Munich Carnival

Munich holds a carnival yearly and this year, we are lucky to witness it. It is like a smaller scale of Mardi Gras and they call it Fasching in German.

The highlight is on Tuesday where people take leave to dress up in pretty or funny costumes and parade around ViktualienMarkt. They have concerts, drinking and dancing there for the people to celebrate.

The Glockenspiel tower dressed up for Fasching.



The party starts from 10 in the morning but mostly people stream in later.
Viktualienmarkt without much crowd yet and some of the early birds all dressed up!



The only person dressed up that Megan wanted to take photo with coz it's a princess.



This is the time where you can legally litter the streets, confetti sellers are at each corner and you can buy a bag to throw at anyone. People throw it at anyone anywhere!

Megan getting into the fun by throwing confetti at other kids.


The parade with people dancing and singing on a lorry.

Hamburg

Lovely sunset view over Hamburg

We decided to visit the Miniature Wonderland museum (Modellbahn) which is all on mini railways, trains and displays since it seemed interesting and suitable for Megan. Daddy said there was a long queue the previous time he was here so he didn't manage to see it.

Walking towards the Museum which is situated along the canal banks, where they convert the old warehouses into museums.

Some of the displays in the museum. They have displays of trains and rails in Germany, Switzerland, Norway, Austria etc. It's amazing how the people could craft out these models and look so real.




Pictures of the warehouses and canals.


We headed for the city centre which was a short walk away.


Taking the river cruise in an old boat to admire the river and waterways.

Kassel

Daddy had to travel to Kassel for work so we tagged along and stayed there for 2 nights before heading to Hamburg for a weekend trip.

The city centre where the Kassel Palace is, a wide open space in the middle of Kassel Town.






A wide and lovely area with a big park. Megan loved to roll on the grass and run about the grounds.


After playtime, we had a tea break at one of the cafes in Kassel Town. Coffee, cakes and pasta! Yum! And Megan again has a little corner to play in.

Dachau

We visited Dachau, pronounced as "Da-Hau" by Germans.

It was a short regional train ride away.

Thing about Germany is that there are many different trains to different places but the network is really good so we do not really need a car to go around as many places are quite accessible.

Anyway, Dachau town is known for being the infamous Nazi concentration camp in the past. Mainly, people come here to visit the horrors of the past.

Taking the bus from Dachau bahnhof (train station) to Dachau Concentration Camp




This was the very first concentration camp by the Nazis. Here we are at the entrance.


After purchasing our Audio guides, we took a short walk to the entrance of the camp.

Taking a shot of the roll call square through the gate.



The roll call square



Tall trees lining the way towards the memorial, crematorium and churches.

Along the sides were previously all the camp bunkers but no longer standing. Only one is left to show us how horrible were the conditions in the past.