Month: July 2015

Dachau and the Black Forest

Today we travel from Munich to the Black Forest. A 4,5 hour drive if all goes well. First we visit Dachau, the concentatration camp near Munich. I have never been to a concentration camp this size.

When we arrived it was already 32 degrees celcius, it was actually very busy. Lot’s of school children which is very important.

The camp itself to me is a daunting place, maybe it was the heat or just being there but I got very sad. Simply because nothing really changed from those days. After WWII we had numerous events where lot’s of people were killed simply for being different. Maybe not on the scale with which it happened in WWII, but on a large scale nevertheless.

Even today. Really really depressing. ‘Never again’ a plaque in the camp says. Well we’re not there yet, not by a long shot.

Still I think it’s very important to visit these historic places. To remember how lucky we are to live in the West, a place on earth where freedom is the norm and being able to express different opinions.

After this stop we went off for the Black forest, a pretty long drive with some slow traffic on the 2 lane roads in the last hour and a half. Beautiful scenery made up for it. We arrived at our Ghasthaus Ratsstuble at around 17:30. Which was good. We had a nice meal and some beers before chilling on our terrace.

it’s going to be very hot tomorrow so we won’t be doing any long hikes just yet. Just walking down to the pool I think.

Munich – Day three

Today our third full and final day in Munich, started out with a nice breakfast at the same place as yesterday, Maria. Very good once again and I got lucky 🙂 , I had the last croissant.

A good start of the day. It was around 30 degrees celcius so we planned a relaxed day walking around and visiting some places we forgot the previous two days.

We visited the Asam Kirche , very cool indeed. Did some shopping, no purchases which is good. We then checked out the surf in Munich, which is pretty cool.

Very skillfull surfers indeed. It’s at the beginning of the English garten and due to some sort of barrier in the river there is a constant single wave.

Lot´s of people watching and very polite surfers. Everybody gets a wave. Awesome. Be sure to check it out when in Munich.

After that it was way past lunch time and we ate at the Goldene bar, which was nice and a terrace in the shade.

Finally we went to see the Keith Haring exhibition. At first I didn’t want to go as it was a bit late in the afternoon but my better half convinced me otherwise. Very good indeed, we had seen an exhibition in the Brooklyn Museum so I was afraid I wouldn’t see anything new. I was wrong. Lot’s of work we hadn’t seen before, which came from private european collectors and lot’s of big pieces. Very happy we did go !

We slowly returned to our hotel and decided to dine in the neighbourhood. Nice meal and a very good bottle of wine.

Munich is a very nice and relaxed place to visit. Especially if you stay away from all the tourist stuff (Basically Altstadt) and like exploring different parts of the city. It’s full of nice parks, restaurants, shops. Lot’s of art and musea as well but we simply didn’t have time. It would take a full month to fully see everything.

Munich is well worth your time. You can easily spent a few days.

Munich – Day two

Second day in Munich, started out with a 5 km run and then pancakes for breakfast, our hotel is situated in Isarvorstadt , a very nice and relaxed neighbourhood with lot’s of cool bars, restaurants and shops.

This was our starting point for the day, we walked around and then crossed the river to Haidhausen, this is a bit further away from the city centre and has zero tourists, it does have a very small town atmosphere.

We stopped for a soup at spoon up then walked around and got a beer at Zum kloster, sat on the terrace for a while reading and slowly made our way back.

We ended out day at the Trachtenvogl were we had a meal and some of the famous chocolate milk.

Our feet were killing us in the mean time so we headed back to our hotel. Relaxing and having a glass of red wine.

Today we encountered lot’s of parks, green zones and squares. There are so many places to just enjoy the nice weather it’s obvious why lot’s of people want to live here.

It’s the perfect city if you enjoy a walk nice restaurants, bars and we haven’t even started with the museum’s yet.

The more time we spend here the more we like it.

Munich – Day one

We are on a short holiday in Germany, starting in Munich. We were there once in 2013 for a Depeche mode concert. Just for a short while. We decided that we should go back for a longer stay.

So here we are. Today we just walked around town, checking out a few neighbourhoods. Mainly Schwabing , Maxvorstadt and a park called Englisher Garten. Which is just big , pretty cool in size but not as well maintained as Central park or Regent park.

Discovered a few very nice bars, a cool breakfast place called Joon.
Also a cemetery which since the early 1930’s functions as a park.

Not a lot of tourists in these places, luckely. Munich is a very green and spacious city. I can see why it’s one of the best places to live. Albeit a bit expensive. Especially housing. That’s pretty much unafordable.

One of the cool things about the city is a lot of people ride bikes. Which is good, the traffic isn’t as busy as you would expect from such a large city.

Tomorrow another day and a few other neighbourhoods.