Thanks @bigallan. We’re staying out that way so will check it out.
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No not yet. I did Mauthausen in Austria many years ago. So might bypass Dachau this time as there’s so much to see and never enough time.
Thanks for the suggestions Baker. I am trying to book a tour to the Neuschwanstein Castle and tried Get your Guide yesterday but they’re booked out until mid next week. I am going to try a tour agency today to see if we can get in anywhere? If not too expensive.
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Have you thought of a tour to one of the Lakes?
I travelled to Munich by train and vaguely recall stopping at one of the Lakes, which was spectacular.
I found Dachau horrific, and cannot imagine why anyone would make a return visit.
It’s an interesting conundrum…I first visited Mathausen and Dachau as a 22/23 yo and was quite fascinated by both (being a bit of a WW2 history buff) whilst recognising the horror of it all.
I was back in Europe as a 27yo and took my GF to Dachau…still found it interesting.
Last time in Europe as a 56yo and I went to Auschwitz…all was going going ok until I walked into a room where, behind a wall of glass, was a huge pile of human hair.
I turned around and walked out…and will never go back to such a place again.
I’ve pondered on my reaction ever since…was it an age thing, was it just one visit too many to such a site?
I do think that every living person should go and see such sites to understand the evil that we are capable of.
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I guess it is more a thing about accumulated knowledge, and the more you learn about these horrors from WW2 the more you feel sick in the guts about it.
We did a river cruise in Europe a few years ago, and in Austria many of the “highlights” involved guided visits to Hitler-famous places.
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Not in my case…I had read extensively on WW2 and The Holocaust and so I didn’t learn anything new at Auschwitz…but for some reason, the hair display was “the straw that broke the camel’s back”
I’d seen the shoes, the suitcases, the gas chambers, the crematoriums…maybe it was that for all the horror, they were inanimate objects…but the hair…the hair really represented people…I don’t know…I just know that the impact on me, at the time, was huge.
On a train in Tokyo, watching the world go by.
Also autumn > spring
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Museums on an island on the Iser.
There’s a technical inventions museum that’s very interesting.
Not far from Dachau, of course.
On the river trip, we went to Terezin which is about 40 km from Prague. It was a place where Nazi accumulated Jewish Children and horrific things happened. Now it is a neat Town with a wall all around it. But if you walk in the streets, the feeling of dread weighs heavily. It is not far from Auschwitz, which is another disgraceful part of the worlds hisotry.
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You never know what aspect of these horrors is going to affect you, as long as something does I guess.
Strangely for me, apart from the more obvious personal effects, it was the Auschwitz administration buildings which remain. They were nothing out of the ordinary whatsoever but what hit me was how like the school buildings that I had spent so many of my formative years in they were. How recently these events had occurred became very real to me.
The small number of photos of the earliest prisoners they had on the walls was also very powerful. They were all clear, well composed, good quality portraits. Something so ‘normal’. Apart from the blank expressions on their faces, they could have been classmates. To look into those faces made it personal. They became individuals, not 1 of 6 million. An important message.
As confronting as these places are, I would recommend, almost, anyone to visit if the opportunity arises.
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Saw an ad for Mediterranean cruises on SBS.
In full view were Venice and Barcelona in particular.
Good luck with taking cruises there. I expect massive reductions on tour groups over the coming years.
Spain. Tourists are not welcome.
82M visitors per year, plus it also applies to domestic holiday makers. This could get very messy.
- AIRBNB has told property owners in Spain they must register with the Minister of Interior at the Spanish Government and collect this data and send it themselves.
- I envisage reams of this data will be sent to the Spanish Government on a daily basis. How do they propose to manage this, and chase up those who have said the ‘place was unoccupied over that period’?
- The Spanish government justified this new regulations as they were concerned about organised crime and terrorism and “simply want to know… who’s coming and going, where they are staying and what cars they are renting”. FMD.
Spain hotel check-in delay fears as new data rules begin
1 Dec 2024
Alex Kleiderman
BBC News
Getty Images
Visitors to Spain will face more paperwork from Monday when a new law requiring hotel owners and car hire firms to send personal information about their customers to the government comes into effect.
The rules, which also apply to rental properties and campsites, are being brought in for national security reasons, but tourism experts have raised privacy concerns and warned it could lead to delays at check-in desks.
The data required will include passport details, home addresses and methods of payment for those over the age of 14. It will be submitted to the Ministry of the Interior.
The Confederation of Spanish Hoteliers and Tourist Accommodation (CEHAT) said it was concerned at the impact on its members’ businesses and was considering legal action to challenge the rules.
Spain is the second most-popular destination for tourists in Europe, with more than 82m visitors in 2023, led by 17m from the UK.
The start date of the new rules - officially known as Royal Decree 933/2021 - was pushed back from 1 October to 2 December, to give the industry more time to prepare.
Both tourists and Spanish residents will be required to provide information, which will also include phone numbers, email addresses and the number of travellers.
Businesses will need to be registered with the Ministry of the Interior, report the data collected daily and keep a digital record of the information for three years and face fines of between €100 and €30,000 (£80-£25,000) for breaches.
Meanwhile, Airbnb has told property owners renting out accommodation through its website they will need to be registered with the Spanish government and collect data from their customers.
In a statement, the Ministry of the Interior said the regulations were “justified for the general interest for the security of citizens against the threat of terrorism and other serious offences committed by criminal organisations”.
But the hotel industry body CEHAT said the the change “puts the viability of the sector in serious danger”.
It said both tourists and Spanish citizens will have to deal with “complex and tedious administrative procedures, compromising their accommodation experience”.
It added hoteliers were being are forced to comply with “confusing and disproportionate regulations” that go against other European directives related to data protection and payment systems.
Travel journalist Simon Calder told the BBC the Spanish government was concerned about organised crime and terrorism and “simply want to know… who’s coming and going, where they are staying and what cars they are renting”.
It is expected that many accommodation and car hire providers will automate the collection of data through online registration.
Mr Calder envisaged there would be “quite a lot of standing around at reception” when the rules kick in but said it was “very low season” at the moment and that would give businesses a chance to get used to the system.
Gibraltar-based Penelope Bielckus, travel content creator at The Flyaway Girl blog, said the new rules “add another layer of paperwork that can feel like a chore when all you want is to relax on holiday”.
And she agreed they “might slow things down a bit, especially at check-in, since there’s now more paperwork to handle”.
But she said while Spain’s level of data collection “does feel stricter” than elsewhere, that hotels and car hire companies already collect much of the information required from travellers.
“We’re still waiting to see how this will affect things like last-minute hotel bookings or car hire,” she added. “Hopefully, it won’t cause any major problems, but it’s definitely something to keep an eye on in case of any changes.”
Not sure I understand the change. Every time I have been to Spain, had to provide all that info for hotels and car rental. In Barcelona, before we could enter Casino, they took a copy of our passport.
Ditto. Presumably they actually have to do something with that data now.
Can anyone recommend a taxi / uber / limo service from Tullamarine to the south east?
Bit of a long shot …
Anyone exchanged currency at LAX?
We have a couple of days in LA on the way to Belize & Guatemala. I would prefer to arrive with a starter pack of Belizian Dollars and Guatemalan Quetzals if possible (esp. Quetzals as we have a land border crossing). But it is impossible to get these currencies in Australia.
Anyone know if it is an option for us to change USD for Belizian Dollars & Guatemalan Quetzals at LAX? Or is the rate likely to be horrendous (obv we would be wearing a double hit on the rate so would keep the amount small)? We are flying Alaskan if terminal makes a difference.