Quiet day in Munich

Before anything, the captions have been on the last two posts...at long last.

My weekend here in Munich, with one of my friends, was nothing short of hectic. My first beer festival (starkbeirfest - stout beer festival) was grandiose. Munich's night life is quite diversified, generously sprinkled with beer.

Today was way quieter: long, long walk in the Englischer Garten, occasionally pausing now and then to read from Bashō's The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches. I meant to read this book for a long time, but it is difficult to find, and my stumbling on it in one of Camden Town's second-hand bookshops (the one inside the market - there's another one quite away from the crowds, which is equally good) was a godsend. To top it all, it's a first UK edition (1966), only very slightly foxed.

Also, I got to see a downy woodpecker (see pictures below, underneath the Chinesischer Turm). I'm sure it was a specimen of downy (which is more spotted than the hairy woodpecker), and a female one (no red spot behind the head). I couldn't take the male because it was higher up in another tree, and this one proved difficult to catch: she was climbing around the tree as I was going around it, always keeping out of my sight. I eventually proved too cunning for her.

Chinesischer Turm, Englisher Garten

Thank God Spring is here...I was in great need of heliotherapy.