A Visit to the Bavarian State Museum

Supermoon in Munich

Since I (Sarah) am still not working, I've been exploring around the city, going to ex-pat meetups here and there, which has been a nice way to try new restaurants, cafes, and pass by some of the sights I didn't even know existed around the city. I've traveled to quite a good number of stops on each of the U-Bahn (underground train) lines, and walked around between stops as well to see what there is to see! Joe, unfortunately, doesn't have that kind of daily schedule. So this weekend we walked around a lot on Saturday so he could see some things and walk through some of the places I've been. Not just pretty buildings and historical sights, but also some of the big downtown shops and stores. We discovered that the Karstadt Sport store between Marienplatz and Karlsplatz has THE best soccer section of any of the sport shops I've walked through, and we passed through the setup for some of the upcoming Christmas markets (Christkindlmarkts or Weinnachtmarkts).

On Sunday, we decided to take advantage again of the 1€ admission specials that several of the museums offer. This time we went to the Bavarian State Museum (Bayerische Nationalmuseum), which showcases historical pieces of art and culture throughout the history of Bavaria, or Southern Germany/the Alps. They have a ridiculously large number of artifacts and their exhibits fantastic to walk through. We were there for two and a half hours and we really only made it through about half of the exhibits. It was really neat to see so many different parts of history in one museum, and so many well preserved pieces of culture.

Here's some pictures of what we saw. The lighting was not so bright there in many exhibits, to preserve color and texture of some of the older pieces I am sure, so taking pictures was not always easy (no flash photography allowed). But we got pictures of some of the exhibits and pieces that caught our eye. We'll have to head back to see the rest of the museum another time!

Here are a few pictures and here is a link to the rest of the Google album with more pictures. Enjoy!

This is a hand blown glass vase where the handles are elephants. SO much detail! 

A scale model of Munich circa...sometime in the 18th century, I think? Don't quote me on that. I don't remember. But it was pretty cool to see. Joe for scale (This model took up a whole room!)

Joe particularly enjoyed an exhibit all about medieval armor. They had a few interactive pieces too, like this metal glove and some chainmail.

These pieces of furniture were so strangely proportioned! The dresser (left) was HUGE and had so many doors, drawers, and cabinets. Meanwhile, the bed (right) was so small! All of the white on the bed frame, however, is inlaid ivory and it is so tiny and detailed. It must have been painstaking to put together!

One of the royal cabinets...I think they are made for jewelry and perfume storage. However, this one is gold, and matte blue porcelain and gold and has 176 hidden cabinets and drawers. The top part rotates around and the backside is pictured below:

We maybe had too much fun imitating statues at this museum...