Today was a boring day in Bayern (that’s German for Bavaria). It’s my last day here so I decided to mostly just walk around and take it easy. I walked down the main drag, had breakfast at the Haufbrauhaus (white sausage and again got the evil eye when I asked for something OTHER than beer to drink – but at 10am I was NOT succumbing to peer pressure!) and wandered over to the Englischer Garten, a central park like place complete with raging rivers, surfers (yes, surfers in the river!) and a Chinese pagoda. It was the perfect day for a walk in the park, slightly overcast but not too cold.

Mostly, though, I was doing a lot of thinking. There’s a lot going on in my life right now and I was just kinda spending some time with myself trying to figure some of it out. Not that I got all that far or that I’m going to post it here when I do, but it was good. A few of the things I did discover is that I know how you can tell I’m not a German – I smile a lot. I smile at people as they drive by on their bikes and I look them in the eye. Have yet to meet a German who’ll do that. Most of them just scowl.

Also, at some point, I think someone should write a book, website, pamphlet, manifesto, whatever it takes, on proper Hostel etiquette. Now, I’m not talking about the groups of young kids here on school trips, no, they are the responsibility of parents or other adults who should really keep them under a bit of a tighter rein. Instead, I’m talking about those travelers who are by themselves or with one or two other people and who, when sharing a room with 3-5 strangers, have absolutely NO comprehension of manners. Stepping into a bathroom where the floor is literally covered in a large puddle of water with black footprints everywhere is really rather gross. Opening your suitcase/backpack and leaving it open on the floor in the middle of the room when you go out for the day is obnoxious and leaving the door open when you leave is just downright wrong.

Okay, enough rant. On to the fun of the day. I went and saw the tomb/crypt of Ludwig the second (you remember him from our recent post about Mad King Ludwig) and I climbed the tower at St. Peter’s – a feat for which you should be knighted if not sainted! Lots of stairs, some rickety, all to narrow for people to pass in the other direction. But the view from the top is spectacular!

I took some random photos around town as well, just of some things I thought were cool. Enjoy!

Here’s a dragon on the side of the New Town Hall (which, ironically, looks older than the Old Town Hall) and is home to the famous glockenspiel.

I don’t know why, but I was just struck by this girl sitting in front of the holy water basin, contemplating. It fit my mood for the day so I took a picture.

I’ve walked by this statue probably a dozen times since I’ve been here and I never noticed it before today. I think it’s really funny. I can’t wait to see what the art historians say about it 1000 years from now.

Tomorrow should be more interesting, although the post might be a day or two since I’m going to be traveling for the next two days. I’ll check in when I can.

Before I get into the day’s events (and finish yesterdays), let me inform you of the new plan and take the time to answer a few reader questions.

First things first – new travel plans! Staying in Munich one extra night and then Friday morning I’m jumping a train for Salzburg, Austria. Going to spend the day in Salzburg (Mozart’s birthplace and home to many Sound of Music locations) then get on an overnight train to Zagreb, Croatia. Spending three nights in Croatia then over-nighting it back to Salzburg then onto Vienna. Will update more after that. At this rate, looks like Helsinki or Stockholm around the time of my birthday…

Now, onto reader questions –

The big one seems to be about Dachau and my reactions to it. To be perfectly honest, I was okay up until I walked into the crematorium. You enter the building through the undressing room, go through a door labeled Brausebad (Showers – the first in the series) and then into a empty room designed for body storage. Like an assembly line, one room to the next. That’s when I lost it. The next room was where the furnaces were, four of them, with the chimneys rerouted through the floor and then out. The ovens could hold three bodies at a time and just walking through there my chest tightened and I could feel tears running down my face. It gave me chills. It was right after that I saw the memorial for “the thousand unknown” and like I said, I just couldn’t take a picture of it. It seemed, I don’t know, disrespectful somehow, to snap a shot for a scrapbook.

And we only saw a small part of the original camp. They had two bunkers set-up as displays and the rest were just outlines on the ground, two by two and they stretched for maybe 300 yards, maybe more. And when you think each bunker was maybe a 100 feet long, it was a lot of buildings to hold more humanity than it was designed for. Walking along the center strip, what would have been the central avenue between the two rows of bunkers, for long minutes also got to me. It’s when you start thinking about the sheer numbers involved it really gets overwhelming.

We’ll see what happens in Auschwitz. Oh and Mom, speaking of the March of the Living – I was talking to my tour guide today (more on that in a minute) and she said when she was in Poland she ran across a group of Jewish kids doing that…and they were met with open hostility and hatred – something I haven’t experienced at all in Germany.

