Bayern Munich

I don't understand why we call places different names to what they are called in their own country, like we call Firenze Florence, the area in Germany that they call Bayern we call Bavaria, and we call Munchen Munich.....  Anyways, the latter city is where I was off to today, away from Salzburg where I should have just made an overnight stay instead of 2 days, I ran out of things to entertain me and ended up sitting on a bench looking at the city and doing Su Duko, getting hit on by a strange old man.....  The train journey to Munich was fine, and I amused myself by watching people try to close the automatic door between the carriages, small things for small minds eh, although it was quite funny.  The train passed through lots of pretty looking villages with lovely alpine houses, all wood and lots of colourful flowers.  At the local train stations I managed to get a good look at more than a few women in traditional Bavarian dresses.  I hadn't actually realised that people dressed that way still, they looked like beer wenches you'd see at a stereotypical German bar.

A church

Luckily my hostel was very easy to find, so I headed off to the main drag, armed with my map of the city.  Today was a painful for the left foot so I had to cut short my explore around.  My first impressions of Munich were ok, it seemed like a very busy bustling city in which I had loads more to explore. 

Beer tankards

I managed to learn some interesting facts about Munich whilst I was holed up in my hostel room recuperating: the city name actually means 'City of Monks', and is where Hitler based himself along with other right-wing nutcases, so it was in effect the birthplace of the Nazi party.  You can actually go on a Third Reich tour to discover the 'fascinating darker side of Munich's past'.  Another trip is to the first Nazi concentration camp at Dachau, which was built in 1933, and housed over 200,000 prisoners from various countries.  I spoke to an Aussie girl at the hostel who had been there, she said it was just as haunting as you would expect.

Building

Shop with pretty flowers