To make up for all the doom and gloom in the last post, here are some pictures I took that afternoon while we took a stroll through the Englischer Garten, Munich’s humongous park. After we got back from Dachau, we needed something to lift our spirits and a walk through the park seemed to be just the ticket.

    

   

   

As you can see in the above pictures, the forsythia was in bloom. We have a forsythia bush in my backyard in New York. To me, it’s just as amazing as seeing cherry blossoms bloom. The yellow is just so vibrant and beautiful.

There were a few beer halls in the actual park–one of them is called the Chinese Tower and there is this landmark tower in the middle of the park. Another beer hall embraced the German stereotypes and had these beer stein lanterns strung all over the terrace. It must be cool to see them lit up on summer nights!

Oh and the lock–in recent years, the lock tradition has become popular with couples–clipping a lock to a bridge, writing your name (or initials) on it and then throwing the key in the water. It’s supposed to be a symbol of eternal love or something. It’s kind of cool, but I know for the people who maintain these bridges, it’s a pain in the neck since they have to go around breaking off all these locks!

Next up: a million references to the Sound of Music and Mozart–we went to Salzburg, Austria next!