Landkreis Erding

It wasn’t until 10am that we were up & checking out of the hotel. We returned to our car & set off to visit some sights around Munich that were too far to see on foot.

First up we drove to the Bavariaring, the road that circles the massive empty concrete blob of ground in the western side of the city that is the official venue for Oktoberfest. We parked up & saw lots of police vans cruising around & small groups of men walking about. Today was supposed to be the first day of Oktoberfest 2020 & should have been full of huge beer tents & funfairs. Some people obviously thought they would attend anyway.

Oktoberfest 2020 was supposed to have run from the 19th September to 4th October, but had been cancelled due Covid-19. It also explained why we saw a lot of people dressed in the traditional Bavarian outfits of lederhosen & dirndlkleid.

We then drove a few miles to the south of the city to the home of Bayern Munich FC, where they have their training ground & club shop. There was a lot of activity with 2 club coaches outside, a Sky TV van & lots of fans. We were able to park up & take a few photos.

We next headed to Schlosspark Nymphenburg, where the Nymphenburg Palace sits in expansive landscaped gardens about 4 miles to the west of the city. It was refreshing to discover that we were able to park free of charge. Nymphenburg Palace is one of the largest royal palaces in Europe, which is open to the public for a fee, but we decided to walk the free 299 hectare gardens with it’s sculptures & picturesque lakes. It was a very pleasant couple of hours in the warm sun.

The next destination was the Olympic Park, scene of the 1972 summer Olympics, particularly infamous for an attack by eight members of the Palestinian terrorist group Black September, who took nine members of the Israeli Olympic team hostage, after killing two of them previously, and killing them along with a West German police officer. It didn’t end well.

We got to the outskirts of the Olympic Park but our onward movement was impeded by barriers. We drove round trying to find a suitable place to stop, but all potential parking spaces were filled by families visiting a funfair on the site. We abandoned this idea & hunted down a Hofpfisterie or other bakery as we were now starving. We bought two lamb pies & a Danish pastry.

We then headed north out of the city, stopping to photo the Allianz Arena, Bayern Munich’s 75,000 seater stadium since 2005 & home of Friday night’s massacre.

From one massacre, we drove a further 10 miles north to Dachau Concentration Camp, the first Nazi Concentration Camp of it’s kind. It opened on the 22nd March 1933, shortly after Adolf Hitler became Chancellor & was originally built to house political prisoner. It became the longest running Nazi Concentration Camp & was finally liberated by US troops on 29th April 1945. Records show that during the period there was an intake of 206,206 prisoners and deaths of 31,951. The Camp was designed for 6,000 prisoners, but by the end 30,000 prisoners were crammed into it.

The camp was also the SS Training Centre & the regime was a model for all other Nazi Concentration Camps. The camp was a work camp, but the weak & disabled were exterminated in the crematorium. Hideous experiments were conducted on the detainees to test human tolerance, including hypothermia & drinking solely salt water which were tests for the Luftwaffe pilots.

We walked through the informative museum in the main building, then went out to walk amongst the prisoners barracks, two of which were still standing. We visited the memorial site and then took a walk through the crematorium, which was capable of being used as a gas chamber.

At 5.00pm sharp, Das Fuhrer appeared & chillingly informed us that we needed to leave as it got cold at night with the gates locked. We think it was his attempt at German humour!

Back at the car, we selected our accommodation for the night & drove to a very basic, but satisfactory hotel in a industrial area of Parsdorf to the east of Munich. I got told off for momentarily removing my mask from the officious receptionist.

That evening we walked half a mile to a Bavarian restaurant & had a fantastic meal of pork & dumplings & pork schnitzel & chips. It was excellent, certainly one of the best meals of our entire trip.

Song of the Day : Ghosts of Dachau (“Dachau Was A Nazi Concentration Camp, The Scene Of Mass Murders”) by The Style Council.Read more