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Guten Tag from Bavaria, Germany!

Bavaria is the largest of all Germany's provinces, and boasts a culture of lederhosen, beerhalls, and businesslike yet generous people. From the Champagne region, we traveled back through Paris on an overnight train and arrived in Fussen, which is in the southernmost tip of Bavaria -- just a few kilometers from the Austrian border.

JOE: We're here to visit a breathtakingly beautiful fairy-tale castle. It's the same castle upon which Walt Disney based his Cinderella castle that he built at Disneyland. Nestled in a tall hill at the foot of the Austrian Alps, the Neuschwanstein castle is one of the most extravagant ever built with detailed woodcarvings and marble mosaics. Swans are everywhere. The flamboyant boy king, Ludwig II, took over the throne at age 17 (Jenni says 19) after the death of his father and he went right to work building this castle in 1869. But he spent so much time building castles in the countryside that some of his political enemies accused him of ignoring the affairs of the kingdom of Bavaria, so they had him declared insane. That's why he's known as "Mad King Ludwig." But he and his family were very generous to the people of this region who instead gave him a nickname of their own: "Good King Ludwig."

JENNI: They say King Ludwig II was born 200 years too late. He was a romantic to the core, and could hardly be bothered with the business of being King and politics that go with it. He spent most of his life in this southern area of Bavaria - even though the official family residence was in Munich - building castles and listening to the music of Robert Wagner's operas. (You know some of Wagner's work…he's the one who wrote The Wedding March song). Ludwig II was quite the eccentric King, and it bothered the politically powerful in Munich. As Joe says, they eventually had him declared insane, deposed him of his throne, and took him away from his castles. The next day they found him and his psychiatrist dead in a shallow pool of water near Munich. His death, officially ruled a suicide, has always been surrounded by suspicion. After all, the guy was 6'4, an excellent swimmer, yet somehow drowned in a foot of water. Hmm.

JOE: My favorite part of Bavaria was the scenic countryside (see travelogue). We are rushing through this region and will only visit Germany for 5 days. We're in a bit of a rush to get to Prague because our kind host, Des Acosta, is about to leave for a trip of his own to Greece for a couple of weeks. We'll only see him for a few days before he leaves on his vacation. Because of the rush, I've not yet been able to get over my allergies. I'm suffering major attacks and have depleted our large stash of allergy medicine (Benadryl, drowsy variety, since I'm not operating any large machinery). While I'm enjoying the sightseeing, I am not feeling well because I'm constantly sniffling and my eyes are watering. We're hoping to spend the better part of two weeks in Prague, where maybe we'll spend some time resting and getting over this.

JENNI: Joe is suffering, poor thing. We trained back to Munich and found rooms in a hotel recommended by three guidebooks, right near the Marianplatz and the Glockenspiel, whch was not as stupendous as I had imagined. I left him doped up and sleeping around 11:00 the next day to spend the next five hours visiting the first concentration camp established in Germany - in Dachau. Dachau is actually a town - I was not aware of that - and the locals apparently are saddened that the name of their town will forever be linked to the cruelty of the war. Contrary to myth, Dachau did not chosen to be the site of the first camp because of devout support of the Nazis. In fact, the citizens of Dachau overwhelmingly voted against the Nazi Party at election time. Dachau was selected because a former munitions factory was located there that was shut down after WWI. The camp was originally built to house about 5000 criminals and political prisoners in 32 buildings…by the end of the war, 30,000 people - criminals, political prisoners, Jewish people, Gypsies, prisoners of war and many more from 30 different countries - were incarcerated there. You can imagine the overcrowded conditions. The beds got smaller and smaller until there were no beds anymore - just floorspace wherever you could find it. People were so tightly packed in bed that at regular intervals an "official" would blow a whistle, and everyone had to turn over in tandem. This was to kickstart the circulation system throughout the night, as the blood would pool and keep people from being able to work the next day. The prisoners would awaken between 3 and 5AM, depending on the work required that day, and assemble within 15 minutes in the roll-call square where the SS would count everyone for hours - sometimes miscounting on purpose to make them stand there again. Always at attention. If anyone moved, that was cause to be sent to the Bunker, where they would be subjected to horribly imaginative tortures.

