Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Germany and Switzerland: Day 3...Munich and Dachau

On Friday we woke up feeling super refreshed compared to the day before.  Ken and I had both woken up at 3:00 am and were dying of thirst.  Ken went down to the hotel bar and paid like 7 Euros for two bottles of water.  It was the best water I had ever had!

We left the hotel to find a place for breakfast.  We could have paid to have breakfast at our hotel, but we wanted to have something a little more authentic.  Ken opened Yelp to see if it could provide any suggestions.  We ended up at the Dallmayr, which had great reviews.  The Dallmayr has a cafe but on the main floor they sell cheese, meet, and of course chocolate.

I instantly fell in love with this place.  Of course I bought some chocolate!

We were seated for breakfast and we quickly realized that we were eating breakfast with locals and not tourists, which we were perfectly happy with.  Ken ordered the traditional Bavarian breakfast of Weisswurst, while I stuck with eggs, bacon, and a croissant.  

Let's pause for a moment while I mention that America is completely missing out by not serving croissants for breakfast.  They are delicious and a I may have had one every single day while in Europe.  

Now back to the Weisswurst.  We were so hungry that we forgot to take a picture of it.  It was interesting.  I tasted it and did not care for it.  It had an odd flavor.  It did, however, come with a Bavarian pretzel.  A pretzel at 9:00 am is a tradition I can totally get on board with.

We should all live in a world where Bavarian pretzels are served with breakfast.  Amen.

While we were waiting on our breakfast, we pulled out my Rick Steves book on Bavaria and he actually covers Dallmayr. Apparently one of the former Kings of Bavaria loved Dallmayr for all of his get togethers.  Dallmayr had so much tradition and so much of a back story, that I am glad we visited.

We left Dallmayr and walked back to the Marienplatz to get onto the S-Bahn to make our way to the Dachau concentration camp.

The Old Town Hall was such a gorgeous building!

Getting to Dachau was very easy.  We took the S-Bahn to Dachau and then took a bus from the main station to the camp.  On the bus ride we met a couple from Georgia.  They were the two most traditional Southern people I have ever met.  By the time we reached the camp, the man had told us about his sun marrying an unwed mother because the Lord had told him to.  I wanted to tell him that it is quite alright, we are not that judgmental in Kansas. It was pretty funny.

The gate to enter the concentration camp, which sadly means work makes you free.


Ken and I wandered around the grounds and took everything in.  It was really surreal to think of what all transpired at the camp.  It was so strange to think that it was real life back then and not part of a movie set or something.  

The grounds where roll call was taken

One of the memorials inside the camp

The barracks, the bunks inside the barracks, the prisoners lockers, and where the remaining barracks used to stand.

The crematorium complete with the gas chamber and ovens used to cremate the bodies

The fence that was around the perimeter.  If a prisoner was found too close to the unrestricted area by the fence, they were shot and killed.



A view of both sides of the barracks

After we left Dachau, we decided to walk back to the train station instead of taking the bus.  As we were on the walking path, we came across this.

You know, just in case you are out running/walking and need cigarettes

We got to the train station and made our way back to Munich.  We walked a few blocks from the main station in Munich to the oldest beer garden in Munch, Augustiner Keller.  It was a little too cold to sit in the actual garden area, but they had outside seating near the building with heaters.  Oh, they also provide blankets for you too.  It was a little bit of heaven!

We sat there with a few other tourists and of course many locals.  It was interesting watching the locals since it was a Friday night and many people were enjoying after work cocktails.

The funniest thing that happened at dinner was an Asian man that had a pretzel.  He approached one of the waiters and asked if there was a dipping sauce for the pretzels.  The waiter looked at him and said we have mustard.  The Asian man looked puzzled and asked for a traditional dipping sauce.  The waiter then told the guy look, it is a sauceless pretzel.  The guy felt like an idiot.  We had a good laugh over it!

Prost!

We may have consumed our fair share of beer.  The dunkel at Augustiner was just too good!

This is how real men drink their beer

And this is how I drink beer, barely being able to lift the mug!

I almost kissed our waiter when he brought us the pretzels.  After all, a pretzel a day keeps the doctor away.



After dinner and beer, we stumbled walked back to our hotel for the evening.  We did stop a long the way for a little gelato.  

Me getting money out of Ken's wallet to pay for ice cream.  This is really not much different than our daily life.  :)

We did see a gas station about a block from our hotel so we stopped to get some water.  We ended up leaving with two liters of water, two beers, and a German Peanut Butter Kit Kat.  Hmm...

While in the convenience store, I was confused about the water and wanted to make sure we were getting still and not sparkling water.  I saw these two German guys about my age and I asked them if they spoke English.  It was pretty funny because they could not wait to help me and were talking to me and joking around.  Then, they realized that the tall guy scouting out beer was with me.  Ha!  

We had a wonderful full day in Germany.  We could not have asked for a better day! 

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