Dan and Sue wanted to visit the Dachau concentration camp and had reservations for a tour. After a short drive, we dropped them off at the front gate and drove into town to see what we could find. We parked at the top of the street that we supposed was the main avenue. What we really wanted was a lovely cafe where we could sit outside and connect to the internet. Well, we found the lovely cafe with outside seating but no internet. As a general comment, it is increasingly difficult to find internet hotspots in Germany. I thought they would be all over the place.
We have a very s l o w...lunch which suited us just fine since we had several hours to kill. Linda had a very good fish soup and I had saltimbocca and a glass of wine. We watched the people walk by. Linda got some makeup in her eye and it was watering, so it was a good time for her to wet a napkin and wedge it in between her eye and glasses and just sit still. It was a very relaxing 3 hours.
We return and pick up Dan and Sue and hit the road for Munich and the Holiday Inn. As we drive down the road toward Munich they tell us about Dachau. Their main impression was the size of the camp, very large, and the detailed organization of the prisoners. Daily counting of everyone done on a huge field within the camp; everyone numbered and accounted for. This camp was the first for the Nazi's and all other camps were modeled after this one, originally started as an SS training camp then a prison for political opponents of the Nazi regime. Very sad point in history for all of us, 32,000 people lost their lives here in just this one camp out of hundreds of camps all over Germany during Hitler's reign.
The goal in Munich was to sightsee, watch the glockenspiel at 5:00 and drink lots of beer at the Hofbrauhaus beer hall. We got to the Marianplatz in the center of town at 5:05 and listened to the glockenspiel music, but the figures did not move. We decided it was broken. Then we wondered around for about 1/2 hour asking pretty young girls if they knew where we could catch the hop-on/hop-off tour bus. Lots of answers, pointing us in different directions. Finally, Dan catches one of the buses that we want and talks to the driver. Dan comes back up to us and tells us its Finnish. We thought that bus' tour was spoken in Finnish and how strange that they would pick that language for a tour. It wasn't Finnish, the bus driver said they were finished for the day. That got a laugh.
Even though it was a bit early, we couldn't wait and headed over to the beer hall. The first thing that Rick Steves says to do is to tour the three story building. We started at the top where a gigantic, ornate room is set with long tables and a large group is just arriving. The second floor rooms look like a conventional restaurant - very sedate. Then, down to the first floor which is where the real action is. We walk through an outdoor atrium to get to the main beer hall. Since we're early we have a few choices on where to sit. There is a long table that is half available, so we park ourselves at one end. We are in front of the 6 piece "oompah band", just off to one side a bit. The party at the other end of the table leaves soon and we have the whole table to ourselves until a nice looking Canadian couple asks if they can sit at the end. We let Mitzi and Lance sit and have an intermittent conversation over the band's music.
We order liters of beers and a basket of different breads. Our well-built German waitress delivers as many as 7 liter steins at a time. Strong girl. After a little while, two 29 year old Japanese women ask if they can sit in the middle of the table. With this, we start a picture-taking marathon. They take pictures of us and themselves over and over again. Everyone talks as we drink and eat and drink. By the second stein (i.e., liter) we are all very funny and we're having a good time. Toward the end, Lance buys us all a shot of Tequila. They said it was Schnapps, but it was Tequila. Dan was impressed by the band. They blended with each other. He said they were recording studio good. And, they played most of the time with only short breaks.
As we walked back to the subway station, we came across 5 street performers playing funky renditions of popular songs, with a violin, piano, accordion, cello. The violin player was the leader and sang some. We end the night with a short subway ride and walk back to our Holiday Inn.
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