The only way in or out of the camp was through the gate, where the phrase, "Arbeit Macht Frei" (Freedom Through Work) greeted the prisoners as they came in. The perimeter was protected from escape by a 10-foot wide stretch of grass, followed by a ditch, then an electrified barbed-wire fence, then another strip of grass where SS soldiers and dogs would patrol, then another concrete fence with electrified barbed wire stretched across the top. Escape was impossible, but suicide was easy. The memorial at the camp signifies the popular type of suicide the prisoners might choose - to throw themselves on the fence and die by electrification. Or by being shot to death. If they stepped on the stretch of grass, guards in the watchtowers with machine guns would shoot them without warning. When a guard wished to be rid of a particular prisoner, he might toss the prisoner's hat onto the grass and order the prisoner to retrieve it. If he did, he was shot to death "while trying to escape". If he didn't, he was sent to the Bunker for a slow death of torture.

This camp had a gas chamber, although it's said that was never used. The crematorium, however, was used extensively to burn the corpses of more than 30,000 people who died here. The building was quite nondescript…nothing like the huge buildings I'd always pictured gas chambers and ovens to be. It looked strangely normal. I walked through it, in the way all prisoners would walk through it - past the front doors into a disrobing room, then into the fake showers. It was vitally important that the shower be packed with people. The cyanide-like gas used relied on higher temperatures to take effect. After 15 minutes, everyone would be dead. Then another 15 minutes to let the gas dissipate, and then other prisoners would remove the messy bodies, move them to a storage area just outside the ovens, and whitewash the showers so other victims wouldn't suspect anything when it came their turn to "shower". Again, this gas chamber was reportedly never used, although there are doubts. Some think that the city of Dachau insists it was never used so they can retain some level of dignity - i.e., they could say that Dachau was never an extermination camp - merely a work camp. There are other theories, enough to cast doubt in my mind that the gas chamber was never used.

This tour was incredibly powerful and sobering to me. I'd seen the battlefields in Normandy just days earlier, and the chance to see what that invasion helped stop was a very special experience. I'm glad I went. It made the entire visit to Germany more important that simple tourism, somehow.

JOE: Munich is a special because it's my father's third home (Puerto Rico and now Texas are 1 and 2). He was stationed here as a teenager and then again in his late 20's while serving in the U.S. Army. On his second tour, he brought his family: my Mom, my sister Gladys, my brother Jim, and myself. That was 30 years ago in 1971. Some of my first childhood memories take place right here in this charming city. Probably the most amazing museum we've toured in Europe so far is the Residenzmuseum. It was the royal residence for 400 years and it's such a huge palace that only half the 160 rooms are open in the morning and the other half in the afternoon. There is chamber after bedroom after courtroom after hallway with artwork in baroque, rococo, classical and renaissance styles. The Antiquarium is the largest renaissance room north of the Alps replete with dozens of sculptures lining the walls. We were spellbound by the Schatzkammer (Treasure House) which houses a giant collection of the king's most valuable possessions. The collection includes crowns, jewelry, ivory carvings, toys, porcelain, and many gifts from other countries. The statuette of King George slaying the dragon is very impressive, although you wonder how he could move in his suit of armor with so many rubies and emeralds weighing him down. The museum also reminded us of how much work historians and, for that matter, all of Munich had to do after World War II considering only three percent of the city was left standing after all the bombing.

JENNI: A great deal of Munich had to be rebuilt - making the city's architecture an interesting mix of old and new, side-by-side. We took a bike tour with Mike's Bike Tours (Joe and I both HIGHLY recommend this tour company - the information was interesting, the guide funny and irreverent, and the bikes comfortable. The guides are native English-speakers too!) the afternoon we got there, and that gave us an excellent introduction of the city and its history. We discovered that many buildings have gold, or a gold color, built into them. That's the way you always know which direction you're going - all the gold decoration faces West, to catch the sun's afternoon rays. It's truly stunning. We also learned that the Munich people make do with whatever water they can find, whether it's a pebbled beach or faux surfing. Part of the tour includes lunch in a biergarten in the Englischer Gartens, where there is a special area for nudists - mostly older men, to Joe's dismay.

By the time we're ready to move on, Joe is feeling better and able to make complete sentences without sneezing. Our overnight train to Prague leaves at 11:00PM, so we partake in hefty liters of beer at the famous Hofbrau Haus in the company of three New Yorkers who really sound like they are from New York! We drink enough to give ourselves a hangover the next morning (NOT good after a fitful night on the train) and we barely make it to the train station in enough time! Next stop - Prague in the Czech Republic!