13th September Munich

** Welcome to my last full day in Munich. Hopefully the weather will hold as there are two to possibly three museums I would like to get though today. They are situated between the Konigsplatz and the Contemporary Art Museum I was at two days ago. Walking time should be shorter as I now know the direction and also the sights along the way. There should be little to no reason for me to sidetrack this morning. The main museum is the Egyptology museum but I noticed on the map that adjacent there is a museum dedicated to Troy. I hope I have understood that correctly..

** When we sat down in the beet hall there were three elderly Americans, from the eastern side of Washington State, sitting at the table, with who we held an enjoyable chat for about 30 minutes or so. I mention this because of their reason for travelling to Germany. The chap was about 2 years older than I, and like me, was a retired computer science high school teacher. He was also suffering from Parkinson's Desease. They were going to see the Passion Play in the town of Oberammergau. This play goes back some 400 years and was based on a religious pledge that legend says if the town was spared from the plague, they would do the play every 10 years.

Obviously I love these sort of 'walking on water's stories and so decided to do some basic research and present it below. So, if you would like to get a deeper understanding on how stories become traditions, that become legends, that finally meld themselves into religions that can be so insidious at times, please read below (from Wikipedia)

According to legend: an outbreak of bubonic plague devastated Bavaria during the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648). Bad Kohlgrub was so depopulated that only two married couples remained alive. The village of Oberammergau remained plague-free until 25 September 1633, when a man named Kaspar Schisler returned home after working in the nearby village of Eschenlohe. Over the next 33 days, 81 villagers would die, half of Oberammergau's population. On 28 October 1633, the villagers vowed that if God spared them from the plague, they would perform a play every 10 years depicting the life and death of Jesus. Nobody died of plague in Oberammergau after that vow, and the villagers kept their word to God by performing the passion play for the first time in 1634.: 101–111
The legend is a distorted account of the actual plague. There was an outbreak of plague in Oberammergau, but it took place from September 1632 to March 1633, when there were a total of 84 deaths from all causes. Deaths followed an epidemic curve instead of ending suddenly. There was one death in September 1632, rising to 20 deaths in March 1633, and ending with one death in July 1633. There is also no record of a man named Kaspar Schisler. Only two couples got married in Bad Kohlgrub in 1634, instead of only two couples surviving the plague. There were 39 marriages in Bad Kohlgrub in 1635, so hundreds of villagers must have survived.: 101–111
The errors may have been introduced by the retelling of an oral history that was not written down until 1733. The original work has been lost, and only fragments of the oral history survive as quotations in other works. The legend is told in the play The Plague of 1633 (German: Die Pestnot Anno 1633), which used to be performed the year before the Passion Play. It was retold as recently as the 1999 vow ceremony, which marked the beginning of rehearsals for the 2000 play.: 101–111 The town of Oberammergau now claims that Kaspar Schisler came home for a church festival in 1632 instead of 1633

** Some images from my last full day walking around Munich