who is willing to give up almost a week to entertain us.  Danke fuer alles, Mausi!



AND it was a fabulous opportunity to try out my new lens. I was so excited when it arrived in the post the day before we left.   It's a 50mm 1.8mm Nikkor lens, which unfortunately won't auto focus on my camera, but this lead to the challenge of really looking at the images I was making.  It's harder than it looks but I loved it, and I'll get there. I've really enjoyed how it opens up to a much lower aperture, letting so much more light in.





The house where I spent a lot of my teenage years! Simone's family home is above their shoe shop - I love the smell of leather as you walk up the staircase to the top floor.









I love this shot!

Moves me every time - the lasting memorial to the Scholl siblings -  students who distributed information in their protest against the Nazis, by throwing leaflets over the bannister into the atrium of the university .  They received the death penalty.












This photography exhibition blew me away, I spent an age looking at some incredible avant garde images from the 1920's and 1930's.  In fact the whole of the Pinakothek der Moderne was amazing.  The building is fantastic and filled with some great collections - I also enjoyed their Design exhibition and lost myself in their collection of Max Beckmann paintings.  Would definitely recommend you seek it out if you're ever in Munich. 














We spent an afternoon lazying by the Isar river - this was taken from the bridge and reminded me of the painting 'Bathers' by Seurat.  I often go into the National Gallery and find it on spare afternoons.







Back to the Bier Garten...a silly move the night before a flight home! Fun though!

 







Auf Wiedersehen! Bis bald!