Munchen, Germany

 Old railroad tracks leading to the entrance

 Gate to Dachau

 Crematorium

 Furnace

 Gas Chamber

 Remnants of the Barracks

 "Social Democrat Poster"

 If you look at the columns you can see the shrapnel scarring

 Dunkel Bier

June Eleventh, 2012 -

Today was the first full day in Munich and our first stop of the day was the German town of Dachau.  For those that don’t know Dachau was one of the only concentration camps in Germany itself.  When you first get to Dachau’s camp you walk through right where the prisoners were brought in and just recently in 2004 they uncovered some of the remnants of the train tracks right by the entrance.  It was a very eerie feeling being in such a depressing and horrific place.  Some of the things that were still preserved were parts of the barracks where from the early 30’s all the way up to 1945 political prisoners and Jews were held captive and brutally murdered.  I walked through the entire site and still as I am writing this now cant believe some of the things I saw.  There were parts of the walls and guard towers that were intact and gave you just an idea of what these people experienced.  Some of the most intense things that I saw were the crematoriums, gas chambers, and execution range with blood ditch.  After walking the grounds they had a museum that had even more history about the concentration camp and the types of things that went on during those dark times.

 Below the talons used to be a swastika 

After the dark history lesson we headed back to Munich to clear our heads and enjoy another bike tour. Today’s tour was given by a guy named Levi who from America, which was nice being able to understand every word he said.  This tour was different that most of our other tours because a lot of Munich was destroyed in World War II.  There were some buildings that are still left standing, and show their scars from the war.  My favorite part of the bike tour was stopping of at the English bier garten in the public park in Munich.  The park is twice the size of central park just to give you an idea of its enormity. 

Once we made it back to Mikes Bike Tours we got a quick beer across the street and then hung out and watched the soccer match.  After the game we headed home because we have to meet at 6:15 in the am, which is the earliest time so far.