Christmas Days

We've had a relaxing few days at the house over Christmas.  I love that it was a really simple family Christmas where it was more about being with each other than presents and the whole commerciality that seems to pervade our Christmasses.

After all our exciting busy-ness, I finally took the opportunity to enjoy a bit of down time on Christmas Eve. 

I did have to share with you something I found when I stopped into a supermarket with Andrew the other night.... a box of fahrt!!!  Gotta love those Germans!

I believe this is Jelly Crystals - farht!!!! lol

It didn't snow on Christmas morning, but I so enjoyed our time in the snow when we arrived in Goetteldorf, I didn't mind so much.

Tree after JJ and Fritz the cat had been chewing on the fruit loop chains....

Well, we are currently sitting in our hotel in Luxemborg and about to embark on our journey into Belgium and France....so we'd better get a move on.  Luxembourg is a gorgeous old city.  We went serching for an early dinner last night, but everything was closed.  We got to see some of the city though and after getting lost, we headed back to the hotel and had quite a delicious meal in the restaurant there.

Gotta go......

Nuremberg

In follow-up to our Dachau Concentration camp visit, we next headed off to Nuremberg to visit the Nazi Rally Gounds and take a look around on the 2rd December. Everything here closes on the Christmas Eve and Rachel had a few errands to run on post so it was just Andrew, the kids and I who set off...

Another train ride.  Pheonix was not sad.

One of our favourite passtimes while travelling is spotting weird signs along the way.  As a matter of interest, I saw a big sign on the side of a building whilst driving Andrew and Rachel to the train station the other day that said 'sparkasse' - Andrew informed me this was for a bank! lol

I love how the parking meter signs don't give any illusions as to the fact they are there to rip you off and you will be 'losen' some money...

The Rally Ground was just as poignant as the Concentration Camp.  It was a huge complex in it's day but now it quite morbidly stands as an unfinished arena, never to be completed...a reminder of the fervent passion of hatred and murder that was once stirred by a basically unremarkable man.

Rally Ground Entrance

Inside the museum, each visitor receives a personal audio guide set to a language of your choice and you tap in the number of the exhibit to hear a commentary about that particular item.

We certainly knew where we were straight away.  As we were standing at the counter waiting to pay our admission, Andrew picked up one of the tennis-raquet shaped audio guides to have a look at what it was.  The clerk promptly marched over to him and, bruskly, in a very strong German accent informed him, 'Wunce you have paid, you vill get one of those.'  Oops.  (Audio-guide nazi!)

One of the first exhibits was a short film of two modern day young adults who were riding their skateboards around the rally grounds and then keep finding different historical scenes....and I thought Japanese were strange!  Now I have thought about it, it is probably quite appropriate for German people to see how important and relevant their nation's horrific history is to present-day Germany, but at the time we were viewing it, we were sitting their wondering what skateboarding has to do with Nazi-ism.  Probably lost in translation....

Enigmatic picture of the Fuhrer that you approach by a little gangway

The sheer volume of people on the 'favoured side' only outdone by those who suffered at their hands

What has always really struck me as fundamentally terrible about the holocaust, aside from the blatantly obvious, is that one was born into their 'right to live or to rule'...no matter what a man might achieve or not in his life, unless he made a fatal mistake of denouncing his class' or 'superior' race, there was nothing he could do to escape his terrible fate.

The grounds were never completed.  What now stands is a delapidated arena, stripped of it's grandeur and laying in the ruins from allied bombing.

Apparently these walls were to be another 30ft higher

This is what happens when I tell my children to look sombre

The following exhibit are all little cards that contain the name of one of the prisoners who perished on the trains during transportation....these are the ones they had the details of...

We soon had had enough depressing history, so we set out to explore the beautiful old city of Nuremberg, perhaps take in the Toy Museum and check out the famous Christmas Market.

As we were making our way around on the trams, I took this lovely picture of my beautiful daughter and her handsome uncle....

Here are some pics I took as we walked around the old town

We had worked up quite an appetite, so we decided to hunt down something to eat.  I figured that we were so close to the border of Italy that we should try the pizza....wrong choice!!!!

For some reason, pepperoni in Germany is not the beloved sausage meat that we all know and love, but this ugly little green 'pepper' vegetable/fruit.  And the tomato that I was expecting on my pizza was in fact the tomato paste base.

Salami pizza with mushrooms, tomato and pepperoni????

It didn't help that the waitress was rude as....lesson learnt!  Will wait until one day we visit Italy before we sample foreign italiano again...

 By the time we got to the Toy Museum, it was only 20mins until closing time.  Naturally, we played 'Find the scariest-looking doll.'  Basically, put an axe in any one of these doll's hands and we have the makings of a blockbuster movie, I'm sure....

We finished off our day with a wander through the Christmas Markets...



The markets were quite magical, but very expensive - I picked up a simple black knitted hat that had 49 Euro written on it's tag (about $A60)...and I'm pretty sure it was synthetic.

It was quite an interesting day and evening.  Once we got back to Goetteldorf, we enjoyed a nice relaxed evening snuggled up watching 'It's a wonderful life'....

Without vigilance....Dachau Concentration Camp

Our trip to Dachau started with an incredibly early dash from the house and a crazy demonstration of my brother's mad driving skills!  We had booked a tour online the night before which meant we needed to be at Munich (Munchen) train station at 1000, a good 2.5-3 hr drive from Goetteldorf.

We were on the road at 0715, but did need to go into Ansbach so Andrew to could fuel up his car on base, and we also had to do an obligatory Maccas run on the way (hey, no time for breakfast at home!)
I was most pleasantly surprised to see that they had McCafe with my very favourite chai latte.  Unfortunately, it wasn't the yummy chai from home, somewhat a different blend of spices, but drinkable none-the-less :-)

Yesterday was winter solstice, so the sun didn't rise until after 0900 I think, so we were cruising down the country roads and the autobahn in the dark for much the trip.  Well, although it was snowing, Andrew very safely got us to the train station just in time for us to join our group (they only waited for a few minutes for us after we phoned ahead to let them know that we were having trouble finding a park near the station.

