Flossenburg Concentration Camp

We had a "free" day on Saturday and we wanted to see some of the sites closer to Mary Anne's house.  We decided on a day trip to Flossenburg.  On the way we stopped for lunch at one of their favorite places.  You know it's gonna be good when it's a tiny little place with a walk up window on the corner of the street.  Oh yumminess.  Döners.

I remember when Mary Anne blogged about her first visit to Flossenburg.  She titled it "A humbling day in Flossenburg."  I knew a little about what to expect but it was nothing like experiencing it in person.  Troubling, yes.  Sacred, yes.  Humbling indeed.

(And to clarify since you wouldn't be able to tell from all of the pictures, Dusty, Mary Anne, Sadie, Canon, and Emmett were all there with us.  Sadly, no one is actually IN any of the pictures  I guess it's just one of those places that you don't find yourself smiling for photos)

This building is the entrance to the concentration camp...the SS Headquarters.

We started out meandering through a building that was set up like a museum.  It gave a good history of the timeline of the war and what went on in the concentration camp.  The stories I read on those walls...I can't even find the words to describe how I felt knowing people were treated that way.  Just awful.  We watched a short film with interviews and narration by some of the survivors and then headed out to the main grounds of the camp.  I'm going the post the pictures in the reverse order that we actually went through the grounds, mainly because the signs that describe the sights kinda make a tour and it makes more sense that way but we just happened to do it backwards.

This picture was taken in the museum building.  It was the last room we went into and the first room the prisoners entered.  The Prisoners' Washroom .

This area shows the building remains of the sick-bay barracks that housed the seriously ill and dying prisoners and the detention barracks ...

From the autumn of 1944 the number of people killed increased enormously.  A tunnel with a ramp was constructed in order to transport the bodies to the crematorium below the camp.  The entrance was located near the quarantine area.  After 1945 the tunnel, ramp, and crematorium became a symbol of death on a massive scale.

This is the ramp that led down to the crematorium.  There was a hole in the wall that is now filled in that connected the tunnel in the above picture and the ramp in the picture below.

The following is the "Valley of Death" memorial.  Information is taken from the signs posted throughout the memorial.  Construction began in 1946 and it is the oldest concentration camp memorial in Bavaria.

As early as 1946, victims of National Socialist persecution living in Flossenburg, mainly from Poland, erected a memorial to the victims of the concentration camp.  The former camp gate and some parts of the camp fence were moved from their original location and used as the entrance to the memorial.

A view from the top looking down at the pillars of the camp gate.  “Arbeit Macht Frei” or “Work brings freedom”, the motto that was once on the left gate post indicates the allegedly educational objectives of the concentration camp – in reality prisoners were exploited, tortured and in many cases worked to death.

The view from the camp gate looking up at a watch tower...

The prison crematorium formed the next section of the memorial.  The building, constructed in 1940, included a room for dissection and an incinerator for burning the bodies of the steadily increasing number of victims.  The camp gate and crematorium are symbols of the beginning and end of a prisoner's fate.

From the crematorium a path leads to an open area, which includes the execution area, the "Pyramid of Ashes", two memorial stones dedicated to the Jewish prisoners, and the "Square of Nations" (not pictured) which has gravestones that represent the victims of the concentration camp and indicate their various nationalities.

(The sign reads "Prisoners were shot in mass here")

A stairway leads up to the chapel "Jesus in the Dungeon" which was built with the stones of demolished watch-towers.  A watch-tower of the concentration camp serves as the church spire.

A view from the chapel looking down on the Valley of Death...

A few photos that Rob took as we were leaving the concentration camp...

It started pouring down rain so we quickly headed back to the car.  On the way back to the house, we stopped by another favorite place....this time for our first (and definitely not last) taste of gelato!  No pictures but it was just about as yummy as the döners!

Neuschwanstein Castle

On our way back to Germany from Austria, we stopped at Neuschwanstein Castle, which is the castle that Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty's Castle was designed after.  Ludwig II had it built as a retreat and homage to the composer, Richard Wagner, but it was never finished in Ludwig's lifetime (and actually never completely finished at all).

A view from the road of the castle nestled in the mountain...

Ludwig lived in Hohenschwangau Castle, which is across the way from Neuschwanstein.  This is the view from the parking lot below where we ate lunch (Nutella sandwich, anyone?  Thanks, I'll have two.) and where Mary Anne and I squeezed through the turnstile together to use the public WC because we didn't have the right amount of euro coinage for both of us.  Such rebels.

On the Amazing Race a few seasons ago, the contestants were given a clue that took them to Neuschwanstein.  I remember at least one of the couples went to Hohenschwangau Castle and found out they were at the wrong one and had to make the long trek up the hill to Neuschwanstein Castle.  Then there was another couple where the girl had a total meltdown on the way up the hill, threw down her backpack and told her boyfriend (husband?) to carry it.  It was fun to BE where that actually took place and laugh about the whole scene.

It was quite the hike up to the castle, which was probably good since we had those Nutella sandwiches to burn off!  We kept pace with the horse carriages that were hauling people up so we felt pretty good that we made it up in the same amount of time PLUS got in some sweet exercise (and saved some money!).

We got up to the castle a little before our tour time so we took some pictures.  You enter the castle courtyard from archway the middle of the reddish section ...

Totally washed out but this spot was in high demand for photo ops so we didn't stay long to get the perfect lighting  :)

Some pictures as we were closer to the castle...

