Day 173 to Day 174 - Concentration camps and glockenspiels

Oy-Mittenberg to Munich - Kings First Class Hotel

Day 173 - After a lovely night we again braved the autobahn to head to Munich, we were a bit nervous at the prospect of driving in a big city for the first time. By now though we've got the hang of driving on the wrong side of the road at 150kmh, but even then we are in the slow lane most of the time.

We decided to go via the Dachau concentration camp. The camp is a massive place, and held about 200,000 prisoners over the time it was in use. We watched a short film, then wandered the displays in the old factory building reading about the history of the camp, and the inhumane treatment of the prisoners (which included being kept in a standing cell, which was so small that the walls on each side your elbows and the walls in front and behind touched your legs so there was no other option but to stand). Many of the old buildings still remained, though most of the sleeping quarters had been demolished.

After that sobering visit we drove to Munich to find it quite quieter than we expected, at least as far as driving went, so it was a breeze finding our hotels car park.

We walked into the city centre which was crowded with tourists, and spent some time checking out some of the old buildings and other sights (cathedral, city hall, various town squares, etc).

Day 174 - Today we headed off to the Deutsches Museum, the world's largest museum of technology and science. It was an extraordinary place with the the most amazing exhibits on every type of subject, from tunnel building to robots, DNA labs to nanotechnology. We both enjoyed the visit enormously, it would have been well worth a second visit.

We made it back to the Marienplatz (central square) to see the Glockenspiel in the tower of the city hall do its thing at 5pm, which was quite cute. We then walked down to the English Garden, and managed to see the nude sunbathers (though that's not why we were there .....). Apparently it is quite a Munich thing to do to head to the park and take off your clothes to get that full body tan - can't see it catching on in Melbourne though.