Munich

After nearly missing our connection in Salzburg, I was able to relax and enjoy the beautiful mountain scenery on our way to Munich. Our hostel in Munich was interesting; we were in a very large room, sectioned into 4 areas with a total of 40 people. I know I’ll be ready for my own bedroom in Rome. We got dinner at an Italian restaurant, which seems to have become a pattern; I think we ate Italian in every country we have visited. At least it’s all been good, and we’ve also made sure to try the local food everywhere we’ve gone to. Then we made our way to a beer garden. The beer garden was huge, but there weren’t too many people there! I can only imagine what it would be like during Oktober Fest, filled with people.
For our second day, we went on a day trip to see Neuschwanstein Castle, which I have been waiting years to see. It is the castle that Walt Disney used as inspiration for Cinderella’s castle. The castle is set up in the middle of the alps making the scenery stunning, but also the walk up to the castle extremely difficult. Our guide told us we climbed 3000 feet to reach the castle, that seems like a lot but I’ll believe because it sure felt like I climbed that much! The inside of the castle was also beautiful, of course. It was definitely a gorgeous place to visit, and one of my favorite parts of my trip. For our night we went in search for another beer garden which was supposed to be larger and also have rides. Well after we walked for an hour and half to two hours we were not in good moods. We finally found it, but it was a great disappointment, it was close to closing and there weren’t many people there. We decided that we would hopefully find the night humorous sometime in the near future, but definitely not that night.
Our last day in Munich we took a tour of Dachau. It was a difficult day, but I am glad that I got to see it. I’m not sure what I was expecting to see, but it was definitely a different experience than I was expecting. I’m glad we had a guided tour, we got so many more facts than I would have gotten just walking through the camp. There weren’t many of the original buildings left to walk through, so it was actually very empty which made it very eerie. There were 2 reconstructed barracks, and the foundations of all the barracks that had existed, the original maintenance house, and the crematorium. The crematorium was of course the most difficult part, and it was difficult walking through it, especially after seeing pictures of what it was like at the end of the war, and knowing how many innocent people lost their lives in that building. I’m not sure what else to write about my experience here except that it was difficult, and impossible to wrap my mind around exactly how enormous the Holocaust was. Going to the camp I thought I would have a better understanding for what happened, instead it made me more upset and in awe of exactly what happened.
Once we got back to Munich we went to the Marienplatz to see the glockenspiel, and then went to the English Gardens. At the gardens we got the surprise of learning that a large section of the park is nude…just not something you see everyday. Haha For dinner we found a very traditional German restaurant and had sausage and sauerkraut. Then we went to the Hofbrauhaus, which is the biggest beer hall and also where Hitler frequented a room upstairs and made many important speeches. It was a good night, and we met a great group of Australians and Welsh kids.
We left somewhat early the next day to finally head into Italy!

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