Travelog for: Louis the Rat

Hi Mummy,

we are at Duesseldorf Airport now. Our flight to Munich will start at 10:00 a.m.







Bye
Louis

Hi Mummy,
we arrived in Munich soon. We went to our hotel and than immediately into town.

Here we are at Karlsplatz, also called Stachus.



Here you can see me at Promenadenplatz. In the background you can see one of the most exlusive hotels in Munich, hotel Bayerischer Hof.





This is Wittelsbacherplatz. The statue is showing elector Maximilian I, who lived from 1571 till 1651 A.D.



We walked through the old town and reached Odeonsplatz. On the right side you can see Theatinerkirche and on the left side Feldherrenhalle.



Katja wanted to meet another host of ToyVoyagers here, Pandamao, in the Englischen Garten. We still had some time and so Katja showed us Hofgarten.



The garden was built by Maximilian I, whose statue I already showed you. In the middle of the garden you can see Dianatempel, a pavilion dedicated to goddess Diana.



Here you can see the inside of the temple.





Facing the Hofgarten on the east side is the Bavarian Staatskanzlei ("State Chancellery"), housed in the former Army Museum. The glass wings were added to the orginal building.



From here it'n not far to the Englischen Garten.



Here we are!

With an area of 3.7 km² the Englischer Garten is one of the world's largest urban public parks. In the background you can see  Monopteros, a greek style temple built in 1836 A.D.



There are many creeks in the Englischen Garten.



We are now in the famous beer garden at the Chinese tower.



Almost no visitors were here but we had a delicious beer although.





Katja met Pandamao here. Harold Giraffe and Womat went with Pandamao, Berkeley and Bruni Lila came with us now.

Bye for  now
Louis

Hi Mummy,

on our second day here we planned to walk through the old town and than visit Westpark.

We started at Sendlinger Tor, which is a city gate at the southern extremity of the historic old town area of Munich.



From here we walked along Sedlinger Straße to do some shoppings.



Of course we also visited Marienplatz with the famous new town hall.



On the next photo you can see the Mariensäule (Marian column) and also the towers of the Frauenkirche (Cathedral of our blessed lady).



From here we went to Westpark by metro.

Westpark is a large urban public park in Munich. It was completed in 1983. It hosted the fourth International Garden Show (IGA 83) that same year.





They have an area here which is called Little Asia which consists of a Chinese garden, a Japanese garden, a Thai sala and a pagoda.

Unfortunately the part with the Chinese garden was closed for visitors at the moment.

So let me show you the Japanese garden.





This is the Thai sala.



We took a long walk in the park and went back to the town centre than.

This is Karolinenplatz, an important intersection here.



From here we walked to Königsplatz. The square is framed with the "Ionic" Glyptothek and the "Doric" Propylaea (Propyläen) and the "Corinthian" State Museum of Classical Art.





That's enough for today, my little feet are aching.

Bye
Louis

Hi Mummy,

today we visited a meeting of the VdRD e.V. (Verein der Rattenliebhaber und -halter in Deutschland e.V.). Katja is a member of the association. She is managing the associations's shop and she is also chief editor of the association journal.

The meeting was taking place in a youth centre, called "Aquarium".





On the next photo I am sitting among the articles which are sold here. They are selling stickers, coffee mugs, t-shirts, bags, biros, notebooks, saving boxes and more.





Nobody had to starve here.





In the late afternoon we left the meeting and went back to our hotel.

In the evening we took a walk along through the old town and
the river Isar. Here we are at Isartor, also part of the former city fortification.





Bye
Louis

Hi Mummy,
we visited Tierpark Hellabrunn today.



We saw lots of interesting animals.



Have a look at those giant turtles!







We also watched a show with raptors. They showed a barn owl, a peregrine falcon and a golden eagle.



The girl is showing the peregrine falcon here.



They let the birds fly and they came back after performing how to kill their prey.

This is the golden eagle.





We had to leave to zoo than to get back to the airport.

Here we are on our way back home.



I had a fantastic time in Munich!

Bye
Louis

Hi Mummy,

I'm on my way to my next host now. I hope I'll arrive there soon.



Bye
Louis

I arrived at my new host's house a few days before her vacation, so she was busy getting ready to go! My host's name is Sam.


Sam has finally gotten settled after her trip to DC, so here are some photos!

The first day we arrived in DC, we went to Chinatown.

The next day we visited some of the museums and the sculpture garden.



We also got to visit the zoo!



It was a really fun trip! We did some other things too, but it was very crowded and hard to take photos.

After my stay in Pennsylvania, I have moved along to Flagstaff, Arizona, USA. Zeke one of my new TV friends that I met in Glen Lyon, decided to bring us home with him.


One of the most distinguishable sights in Flagstaff is the San Fransisco Peaks. They look small in comparison to me but they stand at 12,633 ft (3,851 m). In the winter, Ashley says that these peaks get covered in snow! I hope to be able to see that before heading back to Germany!

