A brief trip to Germany - Bavaria and Munich

We'd long planned a trip to stay with friends in Germany and then to do some limited exploration of the Alps in search of Alpine flowers and birds.

We reached Frankfurt and were collected by our hosts, before heading out to a wine festival at a castle.   German food can be complicated for vegetarians but they did do cheese covered flatbreads and of course beer!

The following morning we were driven at autobahn speeds to Lower Bavaria and the area around Rohr, a Unesco heritage area.    We first visited a nature reserve, spotting amongst other things a Small Tortoiseshell:

And this which looks like a Scotch Argus but I have very new 'L' plates on for butterflies so not sure:

Tree Pipits seemed to be everywhere, singing and doing their parachute descent into the trees:

Another apparent specialist is the Black Redstart, a rarity in the UK but as common as Blackbirds in Germany by the looks of it:

We got to Rohr around lunchtime so it was quieter than we hoped.  From the nature area we had lunch in a local monastery come brewery come canteen, odd place, and then home for pizza.

The next day we were dropped at Mannheim train station for a trip to Munich, which was pleasant enough although we arrived more than an hour late!   On a German train!

The forecast for our stay in Munich was miserable but on arrival we passed through a rain shower and then the sun came out.  Seizing the opportunity we went out for a long walk into the Englischer Garten, main old town area and around the riverside.  We walked miles but it was worth it as we got to see a lot of Munich's buildings in the sunshine.

I like the way the sun caught the Angel of Peace and made it glow in the early evening light:

The following day the forecast was bang on, non-stop rain all day.   We did what most of the other tourists did and visited the Residence which is frankly a ridiculous building, this is the main hall (by way of example) where his nibs used to be seen to dine on festival days.  Of course.

 Somewhat bedraggled we picked up a hire car the following morning and headed on to the Alps...