Frankfurt to Munich

Plane arrived an hour late after another tiring flight. Eventually got to pick up car, no probs but when I put the GPS maps in to load, they wouldn't accept then. Incompatible , grrrrr!!

Got on the road after fueling up. 36 litres of diesel cost NZ104 (1.52 Euro/litre). So off on the road for a 4 hour drive. This little car goes well and you can keep up 140-150 km/hr on the Autobahns. The alst 30 minutes was hard as I was getting really tired. Ros was out of it. Found our hotel easily enough, even without the GPS, had a quick snack and went to bed by 8 pm. Of course, woke up @ 04.30!

Breckkie is included in the bill so we were in before 07.00. Really good food - everything you could want, pig done in about 50 different ways as well as cereal/fruit/pastries/bread - no butter just a hazelnut spread??

Headed off into town during the morning rush with no plans whatsoever. Saw the signs for Dachau so we went there. Even now, it's an eerily scary place. No birds singing at all, except for some crows which seemed to make the place even sadder. It's almost impossible that a nation could be led into doing that sort of thing towards a set of people they don't want but the Khmer Rouge did it in Cambodia and similar things happened in Rwanda, Kosovo and still going on in the Sudan. We only stayed an hour at Dachau but we'll remember it.

One thing in NZ that we forget is the size of the roads - lanes are so narrow, parking is very difficult and the roads are congested most of the time. Happy motoring, yeah right! We found an underground parking lot that had spaces. No wonder as it was so cramped that even with our little car, we had to reverse to get around some of the corners it was that tight. Had a wander around Munich and it was packed with humanity. NZ just doesn't cut the mustard when it comes to busy. We had a look around the centre, had lunch and went for a walk in Der Englisher Gardens. It's lovely leafy park with a couple of creeks running through it. We were sitting down watching a few people strolling when we heard a brass band, not too far away. We marched to the sound of the tubas and suddenly found this throng sitting at tables dinking beer out of steins, eating pig quarters and an oomapah band playing in a Chinese pagoda. We were forced to buy a beer and watch the goings on before heading back to our village outside of Munich.

Just a couple of random musings:-

·Vancouver is a very prosperous place. Lots of Ferraris, Porches andBentlys etc but also a very visible amount of homeless, drug addicts, the like of which, I've never seen today before. Some of the sorriest people on earth live in such a beautiful city.

·Toilet paper in Bavaria is very strong and soft, but with a huge emphasis on the strong side. Perhaps it's got something to do with beer, sausages and sauerkraut.

·The leather for the Lederhosen comes from NZ deer.