jun

Dachau

Munich, Germany
Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Our new hotel was so good and dark and quiet that we slept in until 10am. We eventually got it together and drove around the ring road to the other side of the city, passing and enormous squashed beanbag which was the new world cup arena. It's actually quite impressive and I believe it can be lit with different colours from the inside.

We hadn't been to the tourist information centre so we didn't have a map. We only got lost twice while making our way to Dachau and eventually found the Concentration Camp Memorial. It was much as I remembered it from 21 years ago. The day was just as hot (30oC) and the effect was just as dramatic. The grounds and the buildings were just the same but the museum was new. It had a very good display of the history and the BOSS and I were most impressed with the presentation and information available. It is still a stark and sterile environment and it is still impossible to imagine the horrors that took place there.

Having arisen so late and having skipped lunch, by the time we left Dachau it was very late in the afternoon and we were famished. We were still mapless but I knew there was a large plaza in the centre of Munich so we drove around blind for half an hour hoping we would bump into it. We didn't. Instead we stumbled across the information centre at the train station. After we picked up a map we wandered down the pedestrian plaza which was overrun with German football supporters celebrating their teams win.

As Munich was one of the host cities, the entire town had caught football fever with every shop joining in on the action. The town was full of painted lions sponsored by different shops and companies and displayed on every street corner and all through the mall. The street cafes were full of reveling fans and eventually we found a quieter restaurant/beerhall which had a huge garden area out the back. We tackled the traditional German sausage dinner with gusto, sampling 5 different wursts.