Riley, I would love to take you to the castle! We’ll see if we can’t figure out a way to make that happen. I even got you and Bailey presents from there, so just wait until I get back!

Bailey, it’s pretty hot here, too! And rainy! A few nights ago the thunder was so loud it woke me up!

I think that’s it for questions, but as I get more, I’ll answer them. And now, on to the adventure!

Yesterday, after the camp, I kept the theme going and went on the Third Reich tour. Hitler moved here to Munich in 1913 and (I found out today) was actually trained by the army in the art of public speaking and rhetoric and was sent to spy on fringe political groups. It was one of those groups he ended up joining and, in 1920, taking over. He changed the name to the National Social Workers Party (he never called it the Nazi party, though, that was a derogatory term the newspaper used). And then, in 1923, tried to take over the government. He failed, but the judge in his case, where Hitler acted as his own lawyer, allowed him to speak at length in his own defense and then gave him an extremely light sentence. This all happened in Munich.

Also, in addition to the Hitler history, we saw two memorials.One was for the dead from WWI and the other was to commemorate the actions of an 18 year  girl named Sophie who was instrumental in The White Rose, a rebel movement against the Nazis here. I first heard about her in Berlin in the resistance fighter museum. Pretty sure she was Jewish – and if you look on top of her memorial, it is covered with pebbles.

And I keep forgetting to mention, the catalyst for Krystalnacht was a guy named Grynzspan (but when spoken sounds eerily similar to another, more familiar name) who tried to assassinate a high ranking Nazi in retaliation for the expulsion of Jews to Poland (his parents were part of that). Two days later came the Night of Broken Glass.

Munich is like the Austin of Germany. It’s the art center and fiercely independent. After the Third Reich tour I wanted to learn more, so I went on the city walk this morning. Okay, it was free since I had booked other tours with the same company and I almost didn’t get to go anyway. I was there, waiting, but somehow they didn’t see me and were going to cancel the tour but I convinced them to go anyway, So I had a private tour with Maxine, a former Australian who has been in Munich for 11 years. We hit all the big sights, including the church where the now Pope used to be Arch-Bishop and the Hofbrauhaus (where Hitler first announced the formation of the Nazi party – please refer to the above paragraph and understand I’ll be using the derogatory term for convenience sake). At the Hofbrauhaus, the regular drinkers can get a locker for their steins for about 3 Euro a year. It’s a token fee but the waiting list is huge! That’s me in front of some of them.

We also saw this monument to the generals. I’ve made the picture bigger than normal and you can enlarge it further, but you need to look at the lions. Notice they are looking in opposite directions and the one on the left has his mouth open? That’s because the building on the left is the government and on the right is a church – the subtle symbolism here? Say what you want to the politicians, but when it comes to the church – keep your mouth closed!

After the tour, Maxine pointed out the big Glockenspiel in the middle of Marianplatz and that there was a 6 story bookstore across the way and I could watch the automatons from eye-level – so I did. Then I went to a weird little museum which had a display of 100 years of Teddy Bears. In reality, though, it looked like one of those swap-meet style antiques stores and it was up way too many flights of circular stairs in a tower older than the bears it was showcasing. I took pictures just to make it worth climbing up there!

And look at those bears in the last picture. Is it me or are they just plain scary looking?

Then I came back to the hostel and took a nap. I was exhausted! A couple of trips and some internet research got me my new travel plans and then I was off to find someplace to watch the big game tonight. It was the semi-finals of the Eurocup (like the world cup but only for European teams, held every fourth year, alternating with the world cup – and the reason prices are sky high in Austria right now) and Germany was playing Turkey. This is bog because Germany (and Munich in particular) has a large Turkish population. The previous games I’d been watching in the hostel, usually while working on a post, but I figured a big game like this, I should experience it with other people. So I did. And it was fun. I ordered a coke light and the waiter scowled at me, so I ordered a beer (at first I ordered a beer mixed with sprite – I just pointed at what some woman at my table was drinking and then she and the waiter said that was a girl’s drink and laughed at me so I got a regular beer. They take their beer drinking very seriously here!). Oh yeah, Germany won, 3-2, with a late goal. Very exciting match, really.

Okay, to be honest, there’s not much to say about Dachau. Factually, it was the first camp opened, just a few weeks after Hitler seized power. It remained open until 1945, the end of the war. It was designed to hold at most 8000 people and by the end it was holding over 30,000. The official death toll is in the low 30,000 but unofficially it was upwards of 45,000 and those figures are just those who died in THIS camp, not the ones who were held in Dachau and later transferred to another camp.

