- 05 May 97 -13 July 97

Head for Munich, Germany

Most of the route was up the Rhine River valley. The morning part of the trip was still cloudy and somewhat foggy from yesterday's rain, but it cleared up by about 12 or 1 o'clock. The Rhine valley is beautiful - quite a few old castles up in the hills, towns in the valley along the river, and a lot of vineyards for that "fine Rhine wine". Railroad tracks flank the Rhine on both sides, we were on the southern side and saw quite a few trains across the river on the other tracks. Took advantage of the Dining car again for lunch on the train.

On arrival in Munich, we didn't have exchange currency this time, just got a map and taxi to the hotel (The Hotel Andi, aka The Comfort Munich City Center - Landwehrstrasse 33). When we got in the taxi and told the driver where we were headed, he sort of looked at us "funny" before heading off. It turned out that this time we could have walked. The hotel was only about 2 1/2 walking blocks from the station. After getting the Munich map, I checked at the Tourist Infomation for route information to Dachau for tomorrow. We get to ride munich's Metro S-Bahn / U-Bahn System! S-Bahn #2 from the Munich Hbf to Dachau (~20 minutes) then Bus 722 from the Dachau Hbf to Robert-Bosch Strasse and a short walk from there to the Concentration Camp Memorial Site.

After check-in, we went out for about a 2 mile walk - west along Landwehrstrasse to St. Pauls, the Bavaria Ring, and the Theresien-Wiese (a large park area) across the Ring from St. Paul's, then back east on Schwanthaler Strasse to the ring road surrounding the "old town" area and the Marienplatz.

Stopped in for dinner at the Mozart Cafe but they were closing. The manager was real nice and asked if we could wait just a little while, he would lead us to a nice Italian restaurant. We did. On the way to it, rather than go down thru the U-Bahn station to cross under the ring road, he lead us across the street and over a hog wire fence in the center - just as a Polizi Car went past. No problem, it was pretty obvious from the way the fence was pushed down that we were not the first to cross. While talking to the owner of the restaurant we found he had been in the US, entered at Port Everglades in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.

Today was a nice day of travel and easy walking.