Strangers in the Night

Four bike riders pass by the stately Glyptotek museum in Munich’s Maxvorstadt neighborhood in the cool Winter air. The building looks like it was carved out of marble, and in fact it was – with 16 Ionic columns and its 18 statues that encircle the building. In fact, every bit of the museum was built out of marble, but World War II took its toll on the building and you can see the bricks that now line the interior. The extensive frescoes that used to line the walls also did not make it through the war. At the same time, much of the artwork was spared (or more likely hidden), but the museum didn’t open again until 1972 (for the Olympics, of course). Inside, you will find frescoes from the Greek Temple of Aegina. That might not sound familiar to you, but the temple made up part of the Ancient triangle in Greece, which was made up of the Acropolis in Athens, the Greek temple of Poseidon in Sounion (south of Athens along the peninsula), and the Temple of Aegina. They were among the most cherished temples in all of Greece. And somehow (we won’t go into that) they ended up in Munich, behind these bikers, on a cold Winter night.