My Long Weekend: the Roseninsel and Fronleichnahmsprozession

Hello!

  So this past weekend was longer than the week! I only had classes on Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesdays I only have one class and schools just had a two week vacation, so my professor was on holiday with her family. Thursday was Frohnliechnam. Friday I never have any classes. Saturday I had a little adventure, and Sunday was church!

  So Bavaria is a traditionally Catholic state. Which is kind of interesting to think about. For centuries the official religion of the kingdom was Catholicism. Catholicism is no longer the official religion, but it still plays a big part in the society, government, and traditions of Bavaria. There are a ton of holidays in May, that are strictly Catholic holidays were literally everything is closed. Literally everything. Not like - oh all my favorite stores are closed- like most restaurants are closed and I wouldn't be able to find aloe if I turned as red as a crab the day before. So this Thursday was Fronleichsnam, which is basically the sassy Catholic tradition of protesting Protestantism (I think that Fronleichsnam has another more official meaning, but we learned about it in my history class and the way the professor framed it struck me as funny). The holiday comes from the Counter-Reformation, and every year Catholics join these giant processions to celebrate their faith. In the 1500s and 1600s these processions were everywhere and were grandiose. Today there are fewer Fronleichsnamprozessionen than there were before, but Munich is one of the cities that still does it every year and I decided to go.

Incense Cloud

      Fronleichsnam begins with a mass in Marienplatz at 9:00 in the morning. Marienplatz is basically the center of the city, and is absolutely gorgeous. They did an entire mass, which I wasn't expecting and couldn't follow - German is still hard. Around 10:15 the procession began. The procession lasted over an hour and a half. It was really long! It started with a group of people carrying this cross with Jesus on it, and then different parishes from all over the area with their flags. There was a troop of what looked like the German equivalent of boy scouts (but included both boys and girls). The scouts were actually really funny, because for the first ten or so minutes small groups of two or three would come running down the street to catch up to the front of the procession where all of the scouts were walking. Every few minutes like clockwork would come another one hurrying along.

      After all of the parishes and other groups had past, like an  hour in, came these incense wielding fiends. I was choking as the walked past. But they preceded what I think was an altar. It was really beautiful, if really smelly. What was worse was that every few minutes the procession would come to a halt for about thirty seconds or so, but the incense swingers didn't stop swinging while they were in one place! So when they passed me, they brought with them this cloud of built up smoke.

      After the altar (and the smelly incense bringers) were groups of various cultures dressed in traditional wear. So the Polish Catholics were dressed traditionally (and then following the traditionally dressed was a CROWD of Polish people), Korean Catholics, Nigerian Catholics, etc. It was really cool!

       Here are some photos of some of the groups that caught my attention. 

     So on Saturday I decided to take an adventure down to the Roseninsel - or in English- the Rose Island. The Rose Island is this island in the Starnberger See (Starnberger Lake) that the Wittelsbach family (ruling family of Bavaria for centuries) built this little summer palace on. And I mean little, the palace is called the Casino (why I don't know) and it is one of the smallest summer residences I have seen. The Rose Island is named for the Rose garden, and the six hundred or so rose bushes planted on the Island. Right now the majority of the roses are in bloom, so I got to see the Rose Garden at its height.

     Getting to the Rose Island was a bit of an adventure. I took an S-Bahn to Feldafing. (An S-Bahn is a "suburban train" unlike the U-Bahn/subway it goes farther out of Munich. I took the S-6 to its second to last stop, about a forty minute ride, to Feldafing. Feldafing is south of the city, and a little west. I didn't honestly know how to get from the train station to the Island, but I thought that it would be relatively easy and close by. Haha, if I only knew. I had decided that looking cute and appropriately pinterest-y was a good decision instead of prepping to go on a hike, which is what I should have done since it was a bit of a hike to get there. It took me forty minutes to find the Island. I got distracted in the middle, as the path required me to cross this road and through this little opening in the bushes which I didn't realize upon first glance. I doubled back, and met up with these two German women. I told them, in my broken Denglisch (thankfully they spoke English - so we figured it out) that I was looking for the island, and they told me how to get there according to some instructions they were given by locals. I ended up following one of them back to the place I got confused, and lo and behold! She knew exactly where to go and sent me on my way. I am constantly pleasantly surprised by how kind people are.

   I had to cross a golf course to get to the Ferry that would take me to the Island. Here are some pictures of my walk and of the island itself:

The view of the golf course and the lake. If you squint you can see the mountains in the background (right side)

See the mountains? 

As I was looking through my pictures, I noticed a huge amount of them have my finger in the corner. This is from the island looking out 

Here is the island, again you can see two rows of mountains in the background (the second is mostly squinting)

I thought I did a really good job with this photo

The Summer Palace (for some reason known as the Casino?)

The Rose Garden

No Sunburn Today!

I want one

The view from the Gazebo. Here you can make out more of the mountains, even if they just look like shadows. 

The part of the Casino that faces the lake and has a view of the mountains

I hope everyone is enjoying their summer! I am happy to be away from the ridiculous humidity of Virginia and somewhere I don't instantly overheat the second I leave air conditioning. Which is really awesome, because there is no AC in my building!

Until next time,

Tschüß!