2006 retirement trip

Germany April 12 to 14

Wednesday 12  April, 2006   We awake this morning to a wonderland outside the Alpenblick (Alps view).
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   We find that it has stopped snowing and, framed by the Alps, covered the area in a mantle of white.
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   It's one of the most breathtaking scenes we've ever witnessed.
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   When I got downstairs for breakfast Dani said "Instead of staying here for the next 2 days without a car, why don't you come to Germany with us".
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   She said that we could travel with them through the Bavarian Alps and stay at the same guest house as them in Wackersberg. Then they could drop us off at Munich station for the ride back to Vienna.
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   Jenni, who makes the big decisions in our family, immediately agreed.
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   The Alpenblick was a picture of serenity.
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   Claus got the car ready for departure. We were to ride with him as far as we could and extract the last few moments of pleasure from his company.
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   This was to be our route. Instead of taking the Autobahn due east to Munich, we would travel SE to St Johann in Tirol.  Then we would go to a little village called Aschau before rejoining the Autobahn at Worgl where we would say goodbye to Claus.
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   We meet the Barretts as planned at a predetermined spot (we travelled back roads and they went on the Autobahn) and continued our journey. Along the way we would leave Austria and go into Germany then back into Austria.
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   We're now in Germany and I see a castle. I pleaded for us not to stop at it. After a while, castles lose their attraction.
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   We travel SE through Germany. The borders are seamless, even less than going from one state to another in Australia.
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   The scenery is stupendous.
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   That's the Barrett's car in front - a Mercedes seven-seat rental van.
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   Travelling southeast, we re-enter Austria. Austria is full of little villages like this;  all very high quality houses. We never saw a dump during the whole of our time in Austria. It seems to be a country with the wealth spread around a little.
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   Austria's GDP/Capita at PPP is $38,400 (2007) which makes its income a little higher than Australia at $36,300 (2007).  Interesting: same figures for 2017 Austria = $49,200,  Australia = $49,900.
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   Our first stop is the Village of St Johann in Tirol.  This village has special memories for Rolf as this is where, he explains, "Dani was made".
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   In this very hotel in fact.
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   Dani and Rolf pose at the door of the place where the deed was done. He has a great sense of humour; he was 67 at the time.
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   Mike is on the left, Maria centre and Nicky is to the right.
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   We leave St Johann in Tirol, drive SE some more and take a narrow winding road into a settlement called Aschau - the A on the map.
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   We follow Rolf up this road almost sure he has to be lost.
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   It turns out that for many years, this is where Rolf used to take the family for holidays. A holiday here in winter or summer would be great.
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   Sure enough, Maria meets someone she knows. The boys meanwhile prepare to release some excess energy.
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   Alex
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   Claus took a photo of this is amazing old wooden building; probably hundreds of years old.
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   The bell on the top of the old house was to call the farmer working in the field when dinner was being served.
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   It seems to be a mixture of private homes and guest houses. There are no shops in this township.
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   A lonely fence wanders through the snow.
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   The village has houses or chalets buried into the hillside.
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   I imagine the corral is for horses during the summer season. Trail riding here must be spectacular.
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   We stop at this Gasthof for yet another huge lunch.
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   Skiers making their way back to their lodge.
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   From Aschau we travel west to Worgl and say goodbye to Claus. He travels north to his home in Ulm Bavaria, while we join the Barretts in the centre row of the van.
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   The weather starts to turn and becomes quite overcast and cold.
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   Rolf is keeping an eye on the external temperature as it is +1°C. He fears if it gets below that, the roads will turn to ice and become very dangerous.
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   We wind our way through a pass in the Alps and cross from Austria back into Germany. We get to a frozen lake called Lake Sylvenstein where we stop.
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   Except for a small portion near the waters edge, the lake is completely frozen. A frozen lake is not something that we see very much.
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   We saw one in Montana a few years ago and I think that was it.
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   As the snow falls, Nicky prepares to do some dastardly deed.
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   Sylvensteinsee is the lake in the bottom of the map just as we cross into Bavaria. We travel from here north through Wackersberg, where our guest house is,  to Neufahm where Rolf and Maria live.
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   Once at Rolf and Maria's house, the boys release some more pent-up energy.
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   They're great kids though and,  just occasionally, they do as their parents tell them.  Claus remarked that this would be unusual for German kids and wondered if Australian kids were different.
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   After settling in for a while at Rolf and Maria's home, Rolf and I visited his workshop in the nearby town of Egling. This is a Triumph Trident that Rolf has restored.
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   The Triumph Trident was Triumph's  first modern superbike and the last major motorcycle developed by the company. It was badge-engineered to be sold under both the Triumph and BSA marques. It's a 750cc triple.
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   Rolf
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   This is Rolf's single cylinder 400cc desmodromic Ducati which he had raced at the Isle of Man
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   Desmodromic valve action uses a cam to open the valve and another to close it - unlike nearly every other engine that uses a cam acting against a spring.
