Advertisement
Published: March 14th 2009
I am in love with Munich. Im glad we decided to stay there the longest. As one of our tourguides told us, Munich is the coolest German city because everything considered culturally "German" comes from Bavaria (Munich is the capital of Bavaria)...aka Lederhosen, beer, the funny hats with feathers, etc. We did see many people dressed up in these outfits and we did see many people drinking beer.
First of all, Munich was freezing! Definitely the coldest place we have been. We arrived at 6:30 in the morning via the night train from Berlin. Im definitely a fan of the night train! Of course at 6:30 in the morning nothing is going to be open so we headed to the hostel in which we found a nice little winter garden (enclosed garden with lots of bean bag beds and hammocks....some things that would definitely have come in handy the day before!). After finding a small cafe to eat breakfast, we headed back to this convenient little garden and Dave and Jess immediately passed out. Me, on the other hand, after sleeping for about 16 or so hours was ready for the day. Around 10:30, we headed to the main square of Munich to meet up for our free walking tour, a favorite pastime of this trip. The first stop on the walking tour was the Glockenspiel. Apparently, this is world famous. I had never heard of it and pointed at these little men on the side of a building and said, "oooh I wish they would dance!" and then was informed that they actually did. So, at 11:00, the tour all stood and watched two songs played by bells, accompanied by "dancing" men. They actually were just statues that turned in circles. Woo! Our tour guide made the whole thing much more entertaining with a running commentary throughout both "dances". Don't worry, I have 2 videos! As we wandered throughout the city for the tour, we learned some interesting things...the first being that Munich doesn't really believe in boasting memorials. You will be walking along and see a little plaque on the wall or in the ground or some different colored bricks but there will be no information or background and most likely, most people don't even notice them at all. Each of these memorials have a story, and if you ask, most will be more than willing to tell the story. A second little tidbit I found interesting were the people of Munich in 1942. They basically knew their city was going to be destroyed so everyone in the town with a camera went out and took as many pictures as possible of the city, taking pictures of the fine details of many buildings (inside and out) and kept them for after the war. They also took all the statues in the city to the outskirts and buried them. Now, with the help of the photos, the city has been fully restored to how it looked before the war. The city was just about as destroyed as Berlin but today, Berlin is a completely new city whereas Munich has just a hint that a war happened there.
After the tour, we headed back to the hostel to check in, shower, etc. We then went to one of the famous beer houses of Munich, Augustiner. It was right out of a movie. Long wooden tables with wooden benches topped with fat-ish men and liter glasses of beer. The waiter didn't really know what to do with us so he sat us down at the "regulars" table (they had a plaque hanging above the table that had their names on it) which was about 50-70 year old men drinking their usual glasses of beer. They all just sat and stared at us when we sat down. One of the men was sitting at the end of the table so we were kind of cutting him off from the rest of the regulars and he just sat and stared and me saying "halo" and i would say "hi" and then he'd smile, drink more of his beer, talk to the waiter, and then turn to me and nod and say "halo" which would start the process all over again! They apparently aren't used to strangers being stuck at their table! So all the food at this place must be required to have "heavy" in the ingredients. Dave ordered a pork shoulder and literally got the entire shoulder thrown onto a plate with a potato dumpling for decoration. I ordered Schnitzel (Dave said it was sausage), it was in fact a flattened pork steak that was fried. That came with french fries. Wasn't the greatest fan. Jess ordered potato pancakes that came with applesauce. I did like the applesauce. We all also ordered beer - Dave a liter of light beer, Jess a half liter, and I ordered a half liter of the darker beer. I actually didn't know it was a darker beer until it was set in front of me. I just pointed at the menu when the waiter took our order. March is also the month of strong beer (because of lent) so as the level of my beer went down, it was straight from a cartoon and my face got redder and redder! Dave found it very amusing.
After dinner it was back to the hostel and an early night in as we were still recovering from the food poisoning and now felt like we had a 100 pounds of food in our stomachs.
The next morning we set out for Dachau with the same tour guide as the day before. Going to a place like this, you really can't know what to expect or the affect its going to have on you. It's not just another tourist attraction. Our tour guide was very good, giving us just the right amount of information. We started out going through the same steps that a prisoner would go through when they first arrived in the camp. It was snowing outside and extremely cold but I think inside the first building was even colder! It was bone cold. From this first building, we went into a building with isolation cells and this was even colder than the first one. Our tourguide said that even on the hottest days of summer, those buildings are always cold. From here we went into the barracks, walking across the roll call square. I can't even imagine being outside of there with less clothes than I had on, especially for hours on end. It was frigid! The barracks themselves were the only thing rebuilt on the site so they had an exhibition kind of set up inside about what they looked like throughout the three stages of the camp (1933-1938, 1938-1942, and then 1942-1945). As each stage went on, the beds got worse and the population of the camp rose (about 500 per barrack to about 2000 per room!) Absolutely ridiculous. And only about 8 toilets for the entire barrack. From the barracks, we walked down the center road until we broke away from the main camp and went back to the crematorium through various memorials and gravestones. Our tour guide wouldn't even go into the actual building, he does the tour about every other day and he's only been in twice in 2 years. The first two rooms seemed decently normal, brightly painted with big windows. As soon as you step through the doorway into the "showers" aka the gas chamber the energy is completely different. The ceiling is low and its darker. The air was heavy and I cant even describe how the energy hits you. It just wasn't right, especially knowing what all the compartments in the wall were for and the peephole the gaurds used to use to check on the "progress" inside. Dave and I were in there with just the two of us and we just kind of looked at each other, how could 150-200 people fit in this tiny room? Especially in a time of panic...It's indescribable. There was only one of the original "showerheads" left because throughout the years tourists have stolen the rest of them. It's sick. This room led right into the crematorium area where the original ovens still stood and from here, another room where the excess bodies were kept. There was a photo board on the wall of after the war was over, the townspeople of Dachau were brought through to view the building and its contents. It was hard enough seeing it 60 years later.
