Germany Day 10 – Separate Mornings and a visit to the Tollwood Festival

One of the things I wanted to do was to make the short trip to the suburb of Dachau and visit the concentration camp memorial. Suzanne and I had visited during our trip in 2000. She didn’t have a strong desire to return and Kyle is much too young. (While I did see some younger kids there, the museum is not recommended for kids under 12.) She felt it was okay for me to head off on my own, which I did. The trip was very sobering, as I expected. In 2000, we visited on a warm, sunny day in May, so visiting on a cold, overcast day in December made it more powerful. They have redone the museum since we were there and things are very well presented. Everything is captioned in both German and English. I don’t know that I’d call it a highlight of the trip in the traditional sense, but it was definitely worth doing. (Note, I have also visited Buchanwald, outside of Weimer, in late November 2003. While the museum at Dachau is much better, I feel that Buchanwald was even more powerful.)

Suzanne and Kyle slept in, eventually getting going around 10:00. They headed off to the Deutsches Museum transport center, near the Oktoberfest grounds. Kyle really loved a few of the exhibits, especially the computer game about driving an ambulance. After they were done, we met back at the apartment for a late lunch and a nap.

After our rest, Kyle did not want to get up, but it was getting toward time for dinner. We headed out to the Hacker-Pschorr Brauhaus near the Theresienweise park (Oktoberfest grounds). Dinner was quite good and the place wasn’t too busy. There were a number of other families with kids, so we didn’t feel out of place. They even had chicken nuggets for Kyle. (Two entrees, one kids meal, one beer, and two other drinks was €45.) After dinner, we headed to the Tollwood Festival at the Theresienweise park itself. This is something of an “alternative” Christmas market. It was interesting, and they had an amazing array of food choices. Of course we had just eaten, but we did pick up some fresh roasted almonds. After walking around for a while, we hopped the U-Bahn and Strassenbahn back to our apartment for the evening. It’s hard to believe we only have one more day. It’s our plan to visit the main market once more and do some last-minute shopping. We’re also hoping to visit the Viktualienmarkt since we forgot (yes … forgot) on Saturday. Then, we have to repack everything for the trip home.