"Discovering The Hidden Treasures Of... " a Munich Travel Page by Krystynn

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<p align=center><font color=#330000><font size=2><font size=5>M</font>y friends tell me <b>MUNICH</b> is beautiful, don't miss exploring this city. I now know why. ;-)

Munich is Germany's third largest city (after Berlin and Hamburg) with 1.3 million inhabitants. It's the capital of the state of Bavaria.

Home of the world-famous <b>Oktoberfest</b>... (hm, <i>maybe I should hang around this city for another couple of months till Oktoberfest huh?</i> Er... but then again, I do have a job to return to in Singapore... Duh!), the Hofbrauhaus and beergarden-experience, Munich has also become one of the most modern and prosperous cities in post-war Germany. This is also the home of leading high-tech industries like <b>BMW</b> and <b>Siemens</b>, amongst other famous German corporations.

I'll write more after my return this summer (2001), O.K.?

Come back soon!

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<p align=center><img src=http://www.virtualtourist.com/p/.41281/a-63-31-8980.gif>

<p align=left><b><U>GERMANY FACTFILE:</u></b>
<ul><font size=2>
<li> Full country name: Federal Republic of Germany</li>
<li> Area: 357,000 sq km</li>
<li> Population: 82 million </li>
<li> Capital: Berlin (pop: 3.5 million)</li>
<li> People: Predominantly white European, with significant Turkish minority. Germany has absorbed most of the refugees from the former Yugoslavia.</li>
<li> Language: German</li>
<li> Religion: 90% Christian. There are a couple of million Muslims and about 30,000 Jews (the pre-Holocaust figure was over half a million).</li>
<li> Government: Federal Republic</li>
<li> Monetary Unit: 1 Deutsche Mark = 100 Pfennig; Euro </li>
<li> Main Exports: Motor Vehicles, Electrical Machinery, Metals</li>
<li> Internet Domain: .de</li>
<li> International dialling code: +49</li>
<li> Visas: EU citizens can enter on an official identity card. Americans, Australians, Singapore, Canadians, New Zealanders and Japanese just need a valid passport (read: NO visa needed. Hooray!). Unless you're a citizen of a developing country, you can probably stay up to three months.</li>
<li> Health risks: The cost of medical care :-)</li>
<li> Time: GMT/UTC + 1hour (2 hours ahead in summer)</li>
<li> Electricity: 220V, 50 Hz</li>
<li> Weights & Measures: Metric </li>
<li> Tourism: 17 million visitors annually </li>
</ul>
<p align=center><I>Above info courtesy of: The German Tourism Board.</i></font>

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<center><b><font size=2><u>For your pre-trip planning, you can't beat these excellent sites:</u></b></font>

<img src=http://www.sueddeutsche.de/pics/Pics_nav_rechts/pic_zeit.jpg>

<b><u>GERMANY's Press:</u></b>

<a href="http://www.faz.com"target=newwindow>Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (in English!)</a>
<a href="http://www.sueddeutsche.de/"target=newwindow>Sueddeutsche Zeitung</a>
<a href="http://www.welt.de/"target=newwindow>Die Welt</a>
<a href="http://www.spiegel.de/"target=newwindow>Der Spiegel</a>
<a href="http://www.dpa.de/en/unternehmenswelt/index.html"target=newwindow>DPA</a>

<b><u>GERMANY's Television:</u></b>

<a href="http://www.ard.de/"target=newwindow>ARD</a>
<a href="http://www.zdf.de"target=newwindow>ZDF</a>
<a href="http://www.n-tv.de/"target=newwindow>N-TV</a>
<a href="http://www.n24.de/"target=newwindow>N24</a>
<a href="http://www.rtl.de/news.html"target=newwindow>RTL</a>

<b><u>GERMANY's Radio:</u></b>

<a href="http://www.ard.de/radio/programme/index.html"target=newwindow>ARD</a>
<a href="http://www.dwelle.de/"target=newwindow>Deutsche Welle</a>
<a href="http://www.dradio.de/"target=newwindow>Deutschland Radio</a>
<a href="http://www.zdf.msnbc.de/news/default.asp"target=newwindow>ZDF-MSNBC</a></font></center>

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<p align=center><img src=http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1050000/images/_1053880_germany_cp_300.jpg>

