The day after Stuttfeld, we split up again. Al and Julie went off on their own to investigate some genealogy leads. The rest of us visited the Dachau concentraton camp and then went to Munich.
The concentration camp near Dachau was the first of the Nazi concentration camps opened in Germany. It was located on the grounds of an abandoned munitions factory. There were 32,000 documented deaths at the camp, and thousands that are undocumented. The gate through which the camp was entered contains the slogan, Arbeit macht frei, or ‘Work will make you free.” It was stolen from the camp a couple of weeks after we were there and it has not been found.
After a visit to the Dachau concentration camp, we headed to Munich. We arrived at our hotel and then took the train into the city. We toured the city using the walking tour from Rick Steves’ Germany guide. We followed it for a while but could not find the Jewish Synagogue. We even asked folks who told us “you can’t miss it” to no avail. So we decided to bail on the tour and hit the chocolate shop and then a beer hall.
Below is Peter’s Church in Munich. The church was badly damaged in WWII but rebuilt. On the ceiling is a painting of St. Peter crucified upside down. There are headstones built into the outside wall of the church.
Wine and an interesting looking fish at a food market in Munich.
Before heading to the beer hall, we went to Milka, a large chocolate store in Munich. So much chocolate!!! And we had some fun with the cow out front.
We finished our day in Munich with an evening at the Hofbrauhaus and we could not have had a better time. Al and Julie even joined us, making it perfect! While the Hofbrauhaus is touristy, you cannot go wrong in a huge beer hall with live polka music. From the giant pretzels, a waiter telling us to watch out for table legs, our waiter only bringing beers in twos – even when we would ask for only one, a bad photographer and a broken wine bottle – it was nonstop laughter. I have so many fond memories of this night. I can’t stop smiling as I type this post, even a year later.
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