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Published: June 24th 2008
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Roho: Well technically we're not in Venice right now, we're on the mainland, I think in a place called Mestre. Cars aren't allowed in Venice itself, let alone buses, so we stay in a camping ground about 20 minutes out of the city. The camping ground runs an hourly shuttle so it's not hard to get into Venice proper. So anyway, last you heard from us we were in Munich.
Rich: Where really, we only saw two things. One was the Dachau Concentration Camp and the other was the University Hospital!
Roho: You go first about Dachau.
Rich: It's a weird kind of place. The second you walk through the front gate, you just have this feeling which is kind of hard to describe. A feeling of sadness but also a sense of inspiration from those who survived and what they had to endure.
Roho: I felt as though I was walking on bones, walking through a graveyard. Everywhere I went I thought, 'someone died on this spot'.
Rich: Dachau has a wonderful museum.
Roho: Wonderful as in educational and giving you an understanding of everything. The museum is in the maintenance block of the
camp, the biggest building there in front of the roll call ground, where prisoners were made to stand motionless for up to days on end. I spent a lot of time in the museum, on the one single day I forgot to put tissues in my bag!
Rich: As I walked through the bunker, behind the museum, I had a lot of respect again for what people had to endure. Some cells in the bunker were turned into standing cells, where one half of a cell was split into four 70x70cm spaces. Prisoners had to stand for up to three days, as there was no room to sit or lie or rest.
Roho: The bunker is the prison within the prison, where torture and executions were carried out, solitary confinement in complete darkness and also where special and religious prisoners were kept in slightly better conditions. I found it the most eerie building - a long, straight corridor with rows of cells and your shoes echoing in the corridor like the SS boots must have. Apparently though German adolescents don't get the same feeling.
Rich: While in the bunker we got caught in the middle of a
stampede of school children. Teenagers laughing, joking and basically not giving a shit. It was the only downside to the whole day, how disrespectful they were.
Roho: Of all the people who should have respect. They didn't look to either side of them, just trooped down the corridor in groups, gossiping loudly, pushing through others without a second glance. In a horrific way it made me see how things like Dachau could happen.
Rich: For me the crematorium and gas chamber were the real eye openers. It amazes me how many people take photos of places that, in my opinion, you should not be allowed to take photos of. Thousands and thousands of people were killed on these sites and the last thing I want to do is show photos of it to all my friends and family.
Roho: We did take photos, but more of the memorial areas rather than the actual facilities. The single gas chamber at Dachau wasn't actually ever used for mass killings, but small groups were gassed there occasionally. More violent murders were actually carried out in the crematorium, where people were hung or bludgeoned to death right in front of the
furnaces.
Rich: One thing I was surprised with was how big the facility is. Multiply that by the thousands and thousands of similar camps across Europe and it really gives you an idea of how big the Holocaust was.
Roho: So that was our first full day in Munich. As I've already written we intended to go to the BMW Museum the next day but we went to hospital instead. And what a contrast to medical care in the Czech Republic!
Rich: This hospital was very German. It was a finely tuned place. Everything ran like clockwork and everything was very quick. I think any doctor or nurse from New Zealand would learn a great deal from a place like this. This is how medical care in our country should be.
Roho: I was peering into the cupboards trying to be nosy for you Lauren but I didn't really know what I was looking at! We paid a €150 deposit to a receptionist to be seen. You take a number just to see the receptionist in a private office. She takes your details and gets them to the doctors. When they're ready they call your name
Nuns
These nuns were holding a service of some type with singing, prayers etc. They held it on the site of what used to be Barracks 26. on a PA and you go to the room you've been told to go to. This room has a gaggle of doctors and nurses and a variety of stations where you can be seen.
Rich: I am now in a half cast and the doctors basically couldn't pinpoint what the problem is with my knuckle/finger, but did mention something about the possibility of it being tendon or muscle related.
Roho: Three hours, blood tests, x-ray and less than €200 later, we have a heavily bandaged arm, a bag full of drugs and a huge glass bottle of an alcohol solution for topical pain relief!
Rich: Let's just say I've got very good at drying, wiping and eating all with my left hand!
Roho: And I've gotten not too bad at shoelace tying, food cutting and plastic bag wrapping for waterproofing!
Rich: Our next stop was a little place called St Johann in Tirol, back in Austria, which we tried to read up about but really couldn't find anything in Lonely Planet. So it was a bit of an unknown entity. The drive in was spectacular, with green hills, snow capped mountains, clear streams. I mean
Birthday Schnitzel
Yum, yum, hand still bung! this is the stuff movies are made of.
Roho: Movies like the Sound of Music? He he. Turns out St Johann is like Austria's Queenstown, sort of, with a booming winter scene in the Alps but not an awful lot going on in summer unless you're into adventure sports. I think Matt and Julie would like St Johann best out of all our stops.
Rich: I think St Johann is the name of the town and Tirol is the region. So the plan was to do sweet bugger all for the next two days and just enjoy our surroundings.
Roho: A bit of relaxation before the madness that is Italy, France and Spain. We turned out not to be staying where we expected, but we just did what we were told and it was all good. The hostel was more like a homestay, in a 600 year old building run by a cheerful, eccentric, well travelled lady called Anneliese.
Rich: We arrived on my birthday and upon telling the chef this at dinner time, I got the 'extra special birthday serving' of schnitzel. This plate was covered in chips and then covered in schnitzel - let's
just say I wasn't thinking about my hand when this plate arrived at our table!
Roho: When we arrived the Kiwi guy who welcomed us, checked us in and tried to sell us skydiving, paragliding, tobogganing, canyoning, kayaking and all sorts of other stuff you'd have to pay me to do, told us the following day was the Summer Solstice (of course) and in Tirol this is celebrated by lighting fires across all the mountains.
Rich: This fire lighting night was by far the highlight of our trip so far. Everywhere you looked, no matter how high the peak, some 2000m plus above sea level, there were bonfires.
Roho: It was quite rare and quite special, much better than bulls, tomatoes, beer or any other tourist ridden celebration.
Rich: St Johann is somewhere I'd definitely head back to, fully fit of course.
Roho: So now we're in Venice, which is crazy mad, hot, insane and Venetian. Rome tomorrow, yikes. That's all we've got time for folks, so until next time...
Rich: Good to hear you're enjoying these, Nana and hope Jan and Baz aren't driving you too crazy!
Miss you all, love lots,
The Alps
At the top of the gondola, everywhere you looked you had scenes like this to look at. Stunning!! Rich and Roho
xx
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Kartina
non-member comment
such a shame....
about the hand and also that I've just found out today that Daniella will be in Venice in about two weeks. So you'll miss seeing each other. Although I hear she's due to head somewhere in France afterwards and then a spell back in the UK too. Might find out her dates and see if they clash at all, otherwise you'll see her back here in the Pore. Bonfires sound lovely, wiping with left hand was more than I needed to know :)