Munich

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Activities:

So, the next day in Munich I went to Dachau with my roommates. Only a few minutes outside Munich by train Dachau was the first concentration camp opened by Nazi Germany in 1933. When I first arrived at the site I thought I would have been missing out on information without a guide/an audioguide. But as it turns out of the barracks has been converted into a very informative timeline museum. It’s very well done, beginning with the founding and construction of the camp (it was, at first, an abandoned munitions factory) and ending not where you would think, at the liberation of the camp, but it continues on detailing how the site was then used as an internment camp, a refugee camp and finally ending at the conversion of the site into a memorial. The museum is very text heavy (In German and English) but it has a picture to go along with almost every article and it also has several stations where you can watch interviews with the survivors talking about certain aspects of the camp. I didn’t actually realize it until just now as I was typing but the whole museum is in done in black, white, or grey. There’s almost no colour. I guess I didn’t give it much thought because it seemed appropriate given the location and subject matter. There is information about almost everything you could possibly want to know: what kinds of people were sent there, what the prisoners would do each day, the food, the human experiments, the expansion of the site, etc. By the end I was glad I didn’t spend money on any kind of guide because I got to go and read what articles interested me and not worry about rushing around. We must’ve spent at least two hours wandering around reading the different articles. I didn’t take any pictures of the site because a) I was in a museum the whole time and there weren’t any good photo opportunities, b) the whole site is very barren because most of the buildings have been torn down and there’s not much to see and c) I didn’t really feel it was appropriate.

After leaving the museum we headed back to Munich on the train and I made the journey to my next hostel. Once there I discovered that making a cup noodle with only hot-ish water is not a good idea. While I was down in the common room I saw/heard a guy from North Carolina who sounded like he was going to do the same tour I was the next day.

Next morning up and out to the main train station for the tour to Neuschwstein castle. The tour was probably overpriced but I figure that I won’t be here again and I wouldn’t go by myself so I’d just have to bite the bullet. At the stop I ate a bratwurst sausage for breakfast (very tasty!) saw that same guy from last night (Nicholas) and we talked (or rather, he did) for the two hour train ride to the castle. The scenery was very beautiful covered in snow and the mountain and castle were no exception. There was a lake nearby the castle and the mountains just on the other side were actually in Austria! A steep climb up the slippery snowy road to the castle proper (again, skirting animal droppings, horses this time) and we were given very nice views of the mountains and surrounding valleys. Into the castle where we were warned there were no photos of the interior allowed. The castle is almost entirely dedicated to fairy tales and folklore with beautiful scenes painted on the walls. The person who built it (Mad King Ludwig the Second) was obsessed with fairy tales and one of the rooms is a cave where he could pretend he was one of the characters in the stories he liked so much. I thoroughly enjoyed the castle despite the fact that it was only partially completed (the King died mysteriously before it was finished) and was glad I’d paid to see the interior.

After the castle the group returned to Munich and I went to find a beer house where I could try schnitzel. It was snowing while we were searching and, given that it was a Monday night at about 7pm, the night was relatively quiet and quite beautiful once you were inside. The schnitzel was HUGE (200g) but tasty! The generic fries here are better than the ones in Canada. They’re saltier and creamier. After the food I went back to the hostel where I talked to Antonio (an Italian chef) before we met Asami and Kensukei. They're both Japanese sculptors studying in Sweeden. Asami had fun teaching Antonio and I how to write our names in Kanji, katakana and higarana. They also seemed impressed with my pronunciation of Japanese words. We talked for a while before the four of us went to bed at 2.