SURPRISE! SURPRISE!
Hi Mum,
I'm here in Germany with fam-united now. AnjaM had a really really bad time last year and she is so sorry, that she didn't get in contact with you and tell you about it and that she didn't send me home to you. I can tell you, that we tried everything to make her smile again, but until today she's still not all herself again.

This week she felt the stength to send me on to my new host in Bruchsal. I'm looking forward to some more updates with her before I will travel on to my next destination.

Greetings, Louis

Hi Mum,

after we arrived at Petra's host the other tvs were very happy to welcome us. Our first wish was to take a bath, so we all ran to the bathroom.

Here you see us from left to right:

me, Nippy, Percy, Bree and Polki







I tried to take care of my tag as much as possible.




Nippy thought, that it would be enough to clean one ear




But then she fell head over into the bath.




Polki loved to swim in the water.




We asked Petra, if she never needs a towel after having a bath and she ran to wrap us in the towel quickly.




Because it was warm and sunny, we asked our host, if she could bring us to the balcony. We lied down on a table in the sun - more or less.

Hi Mum,

today nothing really interesting happened, but this evening Petra's son called me to take a look out of the window and get some photos taken there. I'm sorry, but we had to zoom some views, so you can see more of the sky. We thought, we would get some rain, but nothing happened. It is still much too dry.

Hi Mum,

Petra and her husband will get spoiled by her children - it's mother and father day present. And of course we will get spoiled too
For breakfast we had bread rolls, jam, honey, chocolate plates and a special treat called Einäpfchen. It was made of ham cubes and egg. I also ate a croissant and drank some green tea and orange juice.

Let's see, what I will eat for lunch

Bye, Louis

Later we had lunch. The kids made some special appetizer and then noodles, salad, pork loin in lemon sauce. As dessert we had banana and vanilla ice cream.







You see, that the dessert was my favourite

Today we took a photo of nearly all tvs, which stay here right now. There are several tvs of our host: Aaron, Robinson, Schnuffi, Scotty, Cassiopeia and Simba Leon. Then there are the regular guests: BarryO, Bubo, Henry, Sanji, Tuffy, NiliHH, Jack, Chuckle, WillyW. All the others are tvs, which stayed with hosts, who had some problems and no chance to send them on to their owners or the next host, including me. It is the biggest amount of toyvoyagers I ever had around me

Today the weather is nice - finally. So we had a chance to go out and take a look at the sightseeing places of Bruchsal. Bruchsal was first named in 976, but there are places even older than that. Bruchsal is famous for its beautiful baroque palace, for asparagus and for traffic jams on the autobahn.

Here you see the Damian Gate, which is the entrance to the palace area. You can see art exhibitions there every now and then.




We crossed the street and walked to the fountain in front of the county court. Such a pity, that my host forgot to take a photo of the county court, but you can see it on another photo.




Here you can read a about the fountain:




We crossed the street again and walked into the palace front garden. At first we took a photo of a sign:






The big part of the building is the main building of the palace. On the left side you see the catholic church St. Damian and Hugo, where my hosts go to Sunday service.




Here you can see from left to right: the building with the chamber music hall, the tower of Damian Gate, the little piece of the tower of the jailhouse, then the tree. At next there are two more buildings, which belong to the palace area, between both is the street, which we crossed before. Then the higher building on the right side is the county court. And you can see the little gate, through which we walked into the front garden.




We walked into the church to take a look at old photos. You can see, that the palace was destroyed during World War II. They rebuilt the area, but the church inside is modern nowadays.




In the second last photo you can see a little gate, which leads from the front part to the back part of the palace. We walked through it and took a photo of the backside of the church and the church tower.




There are some fountains on the backside of the palace. Each year there are open air concerts and it's a place for nice wedding photos. Around Christmas there is a second Christmas market at that place, too.




Four guards with halberts are at the line between the fountain part and the palace garden.




We walked to the little pond, where usually you can find many ducks.




At two crossings of the main way you can find a statue at each corner. This crossing shows the four elements water, fire, earth, air. Here you see the fire statue. You maybe remember, that I've shown you the water statue a while ago.




This crossing shows the four seasons winter, spring, summer, autumn. This statue is summer.




There are several ways lined with chestnut trees.




We left the palace area and drove to the backside of the hospital. There is a parking place and we stopped to take two photos: one shows the old hospital building with its nice little tower and the other shows the jailhouse.






Then we drove to the Belvedere, which was built as a hunting lodge for Prince Bishop Franz Christoph von Hutten.




Next to the Belvedere and Stadtgarten there is a place, where you have a great view over Bruchsal.




You can see the two towers of the baroque church St. Peter, which is close to my host's house. In the street right in front of me you can see some of the oldest houses of Bruchsal. 80 % of Bruchsal was destroyed during the war, so mostly you only see houses built from 1945 to today.




The buildings in front of me and the white one on the left side belong to the older people's house. Then there is the private catholic grammer school called St. Paulusheim - the big grey building in the far left side.




This nice house also is next to the Belvedere. Nowadays it belongs to a hotel.