Where's Bertie? His wheels remain unturned, at the Stellplatz in Neuburg.
Weather: Sunshine, with just a few clouds dotted around. A noticeable breeze today.
Waking to clear blue skies, and with Bertie's windscreen facing south, we pre-emptively applied his windscreen 'eyemask' this morning. It was so effective that when we got back from our run it felt a bit too cool in here - cooler than it had been when we went out (22 degrees).
Our run had been through the riverside Englischer Garten, which was initially landscaped as a park in 1805 then extended in 1835 following a survey conducted by the same chap who created the Englischer Garten in Munich. We spent four nights in the latter a couple of weeks ago and I was quite taken with the place. From what we saw during this morning's half hour in the Neuburg version (tracks between densely packed trees rather than spaced-out trees interspersed with open meadow areas and more organised parkland), it didn't seem remotely similar to its Munich namesake.
Our plan for the rest of the day was to overdose on culture - something we couldn't do yesterday because it was Monday so everywhere was closed.
The Schloss was our starting point, which sells itself just as a museum, but as the exhibits take up a fair few rooms of the palace, with a couple of other notable rooms also open for inspection, one also gets to see a chunk of the interior of the grand building.
Impressive sgraffito on one of the walls inside the courtyard
The first few rooms of our tour were dim and stiflingly warm, presumably kept that way for the preservation of the grand 16th century tapestries on display. They also told the history of the palace, which we were only able to grasp thanks to the photo function on Google Translate, which I used to decipher the most salient-looking of the mono-lingual information panels.
Henry VIII or Count Palatine Ottheinrich?
Thankfully, once we ascended to the 'State Gallery of Neuburg' there was air conditioning. The art isn't going to go down as the best collection we've ever seen (quite the contrary), but it was diverting enough for the ticket price.
It would have been beneficial if a floor plan had been available on entering, or even if there had been clear signage as we walked around, as it was a bit of a maze and when we left we were unsure if we had seen everything. We only walked around the courtyard gallery and found the Knight's Hall because I tried the handle of a closed door that wasn't marked as 'no entry' (as most had been).
Back over the bridges, via the island in the middle of the Danube, to Bertie for lunch. The blue sky set the river off nicely today, even if it was being rippled by the breeze.
After lunch it was the turn of the Town Museum, which would not have attracted our custom if it hadn't been for the 'combined ticket' offer* . I came away for once completely agreeing with our Rough Guide to Germany guidebook: it's a modestly engrossing local history museum. Good bi-lingual information panels were to thank for that.
The most curious thing about our day (save for the town museum completely omitting the periods 1914-1918 and 1939-1945 from its coverage from the first settlement in the year 680 to the present day) was that it was only during the last two minutes of our Schloss Museum visit that we saw two other visitors and we had the Town Museum entirely to ourselves. This strikes me as a reasonably touristy place, so where was everyone?!
(*€5.50 standard entry to the Schloss and €3 standard entry to the Town Museum, or €6.50 for a combined ticket.)
Weather: Sunshine, with just a few clouds dotted around. A noticeable breeze today.
Waking to clear blue skies, and with Bertie's windscreen facing south, we pre-emptively applied his windscreen 'eyemask' this morning. It was so effective that when we got back from our run it felt a bit too cool in here - cooler than it had been when we went out (22 degrees).
Our run had been through the riverside Englischer Garten, which was initially landscaped as a park in 1805 then extended in 1835 following a survey conducted by the same chap who created the Englischer Garten in Munich. We spent four nights in the latter a couple of weeks ago and I was quite taken with the place. From what we saw during this morning's half hour in the Neuburg version (tracks between densely packed trees rather than spaced-out trees interspersed with open meadow areas and more organised parkland), it didn't seem remotely similar to its Munich namesake.
Our plan for the rest of the day was to overdose on culture - something we couldn't do yesterday because it was Monday so everywhere was closed.
The Schloss was our starting point, which sells itself just as a museum, but as the exhibits take up a fair few rooms of the palace, with a couple of other notable rooms also open for inspection, one also gets to see a chunk of the interior of the grand building.
The first few rooms of our tour were dim and stiflingly warm, presumably kept that way for the preservation of the grand 16th century tapestries on display. They also told the history of the palace, which we were only able to grasp thanks to the photo function on Google Translate, which I used to decipher the most salient-looking of the mono-lingual information panels.
Thankfully, once we ascended to the 'State Gallery of Neuburg' there was air conditioning. The art isn't going to go down as the best collection we've ever seen (quite the contrary), but it was diverting enough for the ticket price.
It would have been beneficial if a floor plan had been available on entering, or even if there had been clear signage as we walked around, as it was a bit of a maze and when we left we were unsure if we had seen everything. We only walked around the courtyard gallery and found the Knight's Hall because I tried the handle of a closed door that wasn't marked as 'no entry' (as most had been).
After lunch it was the turn of the Town Museum, which would not have attracted our custom if it hadn't been for the 'combined ticket' offer* . I came away for once completely agreeing with our Rough Guide to Germany guidebook: it's a modestly engrossing local history museum. Good bi-lingual information panels were to thank for that.
The most curious thing about our day (save for the town museum completely omitting the periods 1914-1918 and 1939-1945 from its coverage from the first settlement in the year 680 to the present day) was that it was only during the last two minutes of our Schloss Museum visit that we saw two other visitors and we had the Town Museum entirely to ourselves. This strikes me as a reasonably touristy place, so where was everyone?!
(*€5.50 standard entry to the Schloss and €3 standard entry to the Town Museum, or €6.50 for a combined ticket.)
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