We left London and headed to Munich, Germany. After all of my long plane flights, the 1 1/2 hr flight from London to Munich was so short! We arrived in Munich late afternoon and after checking in to the hotel and figuring out how to read the train maps, we headed to the main town square or "Marienplatz". It's been Munich's central town square since 1158. As we walked up the stairs from the S-Bahn (train or subway) station, the first thing you see is the massive town hall or "Neues Rathaus" which was built in the late 1800s. It's gothic and a bit creepy.
It seemed everyone in town was headed toward a huge soccer (called football in Europe) match between one of the main German teams, Bayern, and the Barcelona, Spain team. It was crazy in the square with chanting and the rival opponents shouting at each other. Germany ended up winning that game and another German team won a day later and so now they will meet up in a European soccer version of the Super Bowl soon.
More of the central square and all of the people.
As we walked around we could not understand much but sometimes it was easy to understand certain things like this window obviously telling me to head back to Australia.
Scott, Erin, and I in the S-Bahn station. Bahn means rail in German. It was so efficient and really easy to get around the city.
On the first full day in Munich, the Olivers had planned a day of history. The first stop was at the site of the first concentration camp opened in Germany during World War II. A concentration camp was a prison where Hitler and the Nazis sent people who opposed them or people they just didn't like. They would have to work really long hours doing very hard jobs and many people died there. In 1945, American troops showed up and set everyone in the camp free. This plaque was a thank you to one of the two American army divisions who helped free all of the prisioners.
This is a view of the area where all of the prisoners had to line up every morning for roll call. It's very quiet and peaceful there now and it's hard to imagine all of the unhappy people who had to live here during WWII.
So many people ended up dying here. There were a lot of prisoners from Russia here so they built a memorial after the war.
This was a memorial for all of the Jewish people that died here. It's set under lush green trees and is very peaceful now.
This was a creek that the Nazis built around the camp to keep prisoners from escaping.
Later that afternoon, we took a walking tour of the city to see where Hitler used to work and learned about the events leading up to him becoming the leader of Germany and the Nazi party. Many of the buildings were bombed during the war so we just got to see the location, but a few buildings survived the war like this one. It was very interesting to see how many buildings had spots for flags or plaques with nothing on them as everything related to the Nazis was removed after the war ended.
Whew. I'm tired from all of the walking today! After all of that walking, we needed a traditional German dinner with pretzels.
Pork, potato cake, and sauerkraut. You might not like sauerkraut, but this stuff was actually delicious!
I loved how they served Coke in a wine glass. So fancy.
The town hall at night. It's hard to see in the picture, but at the top there is a Glockenspiel which is kind of like a really fancy cuckoo clock. It was built in 1908 and still chimes 3 times a day. All of the figures up there spin around. The top part goes first and tells the story of a duke's wedding and the jousting tournament that takes place. The knight from Bavaria (a state in Germany) takes on the knight from Lothringen and wins. The second part of the story is in the lower circle and tells about a group that dances through the streets of Germany every 7 years to keep everyone's spirits up through hard times. At the very end, the cuckoo clock at the top calls out three times. The whole show takes about 15 minutes. It's cool, but my neck hurt from looking up so long!
Location:Munich, Germany
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