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Today is the day that most of the tour members arrive (we showed up a day early.) Actually, I think about half of the tour members showed up before today. Our plan for the day is to drive the rental car out to Dachau and see the former Nazi concentration camp there, then return the rental car to the airport and take the train (S-Bahn) to Munich for lunch and finally make it back to Olching in time for the first-night "Welcome Dinner" at 7pm.
Finding Dachau was a bit of a challenge, but we had resonably good directions from Graham (the chief Van Driver, mechanic, luggage schlepper, tour guide, host, etc.) We quickly figured out to follow the signs for "KZ" (probably stands for Konsentration Zentrum???) and arrived. We wandered over and took pictures of this wall and the following picture of the front gate before going into the main exhibit hall.
The English-language version of the inscription on this wall reads... "May the example of those who were exterminated here between 1933 - 1945 because they resisted Nazism help to unite the living for the defense of peace and freedom and in respect for their fellow man."
This was the main entry gate to the concentration camp. It reads "Arbeit Macht Frei", which was a slogan of the worker's party that turned into the Nazi party (I think?)
After this quick look around we headed into the main exhibit hall. We really should have purchased the English-language guide, because most of the exhibits were in German. On the other hand, many of the pictures spoke for themselves, and really drove home the horrendous nature of the place.
There were four memorials built on the site: A Jewish memorial, a Protestant memorial, a Catholic memorial and this Russian Orthodox memorial. This was the prettiest, the others were fairly somber, which fits the subject matter well.
The building shown [here] was the crematorium: note the big smoke-stack.
We left Dachau feeling a bit more somber for the trip.
[This] is a picture from the far end of the camp looking back toward the exhibit hall. You can see the foundations of all the dormitory/barracks that have been torn down, with the one reconstructed barracks at the far end.
Our next stop was to drop the car off at the Munich airport. We got a bit lost after filling up with gasoline, ending up at the freight terminal instead of the passenger terminal, but quickly got back on track and returned the car. We then ventured to the train station in the airport, and figured out the ticket situation (with the help of the nice people at the help desk) and hopped on a train for downtown Munich.
We got off the train at the Marienplatz: the main plaza in front of the "Neues Rathaus" (New Townhall) and began looking for lunch. There were sooo many outdoor cafes to choose from, we spent a bit of time wandering from one to the other looking at menus. We decided the price was basically the same everywhere, so we sat down near the Rathaus and had lunch. Here's Brian and you can see the Rathaus in the background.
Paige decided that she had a better angle on Brian and the Rathaus, so she took a second picture.
We wandered around downtown Munich a bit after lunch. We went into the Frauen Kirche (Lady's Church) and Brian lit a candle.
Before too long we decided it was time to head back to the hotel, as we felt we could all use a nap before the Welcome dinner. We hopped onto the train which quickly whisked us to Olching. Then we headed back to the hotel. Or we thought we were headed back to the hotel, but after a Kilometer or so we were walking out of town, and hadn't seen the hotel. At this point we stopped at the gas station (many of the towns have a gas station at their entrance and/or exit on the main road) and looked at the map. We'd taken a wrong turn almost immediately from the train station, and our hotel was back at the other end of town. This extra excursion ate up all the time for our naps, but we found the ATM machine near the hotel and got enough Deutsch Marks to last a few days!
The Welcome dinner was great, but covered a lot of material. Among other things, Rob reminded us that many of the motorcycles had brand-new tires, which are slippery until they get scrubbed in by use. Paige found this out the next day...
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