For this week's "green" fix we're popping back to Munich, and for some reason I appear to be fixated by children's television programmes at the start of this post, so let's head through the arched window... No, it's just an arch, a beautiful one at that...
The garden is in the centre of Munich and was built between 1613-1617 by Maximilian I as an Italian style Renaissance garden. It's a popular spot and it's easy to see why, this avenue of trees greeted us as we went through the arch. And like everywhere else in Munich there were plenty of places to park a bike.
We meandered around the paths working our way towards the centre of the garden and the pavilion, which is for the goddess Diana and is just beautiful. A path leads from each of its eight arches into the garden, but the inside is ornately decorated. The statue on the top is a replica of a sculpture of Bavaria by Hubert Gerhard and is just stunning against the sky.
At the far end of the garden is the Bavarian state chancellery, which since 1993 has glass wings added to each side of the building, which I liked but I can imagine could split opinions. And it was from here that we headed off towards the Englischer Garden in search of those surfers.
On the west and the north sides of the garden - and I can't remember which this was - were some fabulous arcades with wall paintings depicting the history of Bavaria. I can imagine that on a warm day, these would provide some much welcomed shade.
And now a treat for you. I wasn't going to include this photo but as I looked back over our time in the Hofgarten I couldn't help but smile and remember how much we were amused by the scene outside of the arch. The chap with the accordion in traditional Bavarian dress playing tunes to amuse the crowds, clearly playing to the tourist trade.
And with the backdrop was quite a typical photo, but then he was joined by the other man who was clearly enjoying the music and was quite literally skipping around entertaining the crowds in his own individual way. It was one of the most joyous things I've seen for a while, and still brings a smile to my face. So many memories from just one snap!
So a beautiful garden and one you wouldn't know was destroyed during World War II. It was rebuilt with a partial redesign adopting characteristics from the nineteenth century as well as its original design.