Day 26 & 27 Wednesday & Thursday 26 & 27 April 2017

There is no danger of me ever getting scurvy, the amount of sauerkraut I have eaten should protect me for life.

I went to the concentration camp site at Dachau today (Wednesday).  I reckon the temperature did not exceed 4 degrees all day and when it stopped raining it snowed.  The novelty is starting to wear off for the snow.

The forecast for tomorrow is similar.

I did a guided tour of Dachau from Munich, the tour guide was an American who had lived in Munich for the last 40 something years.  The concentration camp site is located just outside the village of Dachau which is now pretty much a suburb of Munich.  Our little tour group caught the S-Bahn train from Munich to Dachau and then a local bus service to the concentration camp site.  For those of you who are interested Dachau was the 1st concentration camp built by the Germans and it operated from 1933 to 1945.  It was originally built as a camp for political prisoners and was never intended to be used as an extermination camp such as Auschwitz.  But having said that it is estimated that of the 230,000 or so prisoners that went through Dachau more than 30,000 died.  The majority of these prisoners died of hunger, maltreatment and disease rather than deliberate killing, although many prisoners died as a result of punishment handed out by the Germans.

I didnt take many photos as, one it was either raining or snowing and I didn't want to get my camera wet and secondly I didn't feel comfortable with some of the photo opportunities on offer.  Anyway a couple of general photos of the camp follow.

This morning (Thursday) was cold and wet, what a surprise!  Nothing formal planned for today so after breakfast in the hotel, which was included as part of the deal, I donned coat, hat, gloves, thick socks and boots and ventured forth.

I wanted to have a look around some parts of Munich that I hadn't already visited and go back to a couple of places for a better look.  For a couple of reasons today's itinerary included a couple of churches.  The first reason is that if you are visiting a church you are indoors and not getting wet, although I dont think that they waste a lot of money on heating.  The second reason is their role in the history of these places.  Munich and Bavaria generally is still strongly Roman Catholic, the rest of Germany, particularly in the North is Protestant.  For whatever reason the reformation didn't reach this far south.

I also visited the only TGW memorial that I have seen in Germany.  I have attached a couple of photos instead of trying to describe it.

My walk today included a stroll through part of the English Garden, the term garden is a misnomer as it is bigger than either Hyde or Central park.  There is a large open area and apparently in nicer weather people sunbathe there nude, although there wasn't any nude sunbathing there today although I had my zoom lense ready just in case.

The other thing is that I haven't seen any squirrels! I thought that they would be all over the place, maybe they are still in their little squirrel holes eating their nuts.

Now here is a funny sight that you don't see every day;

and another pic just for the sake of it;

For lunch today I had beer goulash with a massive dumpling in the middle accompanied by a beer and a pretzel, no sauerkraut though.  Through the day today I discovered an Irish Bar that also has the Ned Kelly Australian Bar, so that is an option for dinner tonight.

Leaving Munich tomorrow and on the train to Nuremberg.