You couldn't take pictures during the tour....sad!  It was so cool inside.  I loved it!  After the tour, we walked around the castle and up over to Mary's Bridge which shows the famous view of the castle.  So GORGEOUS!!

 

Some more views of the outside...

Rob liked the faces on this side of the castle (just above the scaffolding)...

A view of Hohenschwangau Castle on the walk to Mary's Bridge...

Before heading back to the car, we had to stop for a bite to eat...

I was so glad we made this little detour on our way back to Germany.  Definitely a highlight of the trip!

Salzburg, Austria: Part Three

Can I just say BEST. DAY. EVER! (in my best Rapunzel voice, of course!)  Our second day in Salzburg was probably my favorite day on the trip (and we even got poured on so that's saying alot!).  We started out by making the trek up to the Hohensalzburg Fortress.  We ventured through Old Town, passing by most of the sites we had seen the day before.

Cute horses and carriages lined up and ready to take tourists around town...

It was really overcast but we were lame and left our one and only umbrella back at the hotel.  When we got up to the top of the fortress, it started to rain.  We decided to take check out the museums in the fortress and then took an audio tour in hopes the rain would pass by.  The fortress was more of a museum.  It wasn't set up like how it would have been back in the day, but instead had different museum rooms throughout with things from way back when.

A view of Salzburg from a cannon hole...

In the Marionette Museum...

In the weapon room...

In the music room...

The Salzburg Bull, an organ that Archbishop Leonhard von Keutschach supposedly had built in 1502 in order to wake the town inhabitants at four in the morning and to signal the time for bed at seven in the evening.

This section include various things from rooms used by the Archbishops.  A fancy, schmancy furnace (called the Majolica Stove)...

Yep, that is what it looks like it is.  Wonder where that empties to?

These next two are the ceiling and walls in the concert room...

 

Part of a wall that was excavated to show the original arches in the wall...

The fortress telephone system, I believe...

 Doesn't look so comfy...

It was still raining but we wandered around the outside of the fortress trying to find the Abbey but didn't have much luck and decided to head back to Old Town since we were drenched and hungry!  We finally found this little student cafe near Mozart University that Rick Steves recommended if you want a cheap meal while mingling with students away from the touristy places.  Well, cheap is what we were going for and it ended up having the best soup and a stroganoff type rice dish, even if looking at the menu we had NO idea what it said or what we were ordering.  I'm sure the lady behind the counter of the food line was just as frustrated with us as we were in trying to tell her what choices we wanted.  Maybe it was because it was a warm meal and we were wet and cold, but it sure was a tasty, cheap meal!

My best "look-like-your-pouting-and-not-trying-to-smile-because-you-are-soaked-to-the-bone" face...

We headed back to our hotel to change into some dry clothes and get our coats.  We had originally planned to rent bikes to find the rest of the Sound of Music sites but decided to drive instead because of the soggy weather.  First up was the GAZEBO!

Since it was locked, we had to pretend we were dancing and leaping from bench to bench...

Next up was the mountain scene at the end of the movie when the von Trapp family is crossing into Switzerland.  The scene was filmed here but ironically if they had actually taken this route, they would have ended up in Germany, right into Hilter's Eagle's Nest...probably not where they wanted to go! 

They had a cable car ride that would take you up to the mountain top but we got to the ticket office and it was closed from April 8 to April 20...of course, the exact dates we were in Europe.  Rob and I love watching the Amazing Race and this cable car ride reminded me of something the teams would have had to do on the show.  Looking up at how high you would be hanging from this little cable actually freaked me out but I would have done it just to prove to myself that I would have to do something like that on the Amazing Race and I would conquer a fear!  After taking pictures of where we could have gone, Mary Anne said, "Well, darn, what should we do now?"  to which I quickly belted out in my best Mother Abbess voice, "Climb Every Mountain!"  Oh man.  Fun stuff.

See how high up you go?!  The arrow on the left is near the starting point and then it takes you all the way to the arrow on top!  Yeah, I think I might have hyperventilated on the way up!

Next stop in the GPS...the meadow. What meadow?  We're not exactly sure.  The opening scene when Maria sings "The hills are alive with the sound of music"?  Or maybe when she starts to teach the children "Do Re Mi"?  We're not sure we even found either of those but the mountain meadow that the GPS led us to was absolutely gorgeous!  I want to live there!  There were cute little houses up by the meadow and I can just imagine this peaceful little life there.  Oh wait, I'm day dreaming again.

Here's Mary Anne and I trying to do our best Maria, spinning while singing the hills are alive...



This was the fun part.  Rob would take pictures of us taking pictures.  He put this little animated photo together with some of the shots.

Aww...my love!

Love this girl, too!

Next we headed to the von Trapp mansion (well...mansions)  Did you know they used two different places for the front and back of the mansion?

Maria runs down this road doing heel clicks while carrying her suitcase and guitar case and singing "I Have Confidence in Me" so of course Mary Anne wanted to do it!  Cue the heelclicking!  We tried so hard to time it so both of us are jumping and clicking at the same time that Rob takes the picture.  Not easy!  I think this was the closest we got after laughing so dang hard while looking at the pictures on the camera that Rob had gotten so far.

The front view of the mansion...

 

And then on to the next site, the back side of the mansion with the lake...

 



And that was the end of the sightseeing in Salzburg.  We went to dinner at an Indian restaurant in Old Town and then headed back to the hotel.  One last night shot from the bridge...

 

And a few views on the walk back.  A cool window display at pretzel shop...

 

And that, my friends, was Salzburg!