That all said, it was emotionally powerful and very quiet. I’m just gonna post some pictures, with descriptions, and leave it at that.

The front gate. It translates as “Work makes Freedom.”

The bathrooms in one of the bunkers. The men (this was a men only camp until 1943) shared ten toilets amongst a thousand occupants.

The bunks themselves. At the end of the camp’s life, this is how the bunks were arranged.

There were dozens of these bunkers. Now, where they were stands as a memorial. Here’s one of them.

In this camp, they had “showers” but there s no evidence they were used.

The crematorium on the other hand, was definitely used.

Different pieces of a memorial. The sign is self explanatory, the distorted people commemorates those who committed suicide by running into the electrified fence and the chain with the colors are all the different tags the inmates wore.

A close-up of the colored tags

This is a memorial to the unknown victim, the German translates as “The Death to be Honored, the Living tobe Warned.” This was th first memorial at the camp.

I took this picture from inside the crematorium. When I went to look at it it closer, there was an inscription on a plaque in the ground which read – “For the Thousand Unknowns.” Once I read that, I don’t know why, but I couldn’t take another picture of it, so you’re stuck with the one through the window.

Here’s a few pictures from around the camp – the guard tower, the homes across the wall, a view inside a cell…

And just so you don’t think it was all doom and gloom…

they made an exhibit from the pamphlet –

And finally, this sign outside the crematorium –

Another simple day, in that I only did one thing involving touring, but that one thing was a doozy! Before you go any further, though, look at the new picture atop this page. Not only did I take it, but that castle is where I spent my day!

The castle is called Neuschwanstein and it’s located about 2 hours south-west of Munich by train just outside of a little town called Fussen. I met up with a tour group and we headed out around 10am this morning. I immediately fell asleep on the train and would still be there if some nice Australian bloke hadn’t woke me up. Got off the train, onto a bus and towards the Castle drop off point. After a quick snack we started walking. Our first resting point was beautiful lake Hopfensee (and here are some pictures of said lake – since I’ve been accused of not telling what the various pictures are).

Next, as we headed up towards Schloss Neuschwanstein, we got a view of The Yellow Castle, Schloss Hohenschwangau, which was built by King Ludwig’s Dad. Ludwig himself became King when he was 18 and immediately decided he was a huge fan of Richard Wagner and wanted to build a fairy-tale castle in homage to him. This was Neuschwanstein.

So anyway, We head up the hill towards the castle. It was a long walk, about a half hour and our first stop was Marianbrucke (Marian Bridge) which overlooks the place. It also provides great photo ops of the surrounding countryside which pretty much defines “picturesque.”

If the castle looks familiar, there are two reasons for that. The first is it was in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. The second, and probably larger, reason is it was the inspiration for Walt Disney’s Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland.

Inside, they wouldn’t let us take pictures, but when you see what he did, you can understand why the called him mad! The decorations are outrageous! Only a small portion of the castle was completed before Ludwig’s mysterious death (officially, it’s a suicide, but they really have no idea what happened to him – lots of political intrigue though) and of that, an even smaller portion was decorated and livable! But he did make sure he had his fake underground grotto and a music hall big enough for an NHL sized rink.

And swans.

There were swan motifs everywhere! The swan is the official heraldic symbol of the area as well as Ludwig’s favorite animal so he put it everywhere. It’s in the walls, on the chandeliers, even the sinks are golden swans which spit water.

Oh, and I should also say a quick world about our tour guide inside the castle (different from the guide who took us there and brought us back). Inside it was a young boy, about 18 or 19, who walked slowly, as if he were still getting used to his legs. His eyes glanced nervously sideways at every sound and his hands were never comfortable , always flat at his sides. But the best…the absolute best…was his voice. He spoke in a closed jaw accent you haven’t heard outside of a bad WWII movie and he was the evil Nazi. Everything was soft “s” sounds “v” for “w.” It was great! I can’t do it justice here, but trust me, not since Peter Sellers have you heard a German accent this stereotypical!

And finally, for Aaron, in the bathroom of the castle (probably not original pieces), the urinal, complete with engraved fly!

