Monthly Archives: January 2018

Glimpses of Munich #2: Blood Castle

Blutenburg, directly translated to blood castle, sounds like an awesome name for a medieval castle, doesn’t it? (unfortunately it is now called Schloss Blutenburg, so its name is now “palace blood castle,” which isn’t quite as fun)

This medieval castle was built between 1438 and 1501 for Duke Albrecht III and his son Duke Sigismund. As with most castles in the area, it was neglected at some point, in this case during the 30 years war, and later restored.  Restoration took place in the late 17th century and unfortunately they did not bother to restore its full defenses and therefore some of its castle character.  Still, it retains the castle structure and definitely looks beautiful in its little park.  I would go so far as to say it is the only “real” castle left in the city limits of Munich.  (both the Alter Hof and the Residenz at one point were castles, but they’ve been modified so many times that you can’t see it any longer)

What I love about this castle is its appearance and its slightly hidden location.  Most tourists will never see it, which makes it a little more fun for those that do.

Getting there as a tourist is a BIT more difficult than pretty much anything in your guide books, but these days you just download your MVV app and away you go…

Map

Unfortunately for places like this I don’t have great pictures that I’ve taken myself.  Below is an open source picture, but you can find many more on google.

Glimpses of Munich #1

I love Munich.  I lived there for ten years…my wife is from Munich, my son is from Munich…and well, I spent many hundreds of hours walking its streets in some sort of a weird “Lost in Translation” sort of thing.  Anyway, friends of ours are going to visit Munich this year and one of my first thoughts was that they are odd tourists who might want to see and do things that the average tourist probably would never stumble into.

SO, that being said, I’m going to start posting somewhat random places that I think are interesting in Munich.  Some might be interesting to you, some might not…we’ll see.

Oh, what about the picture at the top?  That has nothing to do with this post as it’s 2 hours South-West of Munich and you know all about it anyway…but it got your attention.

Anyway, below is my first one.  This is a statue that most tourists don’t see because of its location…except maybe during the Oktoberfest.  Holy Roman Emperor Ludwig IV “The Bavarian” used to get quite a lot of attention on some of my tours, but unfortunately all I could show tourists, as far as statues of the man himself, was a dismal one outside of his former castle, The Alter Hof (map).

It’s probably not worth your while to find it if you’re in town for a few days, but…you know, if you’re wandering around town like me…

Map

Denkmal Kaiser-Ludwig

This guy only gets a look from random Oktoberfest visitors…you can find him at Kaiser-Ludwig-Platz 8