The Hindu Business Line : His and her… islands

It’s a balmy Sunday and a small group of international journalists — from India, China, Mexico, Colombia, Singapore and Canada — are at Chiemsee, about 90 km southeast of Munich in Germany. Chiemsee, a large lake protected under the International Ramsar Convention, is a popular weekend tourist destination, even in late winter. There is a fairly large number of tourists at the lakefront. Most of them, including the journalists who are on a visit to Audi 217;s facilities sponsored by the company, are waiting to take a boat to one of the islands on the lake.

There are three islands, two of them curiously named — Herreninsel (German for Men’s Island) and Fraueninsel (Women’s Island); they are also called Herrenchiemsee and Frauenchiemsee. Our guide, Konrad Hollereith, a retired salesman who now conducts small tour groups as a part-time vocation, tells us that the islands — Herreninsel is the larger of the two — are so named because each had a monastery and a convent respectively. The monastery closed down in the early 19th-century, while the Benedictine convent still functions on Fraueninsel, which also boasts a nice cafeteria and a fishing village. There are some 300 permanent residents on Fraueninsel.

The trees on Herrenchiemsee are bare, understandable because it is still winter in Europe. A short walk brings us to Schlosschiemsee, a palace built by King Ludwig II of Bavaria and meant to be an exact replica of the Palace of Versailles in France. There are enough and more reminders of that — paintings of Louis XIV adorn the walls of the palace. There is none of King Ludwig II, who, our guide at the palace tells us, lived there for only 10 days. The palace was not completed. Only 20 of the 70 rooms were built. Guess why? King Ludwig II had run out of money!

It is late afternoon as we finish our walk around the palace and head for the jetty to take a boat to Frauenchiemsee. The lake is serene — a few ducks and some coots (the Chiemsee is known for its waterfowl population) are swimming peacefully in the water, a boat sails by with tourists who are island hopping, and the Alps can be seen in the distance. There has not been much snow this year, we are told, and hence the ski resorts are not doing good business. We take a boat and head for a cosy restaurant on Frauenchiemsee for refreshments. Some of us decide to walk around the small island. Everything is quiet. The nuns at the convent make candles and a special type of liqueur, we are told. The residents are also indoors and the fishing village looks deserted as dusk sets in. There is a nip in the air and our jackets are buttoned up as we head to the jetty to board a boat that will take us to our bus.

N. Ramakrishnan

Bavarian flavours: The Benedictine Convent on Frauenchiemsee island.

It’s foggy the next morning and the receptionist at our hotel in Ingolstadt, where Audi’s headquarters are located, tells us that the forecast is not promising. But soon enough the weather clears up, the sun is out and things look bright and beautiful as we begin our drive to Munich. Our bus drops us off at the Odeonplatz, right in front of the National Theatre. Our guide, Michael Horner, who is in his second year of engineering and doing part-time guide work for an agency called Weis(s)er Staadtvogel Munchen, takes us on an hour-long walking tour of the city centre.

An attractive feature about most European cities is the city centre, with its cobbled pedestrian walkways. It is bright and sunny and there are groups of people at the roadside cafes with their tall mugs of beer. One wishes that Indian cities too had such pedestrians-only parts. Munich has a number of old buildings — the town hall, the Residenz and the Theatiner Kirche, a yellow façade church built in Baroque style, where Sunday Mass is on. Some of these buildings have been rebuilt after the War and the city still retains its character.

Like most other European cities, the public transport is efficient — there is the tram sharing road space with sleek limousines, and the underground metro network is quite extensive.

As we come to the end of our walking tour, and before heading for lunch at a trendy Munich restaurant, Horner stops the group in front of Hofbrauhaus — Munich’s most popular tourist spot.

You guessed it right, it is a huge beer house, and Horner tells us that about 30,000 people visit it every day to enjoy their favourite brew and eat traditional Bavarian dishes.

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