WEDNESDAY, 15 MAY 2013

TRAGEDY, CARS, AND A MEDIEVAL TOWN

The main goal today was to visit Dachau concentration camp—not something I necessarily wanted to do, but something that is good for one to see. A few words that describe my thoughts as we walked through and read and saw the tragic situations that occurred here: horror, incomprehensible, evil, disbelief, admiration for those who stood up for what they believed in, and finally a reverence for what it is today. High school students in the Bavarian region are required to spend one school class day here, so there were hundreds of students with their teachers visiting. Normally when you get hundreds of teenagers together in one place the noise level would be high, but here, even rowdy teenagers felt the reverence and said very little and when they did, they kept their voices low.

"work makes you free"

the original crematorium

they had to build a bigger crematorium

Leaving Dachau by subway we headed for Olympic Zentrum to see the BMW Welt (something Jim wanted to see). It wasn’t overly exciting, but the Olympic park was nearby so we walked around it for a little while.

By 1430 we were sitting around wondering what to do next. I was looking at the Munich city map and in a corner of it it talked about different nearby places accessible within less than 2 hours. One of the cities listed was Regensburg, a medieval town and also a UNESCO site. I checked the train schedules—next train at 1545. Off we hustled to the train station, knowing we would get there at 1715 and have 2 ½ hours to walk around. It was a fun way to end the day.

Lederhosen and...

dirndls everywhere!

barge going through lock on the canal