Last weekend we decided to take advantage of the three day weekend and head up north a bit. We have some friends in Garmisch so the plan was to meet up with them and explore the area. We arrived Saturday night and set up our tent. We put on every piece of clothing that we had and climbed into our sleeping bags preparing for a cold night, and that it was. Bavaria got their first snow that very night and we were juuuust below the snow line. I’m pretty sure I need a better sleeping bag if we intend to do anymore winter camping.
In the morning we still hadn’t made contact with our friends, so we started to explore Garmisch. We went to Partnach Gorge, it was beautiful. Waterfalls everywhere. The place where we parked to get up to the gorge was at the Arena for the 1936 olympics, the very first televised one that Hitler used for advertising.
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| Olympic stadium 1936 |
We finally got a hold of our friends and we all piled in their van and headed to Munich. We went to see Dachau Concentrarion camp, which was of course sobering. It was one of the first and longest running camps. It was a school of terror, they taught nazi soldiers how to torture people there. Jonah slept…
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| “Work brings freedom” written on the gate to Dachau |
Then we went and “enjoyed” some German food in Munich. Well everyone else enjoyed it while Nick and I sat there feeling like we were gonna lose it…not sure what happened there. I knew I didn’t like sausage but I didn’t know just the smell of it could make me that sick. (Nah I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the sausage since Nick was sick too…maybe the concentration camp?)
Monday morning Jason and Marianne fed us yummy pancakes and we said our goodbyes. We were off to see the Castles of Crazy King Ludwig. We toured the Linderhoff castle which was reminiscent of a French estate. Ludwig was a bit of a loner and had a table that lowered down for the servants to put food on it and then came back up. So that he never had to see anyone. He also had this crazy “opera cave” built. He wanted to feel like he was part of the opera while he listened to it so he had a fake cave with a grotto in it, complete with a seashell boat that he used to sit in. It even had lights that could change colors to give it different feels, crazy dude.
Then we did a drive by of his other two castles, Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein. The N one is the castle that Disney based his castle off of. I didn’t get a good picture of it but if you look it up you can see pictures that resemble the disney castle.
Then as per usual we drifted back over the Italian border on gas fumes, making it to an Agip (the only gas station we can use with our coupons, and only in Italy) just in time. Home again home again.
