I forgot to do a post yesterday. We wandered around a bit again, then grabbed lunch in the Victuals Market in the old town. From there we checked out the Munich Residence, what was a place for royalty to stay. It was partially destroyed in the second world war, so a lot of what is shown now has been reconstructed in the 70’s. Much of the furniture is also not original, so it makes for a bit of a different visit compared to places that are still in their original condition.
Today we grabbed a quick breakfast and then headed to the S-Bahn station which, in our case, is also the central train station, to grab a train to Dachau. It took us two tries to buy tickets, then the station was evacuated because of a fire alarm, but we did eventually make it to Dachau in time for the English-language tour of the concentration camp memorial site.
What was to be a two hour tour was more like three and a half hours, but no one complained, and the guide was really good. The tour is as much about the camp itself as it is about the circumstances around something like the camp being created. It’s a very important lesson in how an educated, democratic, even scientific-thinking population can end up committing such acts, a lesson that is more important today than ever.
We grabbed lunch at a nearby burger joint where we chatted quite a bit with our waiter, a Hawaiian. He’s lived all over the world, but has been in Munich for some time now, although thinking about going back home. I asked how many languages he spoke, which is apparently English, German, and Turkish, although he figured he’s probably lost his Turkish by now.
Dachau itself is a very lovely town, around the same size as Vernon. The older section is built on a hill with a palace at the top which provides a great view of the surroundings including Munich in the distance. The roads are all stone with beautiful colored buildings everywhere. Very picturesque.
Tomorrow we take the train to Eisenstadt to visit our friends, the last stop on our journey.