Thingstätte and Munich!
After a quick 2 week stint at home for Christmas (which went way too fast!) I am back in Heidelberg for a short amount of time. My flights home are booked for the 10th of February, and although I am super stressed out with the abundance of exams and uni work, I will be really sad to leave! So I decided to make the most of my last few weeks here by squeezing in some last minute trips. You'll all be glad to know I
finally went to the top of Heiligenberg to Thingstätte and visited Munich, both of which I have been dying to do for the last four months.
My first weekend back in Heidelberg consisted of me mainly sitting in my room with a cold feeling sorry for myself, wading through a pile of work I didn't do over Christmas and booking tickets to "pop" to Cardiff to visit Sam... On Sunday, having spent two and a half days wallowing, I decided to seize the opportunity of some sunny, but chilly, weather and go for a stroll. Somehow my stroll into the near by pretty suburb of Neuenheim turned into a hike to the top of Heiligenberg, a large hill (mountain in my eyes) opposite the castle. In the winter sun the walk was so pretty, and all the (incredibly chilly) fresh air did help me feel a little better. And I only got a tiny bit lost!
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| Up Heiligenberg |
At the top of Heiligenberg, and quite hard to find if you don't know where you are going, is a huge amphitheatre, created during the National Socialist era for rallies and training the Hitler Youth, called Thingstätte. This all might sound incredibly depressing but it really is quite spectacular! It can hold 5000 people sitting or 8000 standing, so it's absolutely huge. On the walk to and from Thingstätte I only met a few people (made great friends with this German family who were also trying to find it...), so I was quite surprised when I went through the entrance to find loads of people lounging in the sun. Apparently there is a Heidelberg Uni tradition where everyone goes up to Thingstätte together at the end of exams, which I can imagine would be so cool, but sadly I'm not here in the summer for it!
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| Thingstätte |
On my second weekend I went to Munich with Fi, something I have been meaning to do for soooooooo long! We only went for a short trip, Friday evening until Sunday evening, but we managed to get a surprising amount of things done in that time. Friday evening we found the nicest little Italian restaurant with the yummiest GF pizza I have ever tasted ever! The proof being that we went back again on Saturday evening... Sadly it was quite out in the suburbs so we did have to go on a little adventure to find it. Saturday morning we went on a (VERY) cold walking tour around the old city, which was actually really good despite the chilly weather! We went to all the main sights and into the Hofbräuhaus beer hall, where so many of Munich's historical events have taken place, which was really cool even at 11am!
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| Hofbräuhaus |
After the walking tour we grabbed some lunch and explored some more of the city. We had a wander round the Viktualienmarkt, which still had remnants of it's Christmas market lurking around, and then took the hundreds and hundreds of stairs up to the top of Alter Peter, the tower of St. Peter's church. From the top of the tower you get an amazing view over the whole of Munich, including all the main sights - the Frauenkirche, the Neues Rathaus and Marienmarkt. Although it was a bit of a trek up all of the stairs it was definitely worth it for the view!
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| Frauenkirche and the Neues Rathaus |
The next thing on our list was, obviously, Dirndl shopping! If you don't know what a Dirndl is, it's basically a traditional German dress worn in Bavaria. Most people will only get their Dirndls/Lederhosen out for Oktoberfest, but in smaller towns and villages people even wear them to church on Sundays! Ever since my friends went to Oktoberfest in September last year, I have been incredibly jealous of their pretty Dirndls, and as it was January sales the time just seemed right to do a little Dirndl shopping of my own!
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| Yay Dirndl shopping! |
On Sunday we got up early and headed out to do a speedy bit of touristing before visiting the nearby former concentration camp at Dachau. Although it was a really foggy day I was determined to see the Nymphenberg Palace whilst we were there, so we jumped on a tram to check it out. Because of the foggy weather, however, it was a bit of a game trying to find the place! I can imagine normally you can see it from the road where you get off the tram, but we had to get so close that we were standing right outside before we even realised it was there! It did make for some cool pictures though, and I would definitely go back again in the summer to see it in all it's glory :)
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| A very foggy Nympenberg Palace |
From there we got on a train to Dachau. I wont write too much about it because I think it's really something you have to do and see for yourself, but it was definitely worth going. It didn't have the horrors of the remains at Auschwitz, but you still definitely got a feel for how horrifying it would have been to be detained there, just from the shear size of the place and the number of buildings that once stood there.
All in all a fun and very education weekend spent in Munich! Now all that's left to do are the summery things like the English Gardens, but I really just see that as an excuse to go back one day... ;)
