The only real meal I had in Munich. Also street food
- inexpensive and tasty although not at all notable.

Nuernberger Bratwurstgloeckl am Dom, opposite the SE corner
of the Frauenkirche. About a block north of the Marienplatz
subway stop. No credit cards.

A traditional but not ancient beer-and-snacky place, with
a huge menu of munchies (mostly meat and potatoes) at 10-12
DM and a huge menu of meals at maybe twice that. Beers are
5.80 for a half liter. I discovered to my chagrin that a
half liter isn't what it used to be.

The waitress was reasonably patient with my horrible
German but took pity on me with a multilingual menu
(German-English-French-Italian-Japanese): after perusing
it carefully and wondering about the glories of the
whole pork knuckle and the Bavarian beef sirloin steak
(the menu was a little old, or maybe the Americans and
Italians and Japanese haven't heard about the BSE
flap), I chose the house mixed platter.

Nuernberger-wurst is a beefy sausage, coarsely ground,
rather burgerish, with onions chopped into it. It's good.

Knockwurst is exactly as it is in the US. Is this
gratifying or disappointing? I'm not sure.

The big treat, which my friend who couldn't accompany
me told me I absolutely had to try, was the Bratwurst,
which is little and shriveled and charcoaly-meaty
tasting and in fact altogether delicious (you get,
thankfully, 4 on the platter).

As I was flying out in the evening, I decided to have
potato salad (yellow and eggy and quite tart) instead
of sauerkraut. I figured even Lufthansa passengers
might not appreciate second-hand cabbage.

I drank a bunch of Koenig Ludwig Dunkel, which goes
down mighty easy, and had a pretzel (very pretzel-
like) from the bread basket on the table.

- - -

What I did in Munich.

Walked around town looking at the old buildings and
the sausages. Bought a couple (sausages, not buildings).

Spent about 4 hours in the Alte Pinakotek, which is
really amazing. Rows of Rembrandts, rooms of Rubenses.
Tons of Titians, Tintorettos, and Tiepolos. Plus:
a Fra Angelico tryptich I'd never even seen pictures
of before (Cosmas and Damian), the original Breughel
Land of Cocaigne (many Breughels, mostly Jan the Elder),
a haunting horrid Bosch Hell scene (and many other Hell
scenes - there's something dark in the religion of
Bavaria), ... . A good Durer collection, again including
several I've never seen before. I could easily spend
4 more hours there. Next time I go to Munich I'll get
one of those 2-day tickets and spend all day both days
here; then I'll get another one and spend all day both
days in the Neue Pinakotek. And I'm told there are a
dozen other museums. Disappointments here. 1. The
building itself is gross. 2. During all my time there,
the ground floor Old German galleries were polluted
with a pizza-like smell that emanated from the
restaurant. 3. The museum guides, well, the photos
of the huge Titians and Rubenses don't do justice to
the paintings, but a lot of the bigger works (the less
interesting ones are hung way high) can't really be
seen properly, especially with the lighting being so
funny. 4. I was told there would be a Venus exhibition
there. Nah, it starts on February 1.