Germany Part 2

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I arrived in Berlin from the Netherlands on the 22nd. It was a long train ride, so I didn't do much that evening other than get dinner and check into my hostel, which happened to be the biggest hostel in all of Europe.

On the 23rd, we spent time site seeing around the city. The entire city is very rich in history, especially about World War II and the post war in Berlin. We saw part of the remaining Berlin Wall; Checkpoint Charlie, which was one of the main posts where military personnel allowed people to cross the wall; the Topography of Terror, which was a museum that had a lot of pictures and information about the different police organizations under Nazi Germany; the Brandenburg Gate; the Tower of Victory; and the parliament building. The next day we went to a concentration camp that was just outside of Berlin. That evening we took an overnight train to Munich.

We arrived in Munich around 7:00 in the morning, and immediately hopped on another train to take us to Neuschwanstein castle. This Disney castle was modeled after this castle. It was one of the most impressive sites I've seen so far. In the mid to late 1800's, King Ludwig II of Germany basically spent a bunch of Germany's money building this enormous castle in this beautiful part of Bavaria for his summer home. After almost 20 years of construction, the castle was only 1/3 finished and the king died. It was then opened as a museum to the public. That night in Munich, we went to a German restaurant called St. Augustine's where we enjoyed traditional German meals and beer served in one liter steins. The following day we did quite a bit of site seeing in Munich. We first went to a cathedral where we went to the to top of the tower that had a great view of the city, afterwards we went to the Olympic park where Munich hosted the 1972 olympics, then we saw the BMW museum, and we finished by walking through the "English Garden," which is basically a park in the city that is twice the size of NYC's central park. That evening, we went to Hofbrauhaus, which is one of their most popular beer houses/beer gardens.

The following day (May 27th), we took a train to Venice Italy, which is where I am right now. The train ride was really scenic because it went through the alps. Today we spent the day in Venice, and we are about to go on a train to head to Rimini/San Marino.

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