München & Dachau

Today we left Salzburg in the morning and drove about 1 1/2 hours to downtown Munich. So far Munich has been my favorite city I've visited, so full of history and interesting things to see. After we got ourselves oriented to where we were after parking we walked around to Marianplatz...a famous plaza area and saw the Fraulenkirche (think that's how you spell it) which is the symbol of Munich. Walked around a large park/garden area by the opera house and were able to listen to a man playing cello in a little gazebo area in the park. It was so beautiful and really added to the experience. I had some really good pizza (yes, yes I know it's not German...but still very good) at a place called Riva. Dad got a sandwich of sorts from a vendor in this big market area. As we left the downtown area we drove along Ludwigstraße that was lined with this cool buildings and shops. Dachau concentration camp was our next stop north of Munich. Going to Dachau was something that I really wanted to do, especially with my interest in studying the Holocaust and WWII. It was my first experience visting a place like that. The reality of being there hit me when I walked through the front gate that said "Abreit Micht Frei" (work sets you free). I had seen it in pictures and read about it in books, but to actually be there and see those words and the camp itself was undescribable. We walked through the big roll call area and then through the museum set up in some of the buildings. Saw the remained of the barbed wire fence and guard towers surrounding the camp. Only two of the barracks were reconstructed that you could going into, the rest are gone except for the concrete foundations that are lined up row on row...erie. We only had about an hour before they closed and didn't get to see everything, but it was still something I was glad that I saw. Instead of going southwest of Munich for the night we headed back to Stuttgart. Tomorrow we are going to head up towards the Mosel Valley towards Köln. Sorry for the lack of pictures, I didn't bring my cord to transfer pictures to the computer, so pictures will have to wait until I get back to England. More to come from Germany asap!
Tchüss!