So the next day I got up and walked to Marienplatz for the Free Tour. I wore the heavy, leather jacket and I loaded my backpack with my laptop. This proved to be a very painful combination before the end of the day. The jacket is so heavy and ill fitting that wearing it for a day actually hurts my shoulders. Still, it was snowing pretty hard the whole day and I was glad to have it. The tour guide told us he would only take two hours instead of three because it was cold and snowing and no one particularly wanted to be out for long periods of time in this weather. We saw the first few minutes of the Glockenspiel at the New Town Hall (which is older than the Old Town Hall because the Old Town Hall was destroyed in WWII and had to be rebuilt. But when they rebuilt it they still called it the Old Town Hall.). Then we went to two churches. The first one was the Frauenkirche and the legend says that the devil helped to build it. (The story in the next paragraph) The architects who designed it were German and the interior was very ridged and minimalistic when compared to the next church we saw was Theatinerkirche St Cajetan. This one had a super ornate interior and was designed by Italian architects. We finished the tour at the Hofbräuhaus, Munich’s number one tourist attraction. The ceiling on the upper floor was designed to look like the interior of a beer barrel.

So yes, the story our guide told us is that the devil was walking around Munich when the church was being built. When he saw the uncompleted church he decided to go have a look inside. Inside it was pitch black and the devil thought ‘Oh this is great! No one will want to worship God in a dark place like this. It’s more of a place where people would worship me.’ So he summoned the builder of the church to appear before him and said “I’ll build this church for you in 20 years if you do not add any more windows to this building.” The builder agreed and the church was completed in 20 years (that’s fast, apparently). When the devil came back he saw the completed church had many windows and he summoned the builder again. The builder told him that the church had always had that many windows but the columns had blocked out the sunlight at the time of day the devil visited. Clever builder.

Next day I went out to do the Third Reich Tour. As it turns out the guide was sick so there that tour wasn’t running. I asked one of the other guides to point me in the direction of a cheap museum instead and she told me to go to the Stadtmuseum. I found a guidebook that had all the signs in English but even with that the museum was pretty...ah...dull. The main exhibit was called ‘Typically Munich’ and dealt a lot with the founding and history of the city. There were some offshoot exhibits, one dealt with produce and the importing of fruits and vegetables into Munich form around the world. That one didn’t really have any English in it. And then there was this very surreal puppet/marionette exhibit on the top floor. It was a winding corridor with hundreds of different kinds of puppets that gradually turned into a kind of carnival exhibition. The whole things was creepy because there wasn’t a single other person on the entire floor aside from one old lady who worked for the museum and who was either dead or asleep in a chair by the window. Plus, the carnival music didn’t help and there was this creepy motion activated laughing clown that I had to pass by twice. Really creepy.

Weather: The weather in Munich was varying degrees of cold. It snowed everyday but it was only really heavy the day I did the free tour. I was actually relieved for the change from the dampness of Ireland. I’m Canadian so a dry cold is something I can handle. Plus, I haven’t seen snow for about a year (real snow, not a sprinkling) and I kind of missed it.

Lack of English: Thus far on this trip I’ve been to three countries (Egypt, Jordan and Germany) where English is not the native language. Of those three I’ve felt most strongly lost/unable to communicate in Germany. Yes, it’s true that there are people that speak English but there are next to no signs in English. It might also be because unlike the Middle East (where it’s obvious you’re a foreigner and people automatically address you in English) people try to talk to you in German first. Also, I’m on my own and don’t have a tour leader who is organizing things so that’s a part of it too.

Food: I promised one of the girls I met on the Paddywagon tour that I would try the schnitzel. I did. That and the bratwurst were the only German foods I tried. I really enjoyed both of them but I didn’t want to splurge on food because Italy is on the plate next.

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Photos

Neuschwanstein Castle
It's still undergoing repairs so that's why there's scaffolding on the one side

Frauenkirche
The church the Devil built. Supposedly.

Theatinerkirche St Cajetan
It was _really_ cold in this church. About the same as that hotel back in Jordan.

Beer House Ceiling
It's supposed to be shaped like the interior of a beer barrel.

Comments

[Meg]

Wowww this shot is gooorgeous! It almost makes me miss snow back here >_> almost....

[Meg]

Looks like he did a pretty decent job of it >___> it's nice... XD

[John]

Germany is a fantastic travel destination!
Germany is really a splendid holiday destination. It has a lot to offer to its visitors. No matter if you want to go to enrich your cultural knowledge, or to go skiing, or simply to have fun, Germany is your destination. Hilton Munich City