Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Munich - The world city with a heart





Munich (German: München) is the capital of the German Federal State of Bavaria (German: Freistaat Bayern). The above pic is of Marianplatz, the main hall famous for Kakku clock.
Munich is Germany's third largest city and one of Europe's most prosperous and expensive. The city has a population of about 1.3 million (as of 2006) and the Munich metropolitan area is home to around 2.7 million people. The city is located on the River Isar north of the Bavarian Alps.


We, Lalu, Saha, Ayan and me have been to Munich from Arhus at the time of the October fest in 2004 September. The city was in a festive mood and decorated with flowers and shops.
This is Dachau Concentration Camp - from left Lalu Gorila Pijush Ayan Saha

Dachau was Germany's first concentration camp, started in 1933 because the prisons were overflowing with people the government didn't like. They didn't have enough money to just build more prisons the way we do in our War on Drugs, so the Nazis built work camps like Dachau.

Dachau is huge. It would take about an hour just to walk around all of the grounds. Approximately 30,000 prisoners (1,173 of them German) were living there upon liberation in 1945. The site is thoroughly reminiscent of a huge public high school, assuming your public school had an original Arbeit Macht Frei gate, a gas chamber (never used), or a Krematorium. The original barracks had to be torn down in 1965 when the camp was made into a memorial; they were too badly decayed. - Source : http://photo.net/bp/dachau
We drove to Fusen, south of Germany, near Alps. The natural beauty was really wonderful.

Neuschwanstein Castle (below), royal palace in the Bavarian Alps of Germany, the most famous of three royal palaces built for Louis II of Bavaria, sometimes referred to as Mad King Ludwig, who grew up nearby at Hohenschwangau Castle



Finally back to Munich city centre, spent sometime with Prabuddha,Avijit,santanuda (local IBM assignees) and have Indian lunch before coming back to Arhus again.
Three Musketeers - Me (chalu) - Saptarshi (Lalu) - Anirvan (Bhulu)

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