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   Rolf had a couple of DB2 Bimotas. Bimota is an Italian brand that goes in and out of business. It is noted for its fine workmanship and superb handling. This one uses a Ducati motor.
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   After a coffee and some scrumptious plum jam goodies that Maria had made, we returned to our lodgings at Wackersberg. They are run by Barbara Ostheimer and are part of a working farm.
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   The room was great and only €40 per night.
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   There was snow everywhere at the farm. Barbara was sick of it said that the snow had been around for nearly six months.
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   Mike said that when they'd left for Salzburg a couple of days ago, everything was green.
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Wednesday 12  April, 2006   The wood shed covered in snow.  I take a picture of this again in a couple of days time and the snow has gone.
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Thursday 13 April, 2006   We decided to spend the day in Bad Tölz .
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Thursday 13 April, 2006   It is a fairy tale village from a Grimms Brothers story.
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Thursday 13 April, 2006   Like most of the villages like this, motor traffic is discouraged.
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Thursday 13 April, 2006   Highly decorated buildings are a feature of some Tyrolian and Bavarian villages.
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Thursday 13 April, 2006   Natural springs were discovered at Tölz in the middle of the 19th century.  The town then began to focus on the healing properties of the natural springs and it became a spa town. In 1899 the town became known as Bad Tölz (bad = bath).
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Thursday 13 April, 2006   In 1937 an SS Officer Candidate School was established at Bad Tölz which operated until the end of World War II in 1945.  As well, a subcamp of the Dachau concentration camp was located in the town.
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Thursday 13 April, 2006   Still a lot of snow on the roof tops but it is melting quickly. Temperature is around 2-3° so it is warming up.
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Thursday 13 April, 2006   Mike took the boys to an indoor water park while Jenni and Dani altered our train tickets from Salzburg-Vienna to Munich-Vienna.
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Thursday 13 April, 2006   Jenni also wanted to confirm our air tickets; the price started at €20 each but when Jenni said to forget it, it dropped to €11 all up.
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Thursday 13 April, 2006   Being so warm, the snow melted very quickly.
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Thursday 13 April, 2006   We spent a very pleasant day in Bad Tölz as it gradually warmed up. After another big lunch, we returned to the farm.
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Friday 14 April, 2006   It's Easter Friday, the day we catch the train back to Vienna and from there get a plane to Kuala Lumpur. Mike and Dani drive us from Wackersberg through Deining to Munich.
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Friday 14 April, 2006  Friday morning at  the Gasthof and the snow had completely melted . . .
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Friday 14 April, 2006  . . . and the woodshed was visible again.
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Friday 14 April, 2006  In April 1933 the municipal council awarded the title of honorary citizen of Wackersberg to Adolf Hitler. From 1933-1945 Heiglkopf Mountain, in the background (1205m),  was known as Hitlerberg (berg = hill or mountain in German).   Until recently, some views on Google Earth still described the mountain as Hitlerberg.
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Friday 14 April, 2006  A 10-metre high black iron swastika, illuminated at night, was erected at the top of Hitlerberg in June 1933.  After the defeat of the Nazis in 1945, the citizens destroyed the swastika and restored the name to Heiglkopf.
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Friday 14 April, 2006  Barbara Ostheimer's guest house at Sauersberg 129, Wackersberg, 83646, Germany.  We intend to stay here again in our 2009 trip.
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Friday 14 April, 2006  We load the car and say our farewells. This was a really great place to stay.  I was, at the time, not aware of the area's chilling Nazi past.  Understandably, there's not a thing to draw your attention to it.
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Friday 14 April, 2006  As we drive north to Munich, we stop briefly in Deining. This is a 500 year old house made of wood and is one of the few remaining all-wood structures left in Bavaria (according to Rolf).
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Friday 14 April, 2006  Most fires started in the kitchens which quickly spread to the rest of the house.  A long time back, laws were passed that required the lower story, where the kitchen was located, to be made of brick or stone, as this house demonstrates.
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Friday 14 April, 2006  Another feature of Bavarian houses, where they use wood as a fuel, is that the wood piles are unbelievably accurate. It's as though they were cut to length using a laser. Note that the rear of this building is brick.
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Friday 14 April, 2006  Looking up the main street of Deining.  Amazingly, we're only about 20 km south of Munich and we're still in a rural area. That's a bakery on the left.
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Friday 14 April, 2006  Munich, the capital of the German state of Bavaria. We park the car, have coffee and cake and go for a walk. This is the Statue of Maximilian, Elector of Bavaria, in front of Siemens-Headquarters at Wittelsbacher Platz.
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Friday 14 April, 2006  We turn left and see the entrance to the Hofgarten and the Residenz.  Odeonplatz is to the left and two pedestrian plazas continue to the right:  Residenzstrasse and Theatinerstrasse.
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Friday 14 April, 2006  We look left up Odeonsplatz and, being Good Friday, there's very little traffic. Odeonsplatz subway entrance is to the left.
