FIRST TOUR BY EUROPE PART VII: MUNICH

MUNICH

When you arrive with this city, specially if you came from Berlin, is a very big change. While in the capital it stills exist a memory of the war and the Wall that is pressent in every step you do, in Munich all is happiness and color every where you go.

Munich is a very impressive city, with an old town very nice and a very interesting History. Of course all the places have it, but it's speciall in every one. Is very grateful to be here, but more in summer. There is a lot of legends in the city and the sorroundings. All the Babarian region is very nice, with a very green filds that will make you think that you're in a picture or inside of a postalcard. You'll love to know the stories about the King Ludvic, who was called also the mad, because he was a strange person. And the castles.... Really you will think that you're the starring of a fairy tale. 

WHAT YOU CAN NOT MISS IF YOU GO TO MUNICH:

- The Old town: the ancient hall, the new hall, the diferent churches that there are, the streets, the beer gardens, the English Garden, Marienplatz, Frauenkirche (the cathedral), ...

- The olimpic stadium

- The Allianz Arena (The Bayern of Munich's Stadium)

- The concentration camp of Dachau (is not beautiful, but very important, interesting and advisable)

- If you have enough time, I recommend you visit the Babarian region, with its beautiful places, villages and landscapes, and of course the castles like Neuschwanstein.

Enjoy it!!

15TH AUGUST 2007

We get up early in the morning again. After almost two weeks of tour, sometimes you don't know in which city are you when you open your eyes, but at once you come back to the reality. And despite you're so tired, your body is used to the tiredness and you get up better than the firsts days. We go to Munich. Fortunately the good weather keeps. After some kilometres, the speed limit finishes and the car flies but the other cars fly much more. About 600 km is the distance between Berlin and Munich. The first one is the north and the other in the south. We arrive at 12:30. Once more we have luck with the hotel and we find a place in the first we ask for. We installed ourselves and eat something. This hotel is like of the Berlin, we have to take te car to go to the city, althoug it is near. 

We park our car in the down town in a free place (this is almost impossible in Barcelona, and we are very happy) and we start to visit the city. What we didn't know is that today is 15th august and it's a holyday in a half Europe or more. So, the Tourist Office is closed. As we decide to come here while we were travelling, I don't have any guidebook and I don't have any kind of information about what to see. Also we haven't any map to face us, and we are giving bumps for the city, without course. We hope don't be lost. It's very hot, about 33º, as we were in Paris.

We walk along the English Garden, a beautiful and green park, where people go to rest, to walk, to have a picnic or maybe to do some sport or read a book. Also to have sunbathing. We get into in the shops to buy some souvenirs, that luckly are open. We buy a lot of things, for example for the Bayern of Munich, of course. We think that maybe today there is a match, because there is a lot of people dressed with the Bayern T-shirts. So we find out that today there is a friendly game between Bayern and Barça. Javi is very happy, because he's a fan of Barça, but I love Real Madrid, so I'm not very happy... As we don't know how to do, we go to the Olimpic Stadium, unfortunately famous because of the olimpic games of 1972, when a terrorist atack happened against the Israel athletics team.

The area next to the stadium is very nice. We make some photos, althoug it's closed. We discover near an explanade where there is a little Oktoberfest. We now the Oktoberfest is in september, but maybe the people are training for it. There are a lot of places with wooden banks where they serve beers and other kinds of drinks, some frankfurts and sausages and Pretzel, a big bread in the shape of a bond. The people is dressed with the traditional clothes, the women whit the Drindl and the men with the Lederhose. We decide to eat something and enjoy with the ambience, despite we don't like beer. The bread and the sausages are very good and accompanied of a fresh coca-cola, much better.

The we go to the Allianz Arena, the Bayern of Munich stadium, which is in the suburbs of the city. There are very good indications and is very easy to find, but our GPS finds it also. There is a very big parking and we park inside. We have to pay but is cheap. We start to walk towards the stadium and we find a place with skarfs, t-shirts, ... Javi buys the Bayern's one and the Munich 1860, the other city team that in that time was playing in the second division. We ask for the match and a man tells us that the match just finished. Barça was the weaner with a goal of Messi. We hope to have a little luck and to can get into the stadium and make some photos.

The people start to go out and we go it counterannoys. There is a lot of people and is difficult to walk for us. At the end we arrive to the entrance and there are policemen, but we enter without any problem. We only want to make some photos and to see the inside. The outside is much more beautiful and original than the inside. Inside is very usual, but it doesn't matter. We speak with thow Basque couples, who are very nice. They ask for them to make a photo to us and they say the same. Tomorrow they are going to Berlin. We recommend them the Pfaueninfsel Island and we say good bye. 

