I awoke the other morning in Munich to a beautiful sunny day and the bustle of city life – a few days away from Bellaugello Gay Guest House in delightful Umbria. The city is easily reached by a short flight from our nearby airport of Ancona.
It is a very civilized air route, Lufthansa fly direct and there is a damn good glass of red wine on the comfortable plane.
I am here following an invitation to a birthday party for one of a couple of great guests of Bellaugello who have become firm friends and live in a town nearby. Their hospitality was boundless and I have eaten to obesity not to mention imbibing the odd beer or two, interlaced with champagne and scoffed loads of chocolates and much solid Bavarian cuisine. We ended the stay by coming to Munich and the ballet in the delightful Residenz Theatre. A ballet about the hedonistic days Berlin in the 1920s. Ticket sales all going to a local charity for World Aids Day.

A beautiful setting, spectacular dancing, the principal having a smile almost all the way round his head, what a physique and boy could he dance!
I have shopped (figuratively) until I almost dropped – a cashmere coat with sable collar a mere €23,600 yes that is twenty three thousand six hundred euro, not a typo, wristwatches a snip at €101,000 ish and quite gross at that! Exquisite Nymphenburg porcelain teapot at €860 – and for that price it looks exactly like origami

and a butcher shop with Irish fillet of beef at €89 a kilo, alas! all way out of my budget but none the less with the exception of the diamond encrusted Rolex all so beautiful. However to make up for all this decadence and for us mere mortals there is the Christmas market or markets. Every where one turns the streets are filled with overflowing stalls each decked with bright lights, tree decorations, nativity figurines, garlands, candles and of course stalls selling fragrant gluwein.

There are people galore from all over the world but my interest was stirred of course by the Pink Christmas Market, lots of hunky goodies there;-) and I managed to pick up a pair of santa’s little helpers!

And so today a bit of sanity was required and on the recommendation of my friends and it being a sunny crisp day a walk and visit to the Glyptothek museum took me to a place where I have fallen in love….

Of course as is my custom I have chosen an unsuitable man, and this one is even quite cold and unresponsive, but hell! he is beautiful…