<p align=center><b><u>TIMELINE GERMANY: Here's a brief chronology of key events:</b></u>
<p align=left><font size=2>
<ul>
<li> 1914-1918 - World War I.</li>
<li> 1918 - Germany defeated, signs armistice.</li>
<li> 1919 - Treaty of Versailles: Germany loses colonies and land to neighbours, pays reparations.</li>
<li> 1923 - Adolf Hitler leads abortive coup in Munich beer hall.
Hyperinflation leads to economic collapse.</li>
<li> 1924 - Hitler writes Mein Kampf in prison.</li>
<li> 1929 - Global depression, mass unemployment.</li>

<b>Third Reich</b>

<li> 1933 - Hitler becomes chancellor. Creates one party state.</li>
<li> 1935 - Germany begins rearmament. Nuremberg Laws deprive German Jews of citizenship.</li>
<li> 1936 - Berlin Olympics.</li>
<li> 1938 - Annexation of Austria and Sudetenland.</li>
Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass): Attacks on Jews, Jewish-properties and synagogues.</li>
<li> 1939-1945 - Invasion of Poland triggers World War II.</li>
<li> 1945 - German army defeated. Allies divide Germany into occupation zones.</li>
<li> 1945-1946 - Nuremberg war crimes trials.</li>

<b>Divided Country</b>

<li> 1949 - Germany divided into west and east. US, French, and British zones become Federal Republic of Germany; Soviet zone in East Germany becomes communist German Democratic Republic.
Konrad Adenauer, of the Christian Democrats (CDU) is West Germany's first chancellor. East Germany is led by Walter Ulbricht.</li>
<li> 1950s - Start of rapid economic growth in West Germany.</li>
<li> 1955 - West Germany joins Nato; East Germany joins Warsaw Pact.</li>
<li> 1957 - West joins European Economic Community.</li>
<li> 1961 - Construction of Berlin Wall.</li>
<li> 1968 - East German constitution declares unification impossible until West becames socialist.</li>
<li> 1969 - Social Democrat (SPD) Willy Brandt becomes chancellor and seeks better ties with USSR and East Germany.</li>
<li> 1971 - Walter Ulbricht succeeded in East by Erich Honecker.</li>
<li> 1973 - East and West Germany join UN.</li>
<li> 1974 - Brandt resigns after spy revelations surrounding one of his aides. New Chancellor Helmut Schmidt continues Brandt's "Ostpolitik" (eastern policies).</li>

<b>Wall Tumbles...</b>

<li> 1982 - Christian Democrat Helmut Kohl becomes chancellor.</li>
<li> 1987 - East German leader Erich Honecker pays first official visit to West.</li>
<li> 1989 - Mass exodus of East Germans as Soviet-bloc countries relax travel restrictions.</li>

<b>Berlin Wall torn down....</b>

<li> 1990 - Kohl leads reunified Germany.</li>
<li> 1991 - Parliament names Berlin the new capital.</li>
<li> 1992 - Erich Honecker brought back to Berlin from Moscow to face political charges.</li>
<li> 1993 - Germany joins Maastricht Treaty on European Union.</li>
<li> 1994 - Honecker dies. Kohl re-elected.
- Constitutional court rules that German troops can participate in UN peacekeeping operations outside Nato.
- Russian and Allied troops finally leave Berlin.</li>
<li> 1996 - Austerity measures spark labour dispute amid rising unemployment.</li>
<li> 1998 - General election victory for SPD leader Gerhard Schroeder leads to "Red-Green coalition" with the Green Party.
Kohl replaced as CDU leader by Wolfgang Schaeuble.</li>
<li> 1999 - Introduction of euro currency.</li>
Government and industry announce compensation fund for former slave workers under Nazis.</li>
<li> 2000 January - CDU party funding scandal. Kohl resigns as honorary party chairman after he admits illegally accepting thousands of dollars in party contributions.</li>
<li> 2000 February - CDU leader Schaeuble resigns over his handling of the scandal.</li>
<li> 2000 April - Angela Merkel takes over as new CDU leader.</li>
<li> 2000 October - Government seeks legal moves to ban far-right National Democratic Party.</li>

<i>Expo 2000 World Fair in Hanover closes after five months with huge debts....</i>

<li> 2001 February - Official figures show that racist attacks increased by 40% in the year 2000. Germany's interior minister calls the statistics 'worrying'.</li>
<li> 2001 March - The European Court of Human Rights rules that three former East German communist leaders should serve jail terms for sanctioning a policy of shooting would-be escapees at the Berlin Wall. The Court said that the men - among them the last East German leader Egon Krenz - had violated international human rights law. </li>
</ul>
<p align=center><i>Above info courtesy of: <u>http://news.bbc.co.uk</u> website. </i></font>