Leaving the camp a little after this, the temperature had dropped even more and it was snow a mixture of snow and hail, we were all soaked and shaking. Not a good way to end an already emotionally draining day. All I wanted was hot chocolate and chocolate chip cookies and french fries and everything else in the world considered a comfort food. So Dave and I got Pizza Hut. A+ decision.
We were up bright and early the next morning at 6 am to go to Neuschwanstein castle aka the Disney castle. Our train left at 6:51 AM. Woo! At 6:49 I noticed we were on the wrong platform and literally had to run around to the right one. We hopped on the back carriage with barely any time to spare before the train began pulling out of the station. Way too close! We did make it to Fussen, the town where the castle is located, by a bright 9am. We didn't want to actually go into the castle, we were told it was not really that great but the carriage ride up to the castle made the whole trip worth it. We caught the bus (that rode a whole 5 minutes) to be dropped off at the base of the mountain. My first visit to the Alps, absolutely gorgeous. We walked around for a bit trying to find some place that was open for breakfast but only one hotel restaurant was open. They didn't have a breakfast menu. So, at around 10 in the morning, we had frankfurters with bread (me), crepes with ice cream and chocolate sauce (Dave), and potato noodles covered with cheese (Jess). A little bit heavy...From here, we found the carriages and settled into the back of the wagon ready for the long ride up the mountain. It took 10 minutes. They take you about halfway up and then drop you off and make you walk the rest of the way...awesome. So we made it up to the castle, went into the courtyard and took some pictures of the view (which was absolutely amazing) and went in search of the pathway that lead to the bridge overlooking the gorge. Another "makes it all worth it". We found the path, it was closed in the winter due to treacherous pathways. So we returned to the courtyard and took pictures with the bridge overlooking the gorge in the background and Jess and I got some decent jumping pictures in as well. Fantastic.
So we made the trek down the hill once again (we walked ourselves down this time) and got back on the 5 minute bus to the train station. We still had a good hour before our train left because nothing took as long as expected, so we went into another cafe for coffee. I asked for a milkshake, they did not have them. So I got another thing somewhat similar, chocolate milk with two scoops of ice cream in it (is that not the same thing?). It came with a silver tassle sticking out the top. It was glorious and made my day. Ice cream may not have been the best idea however, as the train back to Munich was absolutely freezing. There was no heat and it made frequent stops for 2 hours. Freezing.
The reason we got up so early in the morning to see the castle and still make it back to Munich in a decent amount of time was the Munich beer challenge. This was put on by the same company as the tours we had taken over the past couple days. Since Munich is famous for its beer and Oktoberfest, etc, we found it only necessary to do the beer challenge. This wonderful event started out with a beer given to us on the subway. It is legal to drink everywhere in Munich, it is even legal for construction workers to drink on the job. Scary. So, we drank on the subway and learned a traditional drinking song on the way to our first beer hall. The first stop was the famous Hofbrauhaus. They only serve beers in liters. This is also the beer hall in which the Nazi party was thought up (random tidbit). Anyway, we had 40 minutes to drink these beers (Jess and Dave only made it about halfway through...shame). The Bavarians do not take their drinking lightly, on the way out of the beerhall we passed lockers. These are actual lockers that regulars keep their beer stein in for when they come to the beer hall. You have to be coming to the Hofbrauhaus for at least 10 years in order to get one of these metal lockers and many of them are antiques, steins that belonged to fathers fathers. The second and third beer halls weren't as exciting as the first and to round the night up we ended at a youth hostel bar (?). Definitely an interesting choice to end a beer challenge. But all those on the tour got to know each other and Dave now thinks Scottish people are the most hilarious people to walk the earth, one of the guys was from Glasgow. Dave has met his match in the inability to understand someone when they speak, between Dave's mumbled words (our tourguide called him Buffalo Bill) and the Glasgowian accent, it was quite the interesting conversation that no one could understand.
The next morning was a little bit rough as we had to check out of the hostel by 10 and none of us had packed the night before. Once again, thank goodness for that winter garden. Jess and I took mini naps after breakfast. Dave and I then headed out into Munich for a last walk around the city, Jess continued sleeping. Munich is one of those cities you can just keep coming back to for each season offers something different, especially being so close to the Alps. I was sad to get on the train that afternoon. Munich has by far been my favorite city.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.064s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 7; qc: 48; dbt: 0.0386s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Dad
non-member comment
Great writing
Josse - your commentary is exceptional. It is easy to feel what you feel. Very enlightening.