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Friday 14 April, 2006  The Residenz is the former royal palace of the Bavarian monarchs.  The Residence is the largest downtown palace in Germany and serves today as one of the finest room decoration museums in Europe.
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Friday 14 April, 2006  The Hofgarten was built in 1613-1617 by Maximilian I, Elector of Bavaria, as an Italian style Renaissance garden. The garden was destroyed during World War II, and was partly rebuilt as an English landscape garden.
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Friday 14 April, 2006  We walk a short distance down Theatinerstrasse and see the towers of the Catholic Theatiner Church St. Cajetan (Theatinerkirche St. Kajetan). The church was built from 1663 to 1690.
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Friday 14 April, 2006  It was constructed by Elector Ferdinand Maria and his wife as a gesture of thanks for the birth of the long-awaited heir to the Bavarian crown, Prince Max Emanuel, in 1662.
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Friday 14 April, 2006  Residenzstrasse goes to the left and Theatinerstrasse goes to the right. In front of us is the Feldherrnhalle and to the left is the Palais Preysing which served as residence for the Counts of Preysing
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Friday 14 April, 2006  On 9 November 1923, the Feldherrnhalle was the scene of a confrontation between the Bavarian State Police and a march by the followers of Adolf Hitler. When ordered to stop the marchers continued and the Police opened fire.
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Friday 14 April, 2006  Sixteen marchers were killed and a number was wounded, including Hermann Göring. As a result, Hitler was arrested and sentenced to a prison term. This was commonly referred to as the Beer Hall Putsch.
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Friday 14 April, 2006  Once in power, Hitler ordered that everyone walking by the Feldherrnhalle had to give the Nazi salute as a tribute to the Nazi sympathisers who had been killed at that spot in 1923. Alternative routes were usually found.  And, today is Mike's 50th birthday.
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Friday 14 April, 2006  We walk down Residenzstrasse. Many of these buildings were destroyed during WWII and a keen eye can detect where restoration has been carried out.
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Friday 14 April, 2006  Bavarian State Opera on Max-Joseph-Platz. It has been in existence since 1653 and its orchestra is the Bavarian State Orchestra.
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Friday 14 April, 2006  This is Maximilianstrasse, where Dani used to live with her grandmother. The Landtag of Bavaria is visible at the top of the picture. This is the unicameral (no upper house) legislature  of the state of Bavaria.
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Friday 14 April, 2006  Posing with a lion outside a beer hall - for which Munich is famous.
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Friday 14 April, 2006  Munich, like most West European countries, has excellent public transport. It's almost non-existent in America and highly dysfunctional in Sydney.
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Friday 14 April, 2006  The Frauenkirche, Cathedral of Our Blessed Lady,  is the largest church in Munich.  its towers can be seen from all directions. It will remain so because the City of Munich prohibits the building of any structure over 100 meters.
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Friday 14 April, 2006  Right behind the town hall is this monument to soccer (which the Europeans refer to as football).
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Friday 14 April, 2006  The spire of St. Peter Catholic Church.  The church is the oldest in the inner city of Munich.
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Friday 14 April, 2006  The New Town Hall (Neues Rathaus) dominates Marienplatz.  It hosts the city government including the city council, offices of the mayors and part of the administration. Virgin Mary atop the Mariensäule is visible at the back of the square.
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Friday 14 April, 2006  It was built between 1867 and 1909 by Georg von Hauberrisser in a Gothic Revival architecture style. It covers an area of 9159 m²  and has 400 rooms.
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Friday 14 April, 2006  It's positively ugly. This building also suffered severe damage during WWII and the repairs are easily spotted.
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Friday 14 April, 2006  Munich has great memories for Dani and it is one of her most favourite places in the whole world.
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Friday 14 April, 2006  Marienplatz looking to the East.  It seems strange that nowadays Germans pedal Asian tourists around in rickshaws.
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Friday 14 April, 2006  Marienplatz (Mary's Square) is a central square established in 1158. Marienplatz was named after the Mariensäule, a Marian column erected in its centre in 1638 to celebrate the end of Swedish occupation.
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Friday 14 April, 2006  The south tower of the Frauenkirche (on the left) can be ascended and offers a panoramic view of the city and the Alps.
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Friday 14 April, 2006  We walk through the arch at the eastern end of Marienplatz.
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Friday 14 April, 2006  Marienplatz becomes a road open to vehicular traffic. When Dean looked at this picture he said that, when he lived in Munich, he lived in the orange building at the bottom left.
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Friday 14 April, 2006  Dani and Mike drove us to Munich Station to catch the 3PM train to Vienna. From Vienna Station, we caught a cab to the airport and stayed overnight in a hotel there.        The next day, we caught a flight that took us to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia .
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Malaysia April 16 to April 19Next: Malaysia April 16 to April 19 Austria April 8 to April 11Previous: Austria April 8 to April 11
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