Swim training at the Olympia-Schwimmhalle

Recently, friends of Herr J came to visit.  It was a high school friend with her husband and two boys.

When we take visitors around, it is usually a chance to re-experience the fun things to do in Bavaria.
But in this case, because of a specific request, we got to do something we had never done before in Munich! 

Both of the boys are on a swimming team.  Even though they are on vacation, they still needed to train.
So we went one morning to the Olympia-Schwimmhalle for them to get their laps in.  We have been to the Olympiapark many times, but interesting that we had never been inside the swimming hall, or used the pool there.

Here are the parents waiting for the boys to change into their swimgear, with a view of the entire hall:

Note: above photo was bracketed and HDR/tonemapped using Photomatix

Soon the boys were ready and waiting for instruction (they had a regimen to follow from the coach at home):

Three of the eight lanes were marked specifically for "sport" swimming -- lap swimmers:

The photo below (and above too) is their older son, S, making his laps.  It's a 50m pool, longer than what they typically use.  You'll see in the photos that they cycle through the different strokes (free, breast, and back).

Of course, I used this chance to practice "action" photography.  I need more training than they do swimming:

Mrs J was a competitive swimmer in high school anbd college, so she is the whip-cracker for the boys:

Here is the younger boy, M, taking a rest at the far end.  Behind him is the diving area:

This is S, approaching the near wall.  I was sitting in the stands, rather than poolside, so quite far away (using a 100-300mm zoom lens) and the viewing angle was higher -- couldn't get the water-level shots, but not too bad...

And below again is M, also coming in to the near wall:

After the workout, they took a well-deserved moment for play, and went to the platforms in the diving area:

Then they moved to the springboard, and M seemed to know that I was photographing him:

Not to be outdone, the older S did a front flip off the springboard:

Finally, they headed back to the locker room to shower and change:

I always like an opportunity to practice photography, and this happened to be in a place in Munich that I had never been!  Mr A and I sat in the stands, talked, and I snapped some pics.  My kind of morning.

Friday Photo Favorite: Foggy Munich Morning

A foggy morning at Olympiapark. I still love the greens, but we've been having so much rain and fog lately that I ask myself daily: Summer? What summer? 

Friday Photo Favorite: Olympiapark Sunrise

This one is an HDR photo from an early morning trip to Munich's Olympiapark. 

I love the colors and light in this photo, as well as the winding path up to the lookout where we experimented with our tripods. It gives me a warm and peaceful feeling when I look at it. We have this one in rotation on our digital frame.

Photoblog - Olympiapark

Frau A and I went recently to Munich's Olympiapark to take photos.  We got up at 4:30am to make it there before sunrise and came back later at sunset (with a nap in between, of course).  We'll show some "natural" photos here, with some HDR/tonemapped ones in a follow-up post for sure.

The Olympiapark was constructed for the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich.  Of course in Germany, it was designed NOT to be dismantled, but to last.  And it has stood the test of time very well.  Today it continues to host 200+ events each year:  concerts at the Olympic Hall, outdoor movies and theater in the summer, and formal & recreational sports year round.  You can see below where Olympiapark sits realtive to "downtown" Munich, as well as previous photoblog post locations from Nymphenburg castle/gardens and the English Garden.

 

Here's a map of the park.  I added a pointer to the theater which is not labeled (edge of the lake, towards the middle), ands put a box around the "Olympiaberg" (towards the bottom-middle).  Notice that near the Bus/U-bahn symbols in the upper right is the BMW center and museum (labeled as #19).  This will be coming in a future post, since we already saw the Mercedes and Porsche museums in Stuttgart!

 

And here is a photo-map from the Olympiapark home page (but beware, the perspective is from the opposite direction in the two maps...).  The park has about 3 square kilometers of space in what used to be just open meadow.  The Olympiaberg ("Olympia mountain") is 60 meters high with a lookout on top.  It's a nice place to see the sunrise/sunset, and some of the famous churches downtown are clearly visible from there too.  On the best days, you can see the Alps in the south!  Many of the following photos are from that lookout.

We took this photo from the Olympiaberg around sunset.  On the left is the Olympiastadion (stadium), the largest venue.  In the middle is the Olympiasee, a large artificial lake.  On the far right (closest to the water) is the edge of the swim hall.  Behind this is the largest indoor facility, the Olympiahalle... these two can be difficult to distinguish from each other at a distance because of the similar architecture.  In front of the swim hall on the right, on the edge of the lake, is the small outdoor theater (notice the tent-like structure above the stage at the water's edge).

This photo zooms out to the Olympiastadion.  The stadium can hold 69,000 spectators, and was the home of FC Bayern Munich until 2006 when they moved into the fantastic Allianz Arena.  Like the other buildings, it is characterized by acrylic glass and steel cables -- the artistic intent was to imitate the alps.  I find that these look much better from afar than near, but not to say that they're ugly up close.  Interestingly, construction started in a pit leftover from Allied bombings in World War II, and rubble from the city was used to shape the park landscape.

Now looking right from the same place on Olympiaberg, we get the rest of the swim hall and the Olympia tower.  The flat building behind the tower is part of the BWM complex.

The next photo is a little after sunrise (lighting is a bit better), and we had walked down to the lake level.  The Olympiaturm (tower) is overall 291m high, with the observation platform at 190m.  Below the outdoor platform is a revolving restaurant (a full revolution takes 53 minutes).  As of 2004 the tower had registered 35 million visitors.  It was not open so early in the morning, so no photos (yet) from the platform or samplings from the restaurant...

We continued walking along the artificial lake, with some nice morning reflections...

... there are few visitors so early in the morning.  Very peaceful.

 

As you descend from the Olympiaberg, you get better views of the venues and the lake.  Notice the paddleboats - there is a huge swan-shaped one on the left!

 

Close up, we noticed that other paddleboats are in the shape of cars.  This one is a Porsche, of course.

 

Finally, we made our way towards the U-bahn to go home.  This final photo was taken from the pedestrian crossing over the autobahn, looking back at the Olympiahalle.  The hall seats up to 14,000 people.  This is where many large acts put on their music concerts, such as Bon Jovi, U2, and the Meisterin Tina Turner who has performed here 23 times!  It's not the most acoustically accurate venue -- great to rock out, but was not my favorite for Night of the Proms.

 

Frau A and I are ready to get back already.  Olympiapark is a nice space to walk around, jog (but no swimming in the lake), see a concert, or just take photos.