The Saunders Wander

Close to Munich is the town of Dachau, which was home to the first of the Nazi concentration camps, opened in 1933. The camp at Dachau became the model for the system of concentration camps throughout Europe and is, I think, an important piece of history to experience, to drive home the horrors that occurred there and which must never be repeated. Though it is a somber place to visit, I believe the memorial site does a good job of preserving this difficult history, and more importantly of educating visitors in a respectful and impactful way. We learned while we were there that all schoolchildren in Bavaria are required to visit a concentration camp each year as part of their history education. After the war, the Dachau concentration camp was used to house German troops before trial, and then for refugees from the war. Eventually the original barracks were torn down, but two have been reconstructed - the rooms in the barrack are set up to reflect three different timeframes in the camp

Having checked the weather forecast, we knew that Tuesday and Wednesday would be our best chances to be outdoors for an extended period, so we planned to stop for a little hiking in the Alps on our way to Austria. We went to a lovely area called Berchtesgaden, which included a national park with all kinds of trails. On our way we stopped at one of the visitor centers for the park and got a recommendation for a hike of about 2 hours, not too hard since all we had brought were our hiking shoes, and we knew we wouldn’t arrive until mid-day. The woman we talked to was happy to help, and sent us on our way with a suggestion of a hike that should take us to a mountain hut where we could, of course, get a snack and a beer.    We parked in a cute little town from which the trails were to start, and worked our way across a river with a covered bridge, and up the hills through some amazingly picturesque farmland to the base of the mountain. The hiking trail was gravel, and followed alongside

One of the things that Charlie found while we were looking for things we wanted to do in the Salzburg area was a list of alpine lakes and lake towns that seemed like an absolute must-see. As we had checked into our hotel the receptionist was delighted to hear we were planning to check them out, so we knew we had made a good choice. Since the weather was slightly spottier than the previous day, and we had done some hiking, we decided on a couple of lake towns where we could walk around and take some good pictures, and have a nice leisurely day. We started at Lake Mondsee, home to a fantastically colorful Main Street, and the church from the Sound of Music movie. As we walked towards the church we were halted briefly by a funeral procession, complete with band and horse-drawn carriage/hearse. A whole huge crowd of people created the procession, and it was actually a really neat glimpse into some of the Austrian traditions, I thought. As the procession passed we oohed and ahhed a

We were correct in our assessment of the weather, and on Thursday for our time in Salzburg it was a bit more overcast. Not to be deterred, we packed our umbrellas and headed out to see the fortress and old town. Just down the street from our hotel we encountered a farmer’s market filling a square in front of an old church, so we wandered over to check out the beautiful produce and baked goods and procured the day’s pretzels. Across the street was the Mirabell Palace, famous for its gardens, which we were pleasantly surprised to find out were free. The bulk of the garden is a large square with flowers planted into colored designs, much more effectively seen from up in the palace I’m sure, but still really cool from ground level. I pity whoever has to mow those lawns in between the flowers though, and expect that it must be done with scissors in some of the really tight corners.      We also happened upon what was labeled as a “gnome garden”, with a bunch of gnome statues. Appare

We saved arguably the most touristy thing we did the whole trip for the last day, and drove from Salzburg through picturesque mountains and Bavarian towns on our way to Neuschwanstein castle. This castle built by King Ludwig II as a private residence and is very famous and well-liked by tourists. There are two castles actually in the same valley, Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein. The former was a summer hunting castle for the royal family, and where Ludwig II spent much of his time growing up. Each room was beautifully decorated, and they are lucky enough to have the original furniture as well. There were paintings covering all of the walls, in the romantic style, depicting scenes from operas, battles, and from Bavarian history. The first floor we visited was the King’s quarters, and one floor up was the queen’s quarters. I found it interesting that they lived separately, each in their own apartment of sorts with a bedroom, reading/living room, dressing room, etc. Of course, there was