Munich Train Station

Once we were at Dachau Train Station, we transferre to the bus for our journey out to the Concentration Camp.  The bus took the route that the prisoners would have had to walk to the camp.

First Glimpse

We had a tour guide named Allen who took us through the camp and explained some of the history and details of what we were seeing.  It was absolutely freezing, probably the coldest I have been since we have been here.  I am so proud of Sequoia and Pheonix, who were with Andrew, Rachel and I, for their maturity and tenacity in spending the few hours in the snow and rain listening to a lot of information that they probably won't truly understand or appreciate for a few years yet. 

It was a very sombre and moving time, and just the sheer cold, calculted methodology in running the camp is overwhelming.  I have read a lot of literature about the holocaust, but I guess nothing can prepare you for standing on the roll call grounds where the prisoners would have stood in sub-zero weather with little more than rags on their backs in the freezing snow for hours, to be right in the barracks where thousands of bodies were crammed into the bunks where originally only a couple of hundred political prisoners were meant to be kept, and to look through the 'shower room' equipped with zyklon-B administration capabilities and then led into the crematorium ovens for fast efficient disposal.

Entry Gate - Work make Free

The party line is that Dachau was never a 'death camp', part of 'The Final Solution', that the showers that were never used for more than single agitators or rare small groups, although the extermination chamber facilities were constructed a good three years before liberation.  I, personally, do not buy that.  I could not see how this facility sat idly for years when atrocities and murders occurred (why waste a bullet when there is a much quicker, easier and more efficient method so readily available)?

The barracks are a recontruction of the different bunks during the early years of the camp (Dachau was originally opened in 1933 as a prison for political agitators), where the prisoners even had their own lockers for personal belongings and probably straw mats for their bunks....

...to where the beds were contructed for higher numbers...

...and eventually they were made just to cram as many people in as possible...

I can only begin to imagine what it would have been like for the men who endured this....

The memorial site is filled with many post war constructed memorial buildings and sculptures, however, it was mainly the original buildings and accurate reconstruction of the camp buildings and facilities.

Crematorium...

Here are the three of us in the torture barracks

It was a very sobering and thought-provoking visit.

On a high note, we got to catch one of the high-speed double-decker trains back to Munich.

At Dachau train station

Here comes the train

Train Face

Now that we were frozen through and had only had our Maccas breakfast all day (about 1500 when we got back to Munich), we decided to enjoy some more delicious German fare. 

It has become a daily treat for me to warm up with a cup of the warm mulled spiced wine, so once we had grabbed one of these as well as some sugared almonds and cashews from a street vendor, we headed for a little restaurant near the station.

Well, as I was in Germany, my darling little brother 'encouraged' me to attempt a stein of beer with our meal....



...with quite hilarious results!  What does fahrt mean????  You have Einfahrt (entrance), Ausfahrt (autobahn exit) and all sorts of fahrts.  Personally, I'm a little suspicious of all the saurkraut they eat...just saying.

As I was just a little unsteady when we were leaving the restaurant, I asked Rachel to take some photos for me.  I'm not sure exactly what happened, but I think she didn't want any assistance with operating my camera, and without thinking, I called her a camera nazi (re soup nazi)...rather loudly.  Some older gentlemen turned and stared at us, I just kept going out the door.  Oops.... Talk about forgetting where you are....

The kids really enjoyed their meals as well.

We headed back to Goetteldorf, and had a marvellous 80s style music-fest the entire way....air guitar, anyone????

Well, we are just about to head out to Nuremburg to visit the Christmas Markets there and check out the Nazi Rally Ground and maybe the toy museum there.

Have fun.....

Christmas Magic in Rothenberg

After an enjoyably easy morning, where Grandma was up early making delicious little German sausages with pancakes for breakfast (which we had with fruit and home-made muffins) we decided to check out the Christmas Markets in the Old Town of Rothenberg.

The snow disappeared overnight, but we saw flurries in the morning and then in our travels through the country-side we saw varying levels of snow fall.  It was pleasant drive, about 45 mins, to town, and Andrew, Sequoia and I took the hire car and Rachel, Grandma and the littler kids drove out in Andrew and Rachel's car.

Rothenberg is gorgeous!!!  Such an old-style town with narrow, cobblestone streets inside a castle wall.

From outside the Old Town

Entrance to the city

Shops and Towhouses

Christmas Window

It was absolutely freezing!!!  So we did nake quite hasty tracks to a restaurant in the town for a delicious traditional German lunch!

Bread with mustard and warm mulled spice wine

Bratwurst with Potato Salad

We also had some Apple Strudel with Ice-cream for dessert, but it didn't last long enough to take a picture :-)

After lunch, we took a stroll around the Christmas Markets, which were right through the town.

Town Square with some of the stalls

Candle Stall

Some of the buildings are just amazing. 

Chemist

This building was built in 1681

Whilst the children took a ride on a Carousel, Andrew and I took a wander through an old church cathedral.  Amazing!

Church Stain Glass Window

Pipe Organ

Carousel

Aunt Rachel and Uncle Andrew wanted to go down the street to look at some shops, so Grandma and I took the children to buy some market trinkets and then for some Hot Chocolates at a little bakery along the way.

Sequoia and JJ

By this time although it was only about 1630, the day was coming to a close, so we drove back to Goetteldorf for a nice relaxing evening at home.

Tomorrow we will be up early to drive down to Dachau, so everyone is nice and early in bed tonight.

Sleep tight....