Bavaria

After Salzburg, we spent a few days in Munich.  We also visited Dachau concentration camp while we were there, which was the first concentration camp and meant to be a model for future camps.  It was a very solemn and contemplative place to think about some of the darkest parts of human history.

Holocaust victims read the promise "Work makes you free" as they enter the camp.

This is a memorial to the victims of Dachau.  In the background you can see some of the reconstructed barracks.

We craned our necks along with the other tourists to see the glockenspiel do its thing.  This is a view of the Rathaus (or town hall) from Marienplatz square in Munich.

As this was only about a week before the olympics started, we thought it would be fun to see the Munich Olympic park from the 1972 olympics.

In Munich, home of Oktoberfest, everything has something to do with beer.  It is laced throughout their history.  The beers are very large here also.  We were told that in the Hofbrauhaus, maybe the most famous beer hall in the world, they only have one size of beer.  If you order a 1-liter beer, they will smile and bring you one.  If you order a 1/2 liter beer, they will laugh at you and then bring you a 1-liter beer.  They even have a beer purity law, the Reinheitsgebot, that was instated in the 1500s to ensure higher quality beer.