Salzburg

Salzburg is the fourth-largest city in Austria (Popularion ~150,000) and the capital of the federal state of Salzburg. Salzburg's "Old Town" with its world famous baroque architecture is one of the best-preserved city centers in the German-speaking world, and was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997. The city is noted for its Alpine setting. It is the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and the setting for parts of the musical and film The Sound of Music, which features famous landmarks in Austria, but focuses mainly on Salzburg.

Hohensalzburg, the mightiest fortress of central Europe, was a powerful castle sitting in a prominent position on one of the highest points of land in the city. It is one of Salzburg’s prime attraction and most dominant feature of the city’s skyline.

Our tour guide indicated that we picked a good time to visit. The town is very busy during the summer with thousands of tourists visiting to attend plays, music festivals and concerts. Two sites that we did not have time to see were the salt mines and Hitler’s Eagles Nest which was just a few miles away in nearby Germany.

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A view of Salzburg from the Hohensalzburg Fortress. (pic from WEB)


A view of the Salzach River.


The location where parts of the Sound of Music was filmed.


Fortress Hohensalzburg


Venicular to the fortress. The tram car is at the bottom.


Another view of the old city from the Hohensalzburg Fortress. The gold ball in the courtyard is where locals play chess on a large outdoor 'board'.


Inside the fortress. It was a massive structure.


Horse and buggy rides are very popular in Salzburg.


A typical street in the old city. They have a McDonalds here!


Morzart's birthplace. He moved to a house in the new city at the age of 17.


A church graveyard in the old city. The gravesites were very ornate and well kept.


Don Armour in front of the Salzburg Cathedral. Don was the coordinator for the ski trip to Selva.


Chess players with a million dollar view. If you want to see what this looks like from the fortress, go back a few pictures.

Munich

We left Selva Val Gardenia mid morning on Saturday February 2, 2008 and motored to Munich, arriving late afternoon. Traffic was heavy on the Autobaun and we detoured via a route throug Garnish, an area that has been home to several Olypmic sporting events. The alternate return route enabled us to see different parts of both Austria and Germany.

Munich is Germany's third largest city after Berlin and Hamburg. The city has a population of 1.5 million and the Munich Metropolitan Region is home to around 6 million people. The city's motto was "Die Weltstadt mit Herz" ("The world city with heart") from 1972 to 2005, when it was replaced by "München mag dich" ("Munich likes you"). Its native name, München, stems from an Old German word predating the word Mönche of today's High German, meaning "Monks". Therefore, the figure on the city's coat-of-arms is a monk, and is referred to as the Münchner Kindl, the "child of Munich". Black and gold - the colours of the Holy Roman Empire - have been the city's official colours since the time of Ludwig the Bavarian.

During the five days in Munich we visited the Deutsches Museum, Nymphenburg Palace, the 1972 Olympics Park, the Ratskeller Resturant, Hofbrauhaus AM Platz, the Town Hall Clock (Glockenspeil), DacHau, the Marienplatz, enjoyed Carnival festivities and made a one day visit to Salzburg. On the morning of February 7 we departed by rail for Venice.

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A view from our room in Munich. We stayed at the Europaeischer Hotel which was located across the street from the main railway station, next to the subway station and a few blocks from Marienplatz, a key shopping district in the center of the city.

A shot of our room.

The Nymphenburg Palace. It was part of a hop on hop off bus tour that we took. With its lavishly decorated interior and the famous "Gallery of Beauties" commissioned by Ludwig I, the palace is one of Munich's favorite attractions. Among the highlights are the former bedroom of King Ludwig II and the impressive banquet hall with fine ceiling frescoes by Johann Baptist Zimmermann.



The gardens of Nymphenburg Palace.



An aerial view of the gardens. I wouldn't want to mow the grass. (pic from WEB)



A panorama of the Palace. (pic from WEB)



Site of the 1972 Olympic Park and the site where a Palestine terrorist attack ended in the deaths of several Israeli Atheletes.




The Olympic Tower.



An aerial view of the park. (pic from WEB)



The BMW (The four cylinders building) Corporate Headquaters and Car Museum.



Getting into the swing of Carnival.

Agnes and Genevieve trying to figure out were to go next.



You can rent a Segway in Munich for about 50 Euros per hour.



The Town Hall Clock or Glockenspeil.