It becomes night and they illuminated the outside of the stadium. We wait until it's totally dark and it's so nice. Some days the lights are red, blue, white and they do combinations. Today they are reds. Javi prefers blue and red, like Barça and I laugh and I say "no way, better whites". We take the car again and we come back to Munich. We are looking for a place to have dinner. We choose a smart pizzeria, which is quite cheap. It's curious for us that it's sounding Spanish music. Now is time to come back to the hotel and go to sleep, because we are tired.

16TH AUGUST OF 2007

Today, our last day in Munich, there is a horrible weather. It rains a lot and the temperature is lower, from 34º yesterday to now 14º. It's a little cold to be summer and we have to wear long sleeve. Today the Tourism Office is open and is located just in the Ancient Hall. The girl who attend us speaks Spanish. We buy a guidebook for 5 €. It's very good, because it's made an itinerary along the down town, in a way that you walk by the hole place. We do the itinerary and we stop in every important place and make photos. Also we pass trough Marienplatz where today there is a very showy food market. In a place are done some fruitjuice of different fruits. We buy one that is very tasty. At the end it stopes rain. The guidebook talks about the Dahau Concentration Camp, the same that my friend Ricard (who we find in Amsterdam) talked about. So we go towards it, but we must to hurry up, because it's 14:30 and they close at 17:00.

Is not easy to find the camp and our GPS seems like it doesn't where the hell is it, so when we arrive it's 15:00. There are enough people to get into and go out. We go as quickly as possible in direction opposite to an arrow that says "audioguides". I would like to take one but I have no time. After I repent because it would be very good for me. Is very sorpresive for me that is totally free. We start the visit. At the fence of the entry you can read the typical inscription that exists in all the concentration camps "ARBEIT MACHT ES FREI", "THE WORK WILL MADE YOU FREE". The place is depressing and with the grey sky it is even more sad. We see the different barraks, now becamed museum with photos and explanations in English and German. I read and translate for Javi but it's no need because the photos are so explicit. The photos and the explanations are horrible. The stories that they count sound like nightmare. In the first barrack there are a big poster with all the concentration camps in Germany, Polland and Austria. I thought that they already not existed, but the truth is that the big part stills stay, the terrible Austwitch inclueded. They didn't want to demolish them so that stays steadfastness of a history that never again must to repeat. 

I read a lot about the World War II and the concentration camps. Specially about Auswitch, and books like The Schindler List, or others that talk about a very hard war and the the horrible atrocities that they did to these poor people, without distinguishing if they were children, women, men, elders, or if they were sick or they had some disability. Simply ther were low beings and their lives din't cost anything. This make me think a lot about the limits of the human cruelty, that sometimes it seems that it has no end. Horrorized, we visit the prisoners barracks, where othen sleep in the same bed 4 people, and were very small beds. There is a wardrobe with the typical streaks pajamas, very old because of the passage of time, the latrines, the gas cameras, which were not used because there wasn't enough time, and the crematoriums. This place it very scares and gave a big anxiety. Also we see some photos with the horrible experiments that the "doctors" made with the prisioners and other tortures that they had to support. 

Once we have visited all the barracks, we see the fields and the different buildings that there are. In one hand there is the wire-fenced and the control towers  where there were the snipers, who shooted every time they wanted, with no need of to be a logical explanation fot do it. There is also a wall with a kind of canal where you can still see the holes of the bullets. They killed a lot of people here, and so many blood was accumulated here. To prevent this, they built this canal. Also there is a little Ortodoxian Chappel, that was built some years after the war, the Jewish Memorial and some another that I don't remember well. It's 5 o'clock and it's time to leave the place, because they are closing and we don't anyway want to remain locked up here. This is very scared at day, so you can imagine at night. I'm sure that many of the tortured spirits stroll around still somewhere here looking for justice. Only of thinking I feel shakes. 

Before to leave the camp, we pass next to a little shop in the entry where they sell some things, like books. I buy one in Spanish to now more. This was so hard for us. When we seat in the car we stay some time without words. We can't speak. Is too horrible. But very need to know, that's the reason I recommend it.  We are hungry because we hadn't lunch. We find a Burger King and we go to eat. After, we go to another part of Munich, where is the Parliament and the building with the more ancient Pool in Germany. We walk through all the area. Here all is so green and it's a very nice place. Specially now that the sun is up again and it's hot. How is possible this temperature changes? We make some photos but we can't see the pool, because you only can enter with bathdress and we don't have it. It becames night while we keep walking, so we decide to come back to the hotel and eat something of our things. Tomorrow we start our travel to come back home and we become sad.