Left Austria early made our lunch and hit the road at 8?
I managed to sleep until we got to Dachau then had a sobering moment of the trip. Walked through the museum which had a lot of information leading up to the war and outlining what went on in this specific concentration camp. Dachau was makes only this was very much a workforce camp. Saw actual documents they used to record the prisoners, the weapons they used to beat and punish them and watched videos of camp survivors and what their experiences were like.
Walked through their crammed bunk rooms, toilets and wash basins.
Read signs stating the unbelievable statistics of how many thousand lived in the barracks and how few it was actually meant to house. Saw how malnourished the men were. Nothing quite compared to the feeling looking at the kilns built and still standing in the crematorium just along from the gas chamber which was just along from the dentistry room where the nazis took the gold from the prisoners teeth.
It was definitely an experience none of us will forget and struggled to really comprehend.
Once we returned to a very quiet bus I managed to sleep again until almost lunch time when we cranked out our packed school lunches with chocolate bar and apple aaaand juice box. Love it.
Played some hilarious bus games, bit of a pub quiz on the amazing history Emily our tour guide has been teaching us and then blind date where the eligible bachelor was fooled into choosing another guy on the bus. Brilliant.
Pulled into the Rhine valley at about 6.30ish. Tramped down the path to the castle we were staying in and found our room through the maze of stone staircases. It was really cool.
Had a yummy dinner down in the basement before deciding to venture down the hill into the village. So glad that we did, walked along the beautiful cobbled streets and along the Rhine river until we found a pub type thing with a lot of Germans dressed up and watching the Germany Denmark soccer game. Sat inside and enjoyed a glass of German beer in a great atmosphere of sports mad Germans. They had horns, whistles, hats, face paint, everything and I almost jumped out of my seat when Germany scored a goal.
Walking up the stairs to get back before our curfew of 10 was a good challenge and we made it up in record time of 8 mins.
Had a seat on the castle courtyard with everyone before stupidly deciding to take myself off to bed by myself. I nearly peed my pants I was so scared finding my way through the castle to my room by myself. Was very relieved when the American girls arrived up and I could close my eyes and drift off.
Decided in the morning to skip the hostel breakfast and grab some German bakery for breakfast/ lunch.
Hit the road jack for about twenty minutes before getting to the cuckoo clock shop, stein shop and Birkenstock shop. a bad stop for the pockets.
The stein shop had a pretty sweet Topdeck tour specially made stein.
Jumped back on the bus though, next stop Amsterdam via lunch at marchee which Emily got excited about.