June 29th - Dachau

The Royal Hotel in Munich has a large eating area, it has a more modern feel not like the other places we have stayed so far.

 They have cereal, yogurt and danishes on one table.













On the large counter they have breads, meat and cheeses, eggs, bacon & sausage, on the other side is fruit and a machine that makes different coffees, hot water or hot milk by the cup.

My yummy breakfast.

Today we purchased a ticket to be able to use the all the Munich transportation for the 5 of us on 1 ticket and it cost 13,60 eruo.  We wanted to go out to Dachau.








It is free to go in.  This is the gate that all the inmates entered by.  The saying on the gate in English translates to "Work makes you free."

There was a lot of information and pictures to take in.  They showed a very heartbreaking movie that there were points  you could have heard a pin drop. I don't think we could ever imagine what these people went through







They had to wear patches on their clothes that let people know why they were here.  You could be imprisoned because you were a Jew, Hungarian, Romanian, Homosexual, Jehovah Witness, if you came back from another country, if you had romantic relations with a Jew, were a criminal or talked against the Nazi party or for any other reason they wanted to come up with.












There was just so much information to take in.

 Dachau was first concentration camp.  It was first used to house political prisoners.  It was also a work camp.

Then during the war they used this as a place that they checked them in and then sent them to other camps depending on what they were good for.  A lot of people were sent from here to Auschwitz.  This was not a camp that they did large mass killings but still a lot of people died and were killed here.  They also used them for medical experiments.



This statue was very moving especially after watching the movie that they show from live footage from the concentration camp from before the war and when the US soldiers came to save them.










This bunker where used for special prisoners, such as the man that had tried to assassinate Hitler, priests, guards from the camp and political people who opposed the Nazi's.

They talked about how they had a cell that they had set up 2'6" Sq. sections that they would put prisoners in for 72 hours with no light, food or water.  It was so small they had to stand the whole time.

From the look of this building you would never guess it housed a gas chamber and a crematorium. We walked through the rooms that first they told them that they were going to take a "shower".  Then the room that they would undress in before they would go into the "shower".  They had fake shower heads on the ceilings of the gas chamber so that they would go in willingly. They next room was were they kept the dead bodies until they could cremate them.  Then the next room was the crematorium and on the other side of that was another room to keep the dead bodies in.

This was the nicer barracks that they kept the prisoners in before the war.

They never had any privacy, not to mention the fact that they couldn't use even these unless it was when they woke up or before they went to bed.

 This is the type of beds they used during the war.

It is hard to imagine as you walk through some of the area that looks so serene that such horrible things happened here within the last 80 years.  The rain and gray skies were very fitting for today.

We headed back into Munich to have lunch at a very European restaurant.

I bet you didn't guess KFC.

Elaine & Amanda went shopping for a little while then Roger made us walk up hill both ways in the pouring rain 5 miles to get ice-cream at the Eis-Cafe  Sarcletti at Nymphenburger Strasse 155, because our tour operator told us it was the best ice-cream in Munich.

We were going to make him buy us the ice-cream like the ones displayed in the window but they were 26 euros.

But we settled for 3 scoops each.

My favorite flavor was the hazelnut.
Amanda's favorite flavor was caramel nut.
Roger's favorite flavor was banana.

We took a bus and a train to get back to the hotel.

So now we are back at the hotel and we need to pack because in the morning we head to Salzburg.

It looks like a tornado swept through our room.

Well we didn't even scratch the surface of what could be seen in Munich so we may need to have to come back one day.

June 28, 2013 - Munich

We are staying at the Royal Hotel in Munich and included in the price is breakfast.  Which we took advantage of before heading out to do the Hop on - Hop off bus tour, that I had booked through Viator before we left home, along with a Paulaner Brewery tour.  We did pay 5 Euros a piece extra to upgrade to the Grand Tour.  The package deal had come with the Express Tour but we wanted to see most of the things on the Grand Tour also.  We caught the bus across the street from the train station which was great because it is only about a block from our hotel. Our first stop was the Palace of Nymphenburg.

This was the least favorite of the palace/castles that we have seen.  We were only able to see one floor inside the palace.















The gardens weren't near as impressive at least what we could see.  I know that there was more to them but we didn't want to spend to much time here because there were other stops we wanted to make before having to be back at the train station area at 3:30 for our other tour.







The problem was that we just missed the bus.  When we headed out we could see it leaving the parking lot.  Little did we know that we would have to wait about 45 minutes until the next one came.  The nice thing is that it was warm and sunny.

Well lets just say that I am glad we got on the bus when we did because not to long after that it started to rain.  Our bus did not have the top that closes at the push of a button.  He stopped at a red light and ran up the stairs ran the top closed and ran back down to his seat just as the light turned green.  So thankfully we did not get wet.  But since it started raining we decided to just stay on the bus and not get off at the BMW manufacturing plant and museum or the Olympic park that was right across the street.
Rogers desire is to visit as many Olympic parks as he can.  So he can now check off another one.

Believe it or not when we made it back to the starting point it was sunny and warm again so since we had enough time we decided to jump on the express tour bus since it was going to leave in just a few minutes.

 We saw a lot of the city highlights,

But one of the things that most intrigued us was this basket ball hoop on the top of this building.

Well we got back to the train station area and had less than an hour before we needed to be back to leave for our Paulaner tour so we parted ways with Elaine & Fred so they could grab something to eat and we went back to the hotel to change and get what we needed before the tour.  As we were walking back we saw another tour bus unloading passengers and wondered why they were getting off there.  Then we looked back and saw why.

On the way to the brewery they took us by the other 4 breweries in town. There is a 6th brewery but it was outside of the city.

They also took us by where the Octoberfest celebrations are held.










As soon as we got there they give us a sample,

 or in Roger and Amanda's case a couple of samples.

I did like the one I got that was mixed with lemonade.  It was very light with no after taste.  Elaine, Fred & I could not finish it quick enough so Amanda finished our for us.

 They showed us a movie about the making of beer then walked us through the plant.

The kettles that they make the mash.

The results of drinking is that you need to use the WC.  Which she got lucky and we walked back through where we started so she ran in real quick.  Another guy was not so lucky when he asked later and they told him there wasn't any place he could go.

This room is kept at very cold temperature.

These are the barrels that the monks used to use to ferment the beer.  All the breweries in the area were started by monks and even now if they open a new facility the monks that started that brewery come and bless it.

The yellow machine is what washes the recycled bottles.

After they are washed they go through this machine that decides if the bottle is good or not.  If not it throws them away.

Then they are filled, capped & labeled.

On our way out you could see all the kegs ready to ship.

Tonight we went to dinner at Funkstadl.

It had a real homey feel inside.

This is the plate that they gave me to share a meal with Fred.

Having some fun on our walk back to the hotel.