An experience of a lifetime.

Back from the trip of a lifetime! Well we’ve been back in the country a couple of days now and of course updating my blog is one of the numerous things to do on my list of ‘getting things done before returning to work’. We were a total of 5 weeks away and personally I think that length of time is just perfect…the trip was not too short nor was it too long. I missed the furkids enormously and it is really is amazing how much you get used to having them around all the time. Where to start?

Well first stop Germany and the city of Cologne to be exact or Koln to the natives. We were only there a couple of days before we upped and left on a plane to Munich, a city in the southern part of Germany. We had three days in Munich, one day spent travelling out to near the Alps and ascending a small mountain to see Castle Neuschwanstein the inspiration for the Disney logo. That was great, we travelled up in a horse drawn carriage, spent a coulple of hours looking through the castle, climbing many steps and then took a leisurely stroll back down to the village. Everything was still fairly covered in white from recent snow so that certainly added to the ambience of the experience.

The next day we did the sights around Munich, we’d slept in a bit so didn’t have too much time but we certainly did some nice places, the English Gardens in particular were very pretty plus National Museum was quite interesting. We had some true German Bavarian tucker in a beer house which was delicious and hearty. The next day we did a day tour to Dachau and learnt from a guide all about the Dachau Concentration Camp, the was really interesting and whilst one could easily get despondent about the tragedies that occurred there it seemed more important to actually get to the real truths about what went on there and to see that the survivors (those left now at a very ripe old age) were still taking a strong interest in ensuring that the story of the camp was told accurately and with dignity.

Neuschwanstein Castle - Bavaria

The view from a castle window

An even better view of the valley below the castle

English Gardens Munich

Dachau - 'Arbeit Macht Frei', work will set
you free...one of the first propaganda signs
to greet the prisoners.

The patches sewn onto the uniforms denoted the
prisoner's status and thus what level of humiliation they
were subjected to.

A memorial sculpture in the museum.

A very famous sculpture designed by a Dachau survivor.

A sculpture of a prisoner showing defiance to his captors.