Last night, we arrived in Munich at around 5:00pm and had a walking tour around the city. The tour guide was a young Canadian guy who showed us landmarks and explained some history of the city, and he was really funny too so it kept the tour interesting for the hour and a half (even in the -5 degree weather).
I did not know much about Munich aside from Oktoberfest and lederhosen, so I was very pleasantly surprised to see a beautiful, regal-looking city. The architecture is very beautiful and charming.
The tour ended at Munich's most famous beer hall, Hofbrauhaus. I enjoyed a meal of pork roast and dumplings accompanied by Bavarian beer, of course served by the litre!
I had a couple of the beers and had a great night with some other tour participants.
After all that beer, I had a rough morning this morning. This was not helped by the fact that we had a full bus day ahead of us to get from Munich to Venice. The day started with a stop just outside Munich. We visited Dachau, which was the first concentration camp in Germany. It was hard to look at the pictures and artifacts and read prisoner testimonials. At the end of the museum there was a gallery of survivors who all look happy in their old age, and I became very emotional.
After that we headed towards Austria en route to Venice. The drive was long, but we had a short stop in Innsbruck, Austria. It was a quaint little tourist town with beautiful mountain views.
Now it's time for a much needed sleep here in Venice, we have a big day of gondola riding and wine drinking tomorrow!