Europe 2013 – Munich, Dachau, Salzburg

From Moers (where my godchild lives) we went straight down to Munich for CFCamp. On the way we picked up our friend Helen, who happened to be touring Europe at the same time. We stayed at a nice big house just outside of Munich (where we were joined by Kay a day later) and went to the conference and on day trips from there. I only did a CFML introduction workshop, but Kai attended the full conference and held sessions and workshops too.

Here are some of the highlights of our stay in Bavaria:

• My sister and my nephew came for a visit!

My sister and nephew visiting us in Munich.

• Helen and I did a great amount of touristy things: shopping, churches, Deutsches Museum… 

Munich: all the shopping, all the churches…

• We visited the Dachau Concentration Camp. Another depressing experience, with the concept being similar to Hiroshima and Peal Harbor: you go where something terrible has happened and there’s a museum explaining what led to the horrible event, what happened during the event, and how people dealt with it afterwards. The main difference to Hiroshima (which made me actually cry) is though, that the museum seems to be designed with friends and family of victims in mind. While all the information needed to get a comprehensive picture was there, it felt a little bit ‘toned down’. It’s really hard to describe, but I think the absolute horror of what happened there wasn’t transported particularly well. But this might just be my personal opinion, especially since I have experienced memorial sites that messed me up emotionally much, much more.

Dachau concentration camp.

• We did a day trip to Salzburg, where we first visited the Dokumentationszentrum Obersalzberg (and got a glimpse at one of Hitler’s bunkers) and then dropped Helen off at the Sound of Music tour. And while Helen was visiting the filming locations of the movie, Kai, Kay and I just wandered through Salzburg, had fancy coffee at a fancy cafe and wrote post cards.

Salzburgian fountain horse, snorting and spitting water.

• Kai and I went to Flugwerft Schleißheim, which is actually part of the Deutsches Museum, but focuses on aviation. Kai flew a helicopter simulator, and I was allowed to sit in the back, which was quite exciting. 

Selfie at the Flugwerft.

We had a great stay in Bavaria, it was quite relaxing, and we managed to squeeze in quite a few things we were keen on doing. Needless to say that another shopping spree ended up with us having to send another parcel back home to NZ (but this time it was only 5kgs). But by the time our stay in Munich came to an end, we were ready for the ‘real holiday’ part of the trip: Italy!