Today was a slow day, a take it easy day. Yesterday was a bit stressful, for personal reasons and so I needed a nice calm day to recharge the batteries, as it were. So, instead of going on an excursion or a walking tour of something where I would surrounded by bunches of people, I decided to visit the Deutsche Museum. The Deutsche Museum is Munich’s answer to the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry. It’s massive, has lots of displays and exhibits and all sorts of technological stuff and even has a mine tunnel system (not nearly as cool as the one in Chicago, but longer).

When I first got there, I went in and realized 80% of the signs were solely in German, so I went back out and got the English guidebook. I needn’t have done this, since they had vending machines every so often which would dispense guide books like they were Kit Kat candy bars.

There’s not really much to say about the place, though. It’s a science museum. They have some hands on stuff, which was cool, and lots of vehicles (planes and ships and a sub) with cutaway sections so you can see the inner workings (the model ships they had, while cool, didn’t compare to those at the Smithsonian, simply because there was no “Mayflower” against which to judge the size).

Everything was laid out, over three+ floors, according to topic. There was mining and construction toys and Marine technology, etc. My favorite was probably the paper-making and printing sections which were quite neat!

All told, I spent about five hours there, wandering the rooms, playing with what there was to be played with and generally having an okay day. On the walk home, though, I saw something which made me laugh, so I took a picture of it.

And finally for today, here’s a picture of my new fiend Kamilla and I. She works here at the hostel and we’ve been chatting the last couple of nights, so I figured I should put her picture in here as well.

Tomorrow’s installment of (as Riley calls it) Captainjaq’s Mysterious Adventures – a fairy tale castle.

The first day in Munich started slowly. I got up and showered, finished my blog from yesterday and then posted it. While I was doing that, I had a little friend hanging out with me – a bee! It was just walking around my computer, being all cute and fuzzy. Whenit felloff the counter and landed on its back, I put down my finger, it grabbed on and I put it back on the counter. Eventually it flew away. Then I headed down to the train station to meet Jim. We took our own little walking tour of the city, seeing the HofBrau Haus (which looks just like the one in Vegas!)and generally taking in the sights.

One of those sights, in the window of the Hard Rock Café, was a sign for a 4^th of July party featuring a band called, get this, Vegas. I just can’t get away.

Since we didn’t know what we were gonna do, we went into the tourist information center, got a map and decided to hit The Rezidence (the former palace of the King of Bavaria). They had two tours, one inside the residence itself and one of the crown jewels and other ornamental things. We did both. It was funny, though, when we went to get our audio wands for the tour, the guy working saw Jim’s New Zealand shirt and asked him about it. When he found out Jim was from there originally, he told us he had just been there on vacation and proceeded to show us pictures of his vacation!

The most interesting thing about the Rezidence, though, was that it had been almost completely destroyed and then rebuilt into its former grandeur. There was a lot of talk about the furniture and the rooms, but we were more interested in the artwork so after a while we started skipping things. The jewels were quite cool, though, and a lot of reliquaries were represented (things built to held relics, including one which at one time held four pieces of the original cross).

Afterwards, we ate – and I don’t want to get off on another rant about food here, but Bavarian food kinda scares me. Things like suckling pig knuckle and sweet meats were proudly on offer. Both Jim and I ended up having bratwurst, potato salad and pretzels (they serve pretzels as bread here). By the way, bread during your meal is NOT free here. In fact, nothing is free here. If you want butter for your bread, that’s extra. And the bread? They’ll bring it out and set it on the table, even if you don’t ask for it, and you’ll get charged for it. Just an important safety tip.

Anyway, after dinner we still had some time so we thought we’d try and find the BMW museum. It wasn’t on the map but Kamilla had told me where it was and I thought I remembered so we went off and had an adventure.

When we found it, we walked up to pay and were told it was free to celebrate the grand opening! See this was a new version of the museum and it was opening day. We had no idea! And let me tell you, it would have been worth it even if we’d had to pay! It was awesome! It was a state of the art place (Jim kept saying it was science fiction) with interactive displays, modern art and more cars and motorcycles than you could shake a crank shaft at. The Skids in me was going nuts! They had five engines lined up with headsets hanging down in front of them. When you put on the headset, you hear the sound that particular engine makes while starting and revving. Their gift shop leaves something to be desired, but at least I didn’t spend money there.

We headed back and I said goodbye. Jim is heading off to Rome tonight on an overnight train so I’m back to being on my own. Probably better that way. Was thinking of going to Dachau tomorrow but I’m just not in the mood. I’ve extended my stay here in Munich by two days so I’ll have time to do it on Tuesday. Tomorrow I think I’m gonna go to the Duetsche Museum tomorrow and then Castle Neuschwanstein on Monday.