Day Trip: Munster, Germany

On Friday Bryan had the day off from school, so we decided to take Dylan into Munster for the day.  Dylan slept in until 10:30 a.m. and would have slept longer had we not woken him up - we were packed and ready to hit the road and all we were waiting on was this sleepy baby!  Actually, this worked out better since Dylan was so well rested he was able to stay awake and be in good spirits for the entire afternoon.

Here is the photo tour:

A hop, skip and a jump from the finance department where Bryan works is the Prinzipalmarkt, a picturesque town center area (that is easy to get lost in) leading up to St. Lambert's church.  Some history about St. Lamberts according to Bryan's co-worker Moritz (and confirmed by Wikipedia): the church has three cages hanging just above the clock (you can just make them out in this photograph).  In 1535 these cages were used to display the corpses of Jan van Leiden and other leaders of the Münster Rebellion, who promoted polygamy and renunciation of all property.



Bryan and Dylan are standing at the base of St. Lambert's in the Prinzipalmarkt.



It seems like every street we turned down was just so beautiful it warranted a photograph.  Munster has lots of big churches - you can see St. Paul's Cathedral in the background.



 

Dylan was a happy camper while we were waiting for Bryan to buy our döners for lunch. Döners are our favorite food items here - they are big toasted pitas with roasted meat, lettuce, onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, cabbage and special sauce - very similar to Gyros, but better.



We let Dylan out of his stroller for a little while to run around.  It was hard to hold him still for this photograph. Is he smiling or crying?  What's your guess? 

Dylan was squealing and squawking and talking to just about every person who walked past him.  His sociable personality creates some awkward moments for us because whoever he starts talking to inevitably tries to speak to us in German.  Our vocabulary runs out after we tell them what his name is and how old he is. 

Bryan is chasing Dylan down before he gets hit by a bicycle.

The weather was perfect for walking along a college campus all day.  It was crisp, clear and the leaves were just starting to turn.  It felt very "academic," although the school semester doesn't begin for another 2 weeks so there weren't very many students around. 



The Aa river runs through the city, creating the need for these beautiful bike and walking paths along its side.  The river opens up into the Aasee, which is a big lake on one end of the campus.



View down the street at St. Paul's Cathedral.



We were walking along the Promenade, which encircles the center of town.  Bryan and Dylan are standing on the designated pedestrian path.  Just to the left is the much larger bike path.  Munster is the bike capital of Germany and bikes make up almost 40% of all transportation in the city.




This is the Schloss, or Castle.  It was built in the mid-1700s as a residence for the prince-bishops, but is now an administrative building for the University.



Here is Dylan in front of the Aasee.  This was our final stop before heading home after a long afternoon of walking.  Shortly before this photo was taken we noticed Dylan had taken his left shoe off and was licking the bottom of it... Ewwwwww. 



Dylan was still happy after a long day of sightseeing.  He promptly fell asleep in the car on the way home.