Munich

This is a continuation of the previous post about Vienna, so make sure you've read that first...

The original plan for the trip was that everyone would go skiing for a day in the Alps in between visiting Vienna and Salzburg. Based on our ski experience in Switzerland, though, we thought it might be better to skip the slopes and see more of Europe. Munich was about the same distance as the Alps, and it wasn't in our master plan to ever go there, so we thought this would be a perfect opportunity.

We left Saturday evening and had a four hour ride across the Austrian plains, which was a nice ride while the sun was still up. The only bad thing was that the train was completely packed, so we ended up in a 6-person cabin with a bunch of strangers, but we got there okay. It was about 10:30 when we got in, so we just headed straight to the hotel - the Atlas City Hotel - to plan the next day's activities.

Sunday (Easter) in Munich

We knew that there were several historical and architectural sites in central Munich that we wanted to check out, but we also really wanted to make the half-day trip to the Dachau concentration camp. The problem was that everyone said we needed to get to Dachau at 11:30 to see a video about the camp, which was pretty terrible timing. So we got up early with plans to see a few sites in the city, then head for the camp, then go back into the city (not the most efficient, but our only real option).

It turned out that our plan was perfect, because we had allotted several hours to see the sites, which all ended up being closed for the holiday so we flew through them. There were 2 main squares in the city that we visited:

The Marienplatz

The Odeonplatz


The photo of the Marienplatz is of the New City Hall (built 1867-1908). It was in a nice plaza (although a little touristy) and surrounded by a bunch of high-end shopping. There was supposed to be a great view of the city from the top, but the place is closed weekends and holidays, so of course we were out of luck.

 
The Odeonplatz is just a large square outside of a church (the yellow building). I think the church is mostly famous for the outside color, but being Easter morning we wouldn't have been able to see anything inside anyway, so we didn't even attempt or research. The main draw of the plaza is that it was the location where Hitler had his first major run-in with the police, and was put in jail, where he wrote the (in)famous Mein Kampf.

We also walked past a few other landmarks and churches, but all were closed and there were also no good angles for photos, so you'll just have to go see all of that for yourself. We ended up seeing all the main sites by the time we needed to leave for Dachau, so it worked out perfectly.\

Dachau was a rural town outside of Munich (which has now just been incorporated in the city as a suburb). It was the site of one of the first Nazi concentration camps, and supposedly ran longer than any other in the Reich. It was also used as a model for many of the camps that were built later. This was a work camp, and at the height of its operations there were actually about 160 camps and work sites in the region where the prisoners worked.

Although it was a work camp, being sent here by no means meant safety. Thousands were either sentenced to death or were simply unfit to work and were sent away to one of the death camps. There was also a crematorium on site to handle the thousands who were literally worked to death, or later on in the war, arrived at the camp dead. Since this camp was in Germany, as they started losing the war the Germans evacuated the camps in Poland and elsewhere and brought them to Dachau. At the end, the camp that was built to hold about 4,000 held over 32,000.

It was a little surreal to be at the camp, especially on Easter. First, all of the old bunkers had been taken down, either as a decision after the war or due to dilapidation after 60 years (not sure which). They had rebuilt a couple to add to the experience, but I thought it meant much more to see the empty foundations where many bunkers had once stood. It was also humbling to think about the fact that Christ died (and rose!) even for the likes of Hitler and the Nazis. In all, we were very happy that we made the visit up to the camp.

After returning to the city, we made a stop at a museum that was in our "1,000 Things" book. It was okay, but we flew through there in about 45 minutes, so I guess not that good. We then grabbed a gelato (which was excellent!) and went to the main city park. We were searching for the mouth of a man-made river that runs through the lake where people surf. Not sure exactly how it works or how to explain it, but to keep it short, there is a small wave created in this river where people surf.

We had been warned that on sunny days (like the day we were there) people will sunbathe nude in this park, so we were a little worried about seeing something we didn't want to see. We searched around for a while but couldn't seem to find what we were looking for. We did find our way into an open area where people were laying out, but most of them were fully clothed. We did see one set of breasts, but they were on a 300 pound naked man, so that was gross. Eventually, we did make it to the waves, and watched the surfers for a while. Here is a little photo the helps explain it a little better:

After watching the surfers for a while, we headed to the Hofbrauhaus, a famous beer hall where they play/sing old German songs, wear traditional clothing (lederhosen!), eat pretzels, and of course, drink beer out of enormous mugs. The food looked really good, but it was only about 6:00 and the receptionist at the Hotel had suggested a different beer garden to eat at, so we held off and just had a pretzel (which was pretty good) and a beer. Unfortunately Jenna does not like beer so she just had a few sips and then I did what I could to get my moneys worth! We hung out for a while and enjoyed the music and atmosphere, and then headed out of the city a little ways to this suggested beer garden that was supposed to be more authentic (less touristy).

We got there and decided that regardless of authenticity, the food didn't look too good and was pretty expensive, so we immediately regretted the decision to leave Hofbrauhaus. In the end we decided to give up on it and ate in the food court of the train station near the hotel (which was good and cheap, but still kinda depressing). By this point it was pretty late and we had a pretty action packed day of seeing the city, and we needed to catch a 7:30am train, so we headed back to the hotel to pack up and get to bed...