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Switzerland, Austria, and Germany Day Nine - 11/13/26


It is hard to believe that today is our last full day before heading back to the States. We bid Auf Wiedersehen to Innsbruck and headed to Munich, the last stop on our tour.  While on the drive, Fr. Kevin gave the group a comprehensive background on the events leading up to World War II, and specifically the history on the Dachau Concentration Camp, which was our first stop of the day. Now a memorial site and museum, a portion of the Dachau Camp has been preserved thanks to the efforts of survivors. 

The camp was set up on March 22, 1933 as a concentration camp for political


prisoners and served as a model for all later concentration camps. In the twelve years of its existence over 200,000 people were imprisoned at Dachau and in the numerous subsidiary camps, and 41,500 were murdered before the liberation of prisoners by American troops in 1945. Our morning spent at Dachau guided by Fr. Kevin is likely not one that will leave us anytime soon and reinforced the importance of learning from the past so as not to have it repeated. 


We departed Dachau in the early afternoon to head to Munich.  We made a pit stop (pun intended) at the worldwide headquarters of BMW to meet up with our local guide, Johann.  We started out with a driving tour through the city of Munich, learning about the history of the city with stops at the major sites, including the site of the Munich Olympic Stadium (site of the 1972 Summer Games), Königsplatz (King's Square), Nymphenburg Palace (the main summer residence of the former rulers of Bavaria), and the Alte Pinakothek, one of the oldest galleries in the world which houses a significant collection of Old Master paintings.

We completed our driving tour and hopped off the bus with Johann for a walking orientation tour of downtown Munich, after which we made our way to our hotel to check in for our last night. After dropping our bags off and freshening up, the group met in the lobby for a goodbye toast with our tour manager Martin who treated us to a taste of his homemade sour cherry cordial.  It was delicious!  After that, the majority of the group sat down for dinner in the hotel restaurant. It was a wonderful opportunity to spend one last night together as a group and reminisce about our trip.

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