Europe Trip 2009: Day 5 – Dachau, Fussen & Munich
We arrived at the Dachau concentration camp at about 9:30 AM. This is the first day that we had any weather other than a little rain or flurries. Today it was snowing/sleeting pretty hard. It was very appropriate for the mood of this stop. With all the movie and book knowlege that was previously gathered really hit hard here. To be able to see the actual fence holding these 60,000 prisoners in at one time and seeing where they slept was an experience.
I don’t believe I ever really knew how big these camps actually got. I read the number of prisoners they had at one time, but I didn’t understand until I actually saw this model of how large this camp. Other than walking around the camp and going through the barracks, in the main building they had a very good museum with lots of stories of what a typical day might have been at the camp, and some of the horrible events/experiences happened during the control of the National Socialist (NAZI) party. This was the first concentration camp that others were based.
Next, we visited the Neuschwantstein Castle in the Alps. Great picture, huh? Ok, I might not have taken this one. It was snowing quite bad, remember? All my pictures look like a blizzard. There was about a 20 minute walk up hill to get to the castle tour. We all got pretty wet. After our tour we talked back down, and the snow had let up. It was a beautiful site with all the trees coated in fresh fluffy snow. I hope to get some pictures from my travel friends that might have turned out. A new snow balls were thrown on the way down, because you can’t waste good packing snow!
We then departed back to our hotel in Munich. Since we had such good time at the Hofbrauhaus – we decided to go back. Here is a little clip from the brewery and sample of the music.