Safely in Cologne

After a long day of travel by cabs, trains and bikes, we have arrived in Cologne for the next few days. John is busy watching a major political debate in German so I thought I'd take the time to get down some thoughts.

Earlier in the week we spent a day in Andechs, a very cute village outside of Munich famous for 2 things: a functioning monastery that's ridiculously old and the beer which the monastery produces. It has been said that this is best beer in Bavaria. John would be a better judge of the beer, I mean it tasted pretty good to me. It's so good you can only drink it onsite and in the nearby village. There were no "to go" bottles of this stuff. The monastery and accompanying Rococo church were certainly beautiful. The church is insanely ornate; check out the pictures. We were treated to a tour that included a look at their collection of relics, kept behind a door that requires multiple skeleton keys to open and that has one of the most complicated locks we've ever seen.

Yesterday, we spent much of the day at the concentration camp in Dachau, outside of Munich. It's difficult to say how the day was, saying it was "great" doesn't seem quite appropriate. It was powerful, moving, hard and somber. The weather set a perfect scene: cold weather, gray skies and a biting wind. Despite the hoards of tourists, the museum and the grounds of the camp have an arresting impact. World War II is never far from your conscious (or conscience) in this country; the Germans are brutally honest about their horrific past and have taken care to preserve the history, even when it's damning, and to honor the many victims with thoughtful memorials. Both John and I have noted that our own exposure to the Holocaust was perhaps more sanitized than what we might have experienced here. German school children are required to visit a concentration camp as part of their curriculum and if they are shown the same documentary as we were shown, the children must certainly be as scarred as we were by the images of the camp. I've posted the pictures we took during the day here.

Today on our way from Munich to Köln we stopped in Bonn which is our potential second location in this year. We biked through the city and John and I both had our eyes open for the potential in the city. The impression was a good one despite the rain. The streets are clean and quaint. There's a major university in the center of the city and lots of green space and trees. Our interest has been piqued so if you have any information on Bonn, send it our way!

John starts another busy week in the morning. I'll be off to continue my touristing.