It had rained most of Tuesday night at Konigssee (King’s Lake) and started snowing around 08.00 on Wednesday, April 17 so, of course, we decided to do a boat trip along the lake to St Bartholomew’s Church. The whole area is a National Park so you can’t actually drive around the lake so taking the boat there was the only option. It was a lovely trip in a heated boat (thank goodness!) and the church itself was well worth the trip.

We left our park up at Konigssee at 11.15 to drive up to Berghof, Hitler’s retreat, that was nearby. We hadn’t reckoned on a 24% ascent!

We took a slight wrong turn and found ourselves at the Documentation Centre for Obersalzberg. It turned out to be a fascinating couple of hours learning all about how Hitler and his cronies ‘purchased’ the area called Obersalzberg and made it into one of his main residences. The exhibition told the story of how Hitler ran his political agenda from there with all the associated atrocities whilst the propaganda at the time portrayed Berghof as this idyllic retreat. From there we walked down to what remains of Berghof as it was blown up in 1952 as the Bavarian government didn’t want it to become a shrine. The whole area was so picturesque that it was difficult to reconcile the two. We also found out that the only way to get up to The Eagle’s Nest was by specialist RV buses that weren’t running so that idea was scuppered.

We left the Centre after lunch and headed towards Dachau as we wanted to visit the concentration camp there the next day. Our park up for the night was in Dachau station car park for the princely sum of €2! (P4N#348782) It also meant that we could catch a train into Munich for the evening. Munich was buzzing as Bayern Munich were playing Arsenal in the Champions League quarterfinals. With so many Gooners around, Liz and I felt like we were back in Highbury!

It was very cold walking around the city so we soon made our way to a beer hall to have Bavarian cuisine and good beer in the warm.

We thought we would get back for around 21.00 but the suburban trains all got cancelled so we had to walk to Munich Central Station and wait for a train from there. Luckily, it was only a 45 minute wait and we were back in Dora before 22.30.

The next day, Thursday April 18, we were up early to get to the concentration camp for our guided tour. It is hard to put into words how it felt to be there and learn more about the camp and its victims. It was the first camp to be built and Hitler started to send political opponents there just two months after he was elected as Reich Chancellor. It wasn’t an extermination camp as such but the forced labour and arbitrary executions meant that over 41,000 died there. The sheer scale of the place was extraordinary as it covered 500 acres although not all of it is part of the memorial site. It was very educational and sobering in equal fashion. Unfortunately, our guide wasn’t the best speaker and had to refer to his notes a lot but that didn’t detract from the impact of the place. It doesn’t feel appropriate to post pictures of the camp itself. Instead these are memorials to the victims.

Miles driven since last post: 123

Total miles driven this trip: 4,000

Tolls: €0