The joust (top) is part of a knightly tournament in honour of the wedding of Duke Wilhelm V and Renata of Lotharingia. The Dance of the Coopers (below) commemorates the passing of an epidemic of the plague in 1515-17. The animation occurs several times a day.



The origional walls that surrounded Munich centuries ago.



The Deutsches Museum. It is located on an island in the Isar and is one of the oldest and largest science museums in the world. This is an excellent place to visit and is on a par with the Smithsonian Institute in Washington.

The main entrance to the Deutsches Museum.



Starbucks is here too!



The Ratskeller Resturant. It sits about 1200 and was one of Hitler's favourite spots for many years. It is located in the basement of the Town Hall. We also visited the Hofbrauhaus AM Platz, Germany's largest and most popular beer halls. It seats 4500 and the place was packed when we were there.

A small band came around to all the tables. They charged a few euros to play some music and were very good. It added to the enjoyment of the excellent meal.



One of the high speed bullet trains.



Leaving Munich for Salsiburg. This was a very large station.

Carnaval in Munich

Munich Carnival or "Fasching" takes place before Lent, which is often referred to as the country's "Fifth Season" or "Season of Fools", when it is traditional for Germans to let their hair down and have a good time before the fasting of Lent begins. The first Fasching Ball in Munich dates back to 1829; the tradition stuck and each year the celebrations got a little bigger and more spectacular. In 1839 an official body was set up, the Munich Carnival Society, to organise the annual celebrations. There are literally thousands of events ranging from fancy-dress parties through to extravagant balls where guests dress in their finest outfits. One of the biggest events of the season is Mad Munich ("Munchen Harrisch") on the last Sunday before Shrove Tuesday. During the celebrations thousands of dancers and revellers in fancy dress make their way through the streets to Marienplatz where there are several stages as well as numerous food and drink stalls

Not much going on here.



This guy makes good use of his beer caps.



A well endowed 'Fräulein'.



A traditional Bavarian costume.



This was a band of visually impaired musicians. They were good.



We never did figure out what this was all about.



Whatever they were drinking was very popular with the crowd.



A very unique costume.



Agnes with a street performer.



One of the many Oompapa Bands.

Dachau

Our visit to the concentration camp at Dachau was a very somber event. It is very difficult to comprehend how such horrible events could have actually occurred not that long ago. Dachau attracts over 750,000 visitors annually from all over the world and is the only museum that we visited during our trip where there was no admission fee.

Dachau was originally built to house 5,000 people taken into "protective custody" by the Nazis. By April 1933, it was taken over by the SS and became a model for other concentration camps that followed. Prisoners were subject to slave labor, medical experiments, torture, execution, and death from starvation, disease, or exposure to extreme cold or heat. Gas chambers were built at Dachau in 1942, but there is little evidence that they were ever used. The crematorium could no longer be operated after October 1944 due to a coal shortage.

Shortly before the liberation of Dachau on April 29, 1945 many of the prisoners were executed by the SS and more than 7,000 were moved south in a death march to prevent them from falling into Allied hands. After liberation, Dachau became a prison camp for Nazi War Criminals. In 1948, several war crimes trials were held in Dachau and many of the instigators of the Holocaust were executed shortly afterwards.

There were more than 200,000 registered prisoners during the history of the camp. Of these, more than 30,000 died. Because thousands more prisoners arrived and died in the camp without being registered, the total number of victims will never be known.

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The entrance to the Dachau Memorial Site.



The main gate through which most of the 200,000 prisoners would have entered the camp.



'Work Brings Freedom' a slogan used on the entrances to many of the Nazi Concentration Camps



We never realized the enormous size of the camp complex. This photo and the next diagram give some idea of just how large they were.



This diagram shows the layout for the entire camp. Only the main barracks area, one of over 30 barracks buildings, crematorium, gas chambers and service building remain and have been conserved for the memorial.



The only remaining barracks. They were designed to hold 200 and by the end of the war each unit was home to over 2000.



The wash basins.



The toilets.



Sleeping accomodations.



The Service Building where prisoners were first processed once they arrived at Dachau.



The fence around the perimeter of the complex.



The gas chambers. The two 'windows' on the wall is where the poison gas would be delievered to the chamber. A shower room was located adjacent to this room.




The crematorium.



One of the memorial rooms.



Another memorial room.



The Death March Memorial.