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Dinner before departure consisted of a fine piece of culinary artwork, the Döner Kebab (ringing in at 20FRF). The bus fare was 10.5FRF, and the couchette fee was 91FRF. Couchettes are beautiful things, especially when you get a whole 6-person compartment to yourself and can sleep fairly well. You pay around $13 US per person and get a bunk bed in a compartment that locks; in general you can sleep the entire time and the conductor wakes you up before your stop. This is infinitely better than staying up all night before (surprise) staying up most of the night two more days.
Our first destination was Füssen; Füssen is a relatively small town in the south of Germany that seems to get a fair bit of business from tourists. We got in before most things were open, so we had a chance to explore around a little, and it's a nice looking town. After that we caught the first bus to the Neuschwanstein area (DM5,-), where we visited Neuschwanstein and the other castles around the area. I remembered this being a fairly big tourist attraction from when I was there back in high school with my German class, but I had no idea just how popular it was. Luckily, we were there early enough to get our tickets (DM12,-) in time for the 10am tour, which was quite to our liking.
Here's some of the tour busses that had arrived by the time we left
the area:
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This is a view of the Newschwanstein castle, as built by the crazy
King Ludwig. This picture is taken from the Marienbrücke, which
is only a few minutes' hike from the castle. The tour of the castle
was quite interesting, and we had a great time. I picked up another
poster to replace the one I got back in high school that's aged a
little too much.
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And this is a view down from the Marienbrücke into the gorge
below. You can hike down there, but there was a little bit of light
drizzle, so we decided not to. Note, for comparison, that Phil Greenspun also took this
picture, but he did a little better job of it. He also took the previous
picture.
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We caught a train into München and explored around a little bit, finding a hostel and all that. The room was 52DM,- per night per person and included a good youth hostel breakfast -- (coffee, tea, bread, jam, butter, and meat). Before sleeping we found dinner at a place near the Marienplatz called Marché. As you entered the dining area of the restaraunt/cafeteria, you got a card. The back of the card stated the policies: basically, if you lost it you either paid DM100,- or did a day's worth of dishwashing duty. As you got food, they would stamp your card. Once you were done, you settled your bill with the cashier. Both of us ate for about DM22,-, which comes out to around US$11 for a healthy meal, with sodas and salad. It's not exactly authentic German food, but I heartily recommend it if you haven't found a place that fills you up yet.
After dining, we stopped by the Hofbräuhaus, a München
favorite. Besides the historical significance, the place has to get
some credit for being Every Fratboy's Dream™. ;) Seriously
though, I would estimate the crowd to be about 35% or more American
college students (a demographic of which I'm currently a card-carrying
member).
Müenchen Hofbräuhaus [o
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These are some of the locked beer steins for the professionals in the
crowd.
Muenchen_Hofbrauhaus2_locked_personal_beer_steins [o
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And these are the German guys that Charlie and I ran into. I don't
remember their names (because I didn't write them down, not because I
don't remember), but they were pretty cool. One of the guys mentioned
that he "heard only House music." This is funny to me, because this
combines a really common literal German<->English translation mistake
and a fine stereotype of musical tastes.
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This is a quote from the German poet Heine:
Dachau_Heine_burning_book_quote [o
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And translated into many languages:
Dachau_Heine_burning_book_quote_translated [o
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This chart displays the general decline in the quantity of food the
prisoners were given from 1940 until 1945. Comparing this to what I
eat in a typical week is a sobering comparison.
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This chart describes the insigna that prisoners were forced to
wear. It is not necessary to understand much German to get an idea of
what things represent.
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In Dachau proper there were some interesting antennae.
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After Dachau we went to the M¨nchen Olympiapark; this involved looking at the swimming pool, theatre, bike park, and tower. (you can find the pictures on the thumbnail page).
I recognized this guy from my trip to München back in high
school, so I figured we'd get pictures here.
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Downtown had lots of street performers, including a guy from New
Jersey who rode a really tall unicycle and these mallet players. I
didn't stay long enough to figure out what they were playing, but it
was a neat duet.
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This is a cool idea. I remember back in Austin when some silly folks
decided to paint lots of bicycles yellow and leave them around
downtown for people to ride from place to place, on the assumption
that they wouldn't get stolen. I hope the program is still around, but
I doubt it. Here they had the same idea, but of course it was
fee-based and the bikes had sizable locks on them. The rental
procedure seemed to involve calling a toll free number, giving your
credit card number and the bike number, and getting a code to punch
into the bike. Thus, you could rent the bikes from basically
anywhere, and they were fairly nice city bikes (good brakes, gears,
true wheels, full suspension, nice seat, etc). We didn't get a chance
to use them, but I think it's a neat idea nonetheless.
Muenchen_rent_a_bike [o
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And there you have it. Of course, the full set of pictures can be
